The world appears a bit weird when Man Utd lose 6-1 at home to Man City. Wonderful (says the Scouser who is worried that two Manchester clubs now rule the Premiership).
But, more interesting is the response by atheist academic philosopher Daniel Came to the refusal by New Atheist academic biologist Richard Dawkins to debate with William Lane Craig. Dawkins gave his reasons in the Guardian here – and then got a response from Came. (Paul Vallely has also contributed in yesterday’s Independent.)
Not surprisingly, I am with Came on this. The New Atheists give atheism a bad name by substituting assertion for argument. Watch this space – the debate between Dawkins and Came might be even more interesting than debates between the theists and the New Atheists.
October 24, 2011 at 10:59 am
Yes, as a City fan, the world has gone mad!
To be fair, Dawkins has debated WLC already as part of a panel – and the reason it seems he (Dawkins) wrote his Guardian piece is most likely through his exasperation with WLC who has been actively pursuing him for months – abetted by people like Came.
Dawkins is surely free to debate with whoever he wishes and his list of ‘adversaries’ (including WLC!) is notable. He has said he won’t debate WLC again so Craig should realise this, move on and stop adding fuel to his self-publicity (e.g. the empty chair stunt).
Far from giving atheism a bad name – it gives Christians a worse one.
October 24, 2011 at 3:13 pm
I don’t know whether or not Daniel Came is planning to debate with WLC, but it would be interesting to read what he thought afterwards.
K
October 24, 2011 at 4:25 pm
Vociferous attacks on Craig by several atheists, who confess not to have heard him or read his freely available works (on reasonablefaith.org and youtube), with hundreds of ‘recommended’s’. Such is fearless “rationalism”.
The Guardian is clearly the Atheists’ Paper of Choice.
Craig’s lectures in England can be seen for free on his website.
On the whole, Church of England theological education has been long on sociology and end-of-life pastoral care, and weak on apologetics and thin on philosophy. Is there a reason why so few undergraduates in UK universities get excited by official Anglican chaplaincies?
October 25, 2011 at 9:45 pm
Well, brilliant apologist for the Christian faith and analytic philosopher Craig may be but when it comes to advice on marriage …… “Wives: You {sic} need to realize what your husband’s #1 need in marriage is {sic}, what he wants most from you: sex! {sick?} Yes, frequent, enthusiastic sex! {sick, sick}. If you do this, you will have a happy hubby, indeed. {Yuk. Yuk. Yuk. }” [http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=7344] Erm … excuse me but did approximately one hundred and fifty years of women’s emancipation just go unnoticed? And it gets worse. “Both of you: Perhaps the greatest enemy of a successful marriage is ‘growing separateness.’” [So far, so good. However …] “That is to say, eventually you begin to lead two separate lives … This is especially dangerous if the wife has a career independent of her husband …. Although it is politically incorrect, I’d therefore encourage your wife not to pursue an independent career but to be a homemaker or to be partnered with you in a common cause.” That’s a pretty big “although”. How many other politically incorrect notions is he prepared to countenance for the sake of men’s basic needs and instincts?
What’s the Frank Sinatra lyric? “Don’t stand him up, with your hair still in curlers, you may not see him again.” If WLC was my husband I reckon I’d be slapping those curlers in pretty darned quick.
October 26, 2011 at 10:09 am
Oh dearsoeur, why am I reminded of that famous exchange between Churchill and Nancy Astor?
Men’s and women’s libido certainly don’t run in tandem, and most women over 35 would prefer a hot bath and chocolate to sex. But what kind of marriage is that? 1 Cor 7.3-5 are radical words, to be sure.
As for {sick, sick}, isn’t there something in 1984 about the Junior Anti-Sex League?
October 26, 2011 at 12:56 pm
Oh Kieran! I think if you read again you will see that it was the tenor of Craig’s injunction that I was objecting to, the patronising assumptions being made about what a woman’s priorities should rightly be, which brought to mind the Frank Sinatra song which I can now quote more fully and accurately:
“Hey, little girl, comb your hair, fix your make-up, soon he’ll be there at your door,
Dont think because there’s a ring on your finger, you needn’t try any more.
For wives should always be lovers too,
Run to his arms the moment that he comes home to you.
I’m warning you,
Day after day, there are girls at the office and men will always be men,
Don’t send him off, with your hair still in curlers, you may not see him again.
Wives should always be lovers too,
Run to his arms the moment he comes home to you.
He’s almost here,
hey, little girl, better wear something pretty …” etc etc but you can find it on line.
Knocks 1 Corinthians 7 into a cocked hat I think you’ll agree.
Oh and “most women over 35 would prefer a hot bath and chocolate to sex” … do you have a citation for that or did you just make it up? But I’m very flattered that you refer me to the *Junior* Anti-Sex League. Thank you. You made my day!
October 26, 2011 at 1:55 pm
yokwerx comment ” Far from giving atheism a bad name – it gives Christians a worse one ” is good. It reminds me a little of the infamous (Life of Brian)debate, 2 Pythons vs. Malcolm Muggeridge & the then Bishop of Southwark which had exactly the same effect.
This particular atheist has indeed read Craig’s website and watched his videos. I wonder if our Bishop has done so, and if so why he, a moderate Anglican, should indirectly support the attitudes & beliefs of this appalling man.
October 26, 2011 at 8:12 pm
dearsoeur: I’ve met WLC and I think he has more in common with Francis of Assisi than Frank of Hoboken.
“But I’m very flattered that you refer me to the *Junior* Anti-Sex League. Thank you. You made my day!”
The book does date from 1948, you know. I imagined the JASL had an Old Girls’ Association.
