Lee A.P.: A massive demonic conspiracy is at work involving virtually every scientific discipline, to make people think life came from a common ancestor so that man will reject Jesus.

Eh, whatever gets the job done.

Your beloved YEC is a form of mental retardation compared to the real science. Keep rolling around in your own shit with the rest of your kind and let the grown ups do their jobs. Ok?

Will you just let us Satanists do our job? Your book of revelations predicts all of this anyway correct? Why fight it? Just let the overwhelming satanic mega-conspiracy proceed. I mean, people may think me harsh and rude but this is what these fools think. A massive demonic conspiracy is at work involving virtually every scientific discipline, to make people think life came from a common ancestor so that man will reject Jesus.

In my article, I quote the pro-Darwin scientist, Dr. Andrew M. Simons (among others)…

“A persistent debate in evolutionary biology is one over the continuity of microevolution and macroevolution — whether macroevolutionary trends are governed by the principles of microevolution.”

Dr. Simons, to his credit, is honest and informed about the problem. I’ll be polite, Lee, and say you are merely misinformed.

The evidence for an ancient Earth is gargantuan. If you believe in a young earth you are either ignorant or retarded.

“I don’t know whether Josh is ignorant of the difference between ‘macroevolution’ and ‘microevolution’ or if he is deliberately trying to confuse his grandma. But either way, he’s already lost a ton of credibility just 4 pages into the document.

http://mustardseednovel.blogspot.com/2009/10/why-debate-over-darwinism-matters-part_22.html

I haven’t particularly seen Craig deal with the historicity issue – but he is not an historical critic either.

The question with historical criticism – from my perspective – is whether you entire the process with a presupposition against supernaturalism or not. Obviously, Craig wouldn’t.

I would certainly think Craig would have access to, and understand, this kind of analysis: “The Historical Veracity of the Resurrection Narratives”

The whole point of historiography is that documents have to be analyzed to determine those portions that have greater likelihood of historicity than others (based on the criteria of multiple attestation, discontinuity, etc.). Craig does the same thing the Jesus seminar does in that respect (giving different parts of the gospels different “colors” based on the likelihood of their historicity), except that he cites the majority of scholarship in support of the four facts, while the Jesus seminar is in a fringe minority.

No, that link works. But ya gotta have Adobe Reader.

“BTW, Craig gets spanked in print.”

Nope, he dominates his print debates as well. See:

Craig stacks his debates – he avoids taking part in debate topics that question the actual historicity of the gospels, which of course, present the most fatal problems for his arguments. He basically gets his “four incontrovertible facts” for free.

If you think about it.. how else are you going to challenge the resurrection if not by going after the gospel’s historicity? The resurrection itself is part of the gospels..

Nope, he dominates his print debates as well. See:

http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Resurrection-Figment-Between-Ludemann/dp/0830815694/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1256256954&sr=1-2

BTW, Craig gets spanked in print.

Well, that’s clearly where we disagree. The overwhelming preponderance of the evidence supports belief, which is why William Lane Craig regularly spanks his debate opponents. If his opponents’ case was “overwhelming” then no amount of debate skill would enable him to prevail so consistently.

I started out a Christian predisposed to believing in strange things. It was an overwhelming preponderance of evidence that lead me to non-belief. So quite the opposite — an open mind made me change all that I once thought true — all that I desperatley wanted to be true.

No, it serves to clear away the baggage but in the end it requires an existential commitment. But it sounds like you are equally opposed to both the evidential approach (since it offends you that a believer might try to “prove” his faith) and the existential approach (since that is too “spooky”). It appears your mind is totally closed.

No, I don’t believe that theistic arguments “destroy” nonbelief. I actually agree with John (and with Plantinga)–there is no “proving” theism or atheism. I think theism is the best explanation of the evidence, but that’s not the primary basis of my belief. As Craig says, there is a difference between how you “know your faith is true” and how you “show your faith is true.” Apologetics is only “pre-evangelism”; it can cause an atheist to rethink his assumptions but only the Holy Spirit can lead him to actual, existential belief and commitment.

I assure you my sentiments are serious and can be read 100% straight.

Lee

I think I might love you. You are a decent human in my eyes. I hope I am not wrong.

Love, your athiest damned friend,

Lee

Thanks. The one thing I have to avoid as an apologist is falling into the trap of thinking the existence of God can be proven intellectually.

Assuming I continue to wander through here, you have permission to beat me if I do. :-)

John

It wasn’t you.

It was ayer who comes along in each post and basically says “Craig said this and Plantinga said this and when they did they destroyed the non-belief position”. HA!

If you are talking about my quote of Plantinga (I do not see that Ayer quoted him) – it was just a funny little bit he did on the use of the word “fundamentalist”.

I do not think you bothered reading it – only someone with admin clearance went there from here.

Plantinga, BTW, also does not believe God’s existence can be proven, or disproven, by human argument or logic.

I fixed it. Thanks.

Its ok. Those images were funny anyway.

Hey don’t you know Bill Craig and Plantinga have proven Christian theism? The jig is up man! Ayer defeated us dumb ole atheists.

No, it’s not a red herring, it is the classic use of the tu quoque argument, e.g.:

” A makes criticism P.
A is also guilty of P.
Therefore, the criticism is confusing because it does not reflect A’s actual values or beliefs. ”

Well, I was going to link to Wikipedia and mention that “tu quoque” is generally considered a logical fallacy, but then I realized you copied and pasted your argument structure straight from there. I think it’s common courtesy to give credit where it’s due, but no matter.

The way you are forming your argument, I don’t think it falls under this form of the “legitimate tu quoque” argument. You are essentially saying (if I understand correctly), “You say theism has a problem of evil, but atheism can’t even account for good and evil. Therefore, you’ve got an even bigger problem.” First off, if an atheist at least believes that he/she can account for good and evil, they will reject your second premise.

Secondly, your argument is essentially akin to, “You criticize my solution, but you’ve got no better one. So you have nothing to add to the debate.” Even if it were true that Person B has no better solution to a problem, that does not stop them from pointing out flaws in Person A’s solution. If theism has a coherent definition of good and evil, then we can use those definitions to demonstrate the problem of evil within theism, even if, under atheism, there is no coherent definition. The lack of good and evil under atheism may well be a real problem (although I don’t think it is), but that is not at issue. The fact that you bring it up, then, makes it a red herring. It’s an attempt to deflect the debate from the problem of evil within the theistic framework.

I think you had it right the first time. On atheism, “s**t happens.” That about sums it up.