A couple of days ago, I posted an excerpt from a philosopher who performed an "the emperor has no clothes" analysis on the arguments presented by atheists in debates with theists. Robert Hutchison wrote:
Recently, I’ve begun to systematically record all of the debates on the Existence of God that I can lay my hands on and listen to them at my leisure, usually while driving.
In the process, I made a shocking discovery. It turns out that the atheists are really, really good at insults but are actually quite poor debaters. The atheists insult Christianity, Judaism and religion generally with a nastiness that is almost breathtaking. They belittle. They demean. They insinuate. But the one thing they don’t do is offer intelligent arguments that disprove the existence of God.
In fact, they don’t actually reason at all.
By chance, I happened to listen to this William Lane Craig v. Mike Begon debate on "Is God a Delusion?" Begon's performance is like a case study in what Hutchinson wrote about.
Begon starts his presentation by defining a "delusion" as a belief for which their is either no evidence or which is not "axiomatic." While he spends a lot of time discussing what he means by an "axiom," he never defines what he means by evidence. He argues that the belief that potatoes on the moon are blue is "delusional" because there is "no evidence" that there are potatoes on the moon. He spends the entire 20 minutes of his initial speech without ever providing an argument tending to show that the belief in God is false, as opposed to unsupported by "evidence," whatever that means.
Well, this is lame. As Craig points out, delusions are false beliefs. In addition, we would hold that a belief that potatoes on the moon are blue is delusional because we have evidence that there are no potatoes on the moon.
After Craig presents arguments based on Aristotelian reasoning from premises - based on the current state of scientific knowledge - to conclusions, Began concedes Craig's premises, but then calls the conclusions "assertions," thereby demonstrating that he doesn't understand the fundamentals of logic.
Began also clearly doesn't understand the basic Aristotelian argument concerning the first cause because he ignores the problem of infinite regress by asserting that God needs a creator. (More importantly, he ignores Craig's actual argument.)
As Craig points out, by conceding his premises Began is conceding that the universe had a creator and a designer, but Began never offers any kind of explanation as to who/what this creator/designer might be if not God. Began never attempted to explain this incoherence on his part.
Began never addresses the self-refuting nature of his fundamental claim, i.e., since his view that any belief which is not supported by evidence or axiomatic is delusional is itself not supported by evidence or axiomatic, then his belief is delusional. In fact, the first question to Began - asking him if he is delusional for believing that his children is delusional since Began hasn't had them genetically tested - underscores the problem in Began's position, and the ambiguity of the term "evidence."
Began's final speech is devoted to a series of assertions about the dangers of non-evidential thinking and how the world is at risk because of non-evidential thinking. Began offers nothing but assertions, no evidence for his position, and simply attempts to "poison the well" by linking Craig's position to Islamofascism terrorism.
At no time does Began acknowledge that Craig offered scientific evidence to support his cosmological and design arguments.
Listen to the debate and tell me what you think.
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