October 26, 2011 at 8:22 pm
Kieran writes: “This particular atheist has indeed read Craig’s website and watched his videos”
I am glad to read this. You are at least better informed than those bigoted readers of The Guardian who condemn him unread.
I wonder if you think you can refute Craig’s beliefs. You call him “appalling” aparently without realising that an atheist has no objective foundation for his moral beliefs. This is all spelled out lucidly in chapter 6 of Craig’s latest book ‘On Guard’ (‘Can we be good without God?’), a primer in philosophical apologetics. Absent the God of Christian theism, your moral beliefs have no foundation beyond your upbringing and subjective choice.
Read Craig and show he is wrong on this if you can. (His arguments here, as he freely states, are not original; rather he draws together what C. S. Lewis, William Sporley and Elizabeth Anscombe have all said much earlier.)
October 26, 2011 at 8:33 pm
To continue: ‘dearsoeur: I’ve met WLC and I think he has more in common with Francis of Assisi than Frank of Hoboken.’
Which is to say: Sinatra was exculpating men for workplace adultery (a personal fondness of his), at a time when increasing numbers of American women were entering the workforce. I don’t think Craig has said anything as cynical. Besides, he’s a Scottish American from Missouri, not an Italian American from New Jersey.
The world of 1 Cor 7 – and the city of Corinth – had a permissive sexual climate that would have knocked 1950s America into a cocked Homburg.
I think the Apostle had the mind of Christ.
October 26, 2011 at 8:52 pm
Was so glad I chose, a walk in the Dales rather than Sky in the Fleece. Had no Mobile signal for 4 hours, so no footie updates from my son either. It is only October lets not get carried away on turning points…,
Oh I found the reports on Dawkins no show interesting too.
October 27, 2011 at 11:54 am
Meanwhile, Nick, the euro lurches from one crises to another, the Government refuses the people a vote on our future, the turmoil goes on in London and Giles Fraser has resigned from St Paul’s. This is the institutional church in the eye of the world. What do you think of this business?
October 27, 2011 at 6:59 pm
Kieran, I think you’ll find that the euro lurch has not been caused by the referendum refusal and neither have been caused by Giles Fraser.
October 28, 2011 at 8:18 am
Oh, I dunno – butterflies in Brazil & all that chaos stuff. Fraser likes stirring things up – I’m sure there’s an algorithm somewhere that explains it – or should that be an Al Gore-ithm? Hmm, an inconvenient truth.
What I meant, of course, is that you choose the subjects to foreground – which is your right and privilege, since this is your blog – but you often steer clear of the big elephants in the European sitting room, or at least the ones that are a bit awkward for the left-liberal view of the world.
October 28, 2011 at 2:32 pm
Kieran, a blog is not a newspaper. I write about what interests me and when I have time to do it. I try not to write about things I don’t know about. I don’t ‘steer clear’ of ‘elephants’ – I don’ feel that I have to add to the plethora of voices on every issue. And your elephants might not be the same as those of others.
You have a particular view of Europe – clearly from a distance and clearly fixed and incontrovertible. I have neither the time nor the interest to pursue your preoccupations.
October 28, 2011 at 8:03 pm
The controversy has caused me to look at Craig on the web ( limited at present on the iPhone only).
Are you able to voice an opinion on him as a Christian apologist, and would you recommend his books?
October 28, 2011 at 11:39 pm
“Are you able to voice an opinion on him as a Christian apologist, and would you recommend his books?”
Try out the website for size – there’s a wide range of stuff freely available there, also videos on youtube. Also great numbers of podcasts called ‘Defenders’. His book ‘Reasonable Faith’ distils his basic approach.
Craig is an analytical philosopher in the Anglo-American tradition, so those not familiar with that approach, or not philosophically trained, may find it a little strange at first. He owes a good deal to Plantinga, as well as Gary Habermas.
October 29, 2011 at 7:47 am
I’d never heard of Craig before reading this blog post, and what I difficult to follow are Dawkins’s grounds for refusing to debate with him. Dawkins is on record is saying that there is no such thing as evil in the universe, yet refuses to debate with Craig on the grounds that Craig defends something Dawkins regards as evil. That seems odd to me.
October 29, 2011 at 3:48 pm
“Dawkins is on record is saying that there is no such thing as evil in the universe”
Where has Dawkins said this, Steve? I’d be interested to have the quote for something I’m writing.
One of the planks of Craig’s argument for theism is the existence of objective morality (i.e., that some things are just plain wrong, whatever we think or feel). If we accept this, then we must also accept the existence of a transcendent (indeed, personal) extra-human standard of morality, who establishes right and wrong by His own character. Craig’s argument parallels in many ways what Elizabeth Anscombe, C. S. Lewis and even Immanuel Kant have said, as well as responding ot the Euthyphro dilemma.
October 30, 2011 at 2:21 pm
I have to apologise for #2 above, Danial Came did indeed debate at one of Craig’s events. I have not read anything from him since, I hope he is OK.
My own definition of a philosopher … Someone who never uses 2 or 3 short words when 5 or 6 long ones will do just as well.
Joke (well, almost)
KK
October 30, 2011 at 3:10 pm
Steve,
Read WLC’s website
KK
November 5, 2011 at 4:52 am
It will never happen. Religion is not Dawkins’ specialty. He equates it with fairies and orbiting teapots. It is quite a mental effort to navigate the world of imaginary gods. Hence it is a specialised area. Dawkins would just roll his eyes at the thought of contemplating gods without a shred of evidence.
November 15, 2011 at 8:04 am
Some of us like all three, and we are well over 35…