This is a blog to discuss philosophy, chess, politics,
C. S. Lewis, or whatever it is that I'm in the mood to discuss.
Friday, February 22, 2013
Peter Williams' New Book on Lewis and the New Atheists
What if C. S. Lewis debated Richard Dawkins? Oh, don't worry. Even if Lewis were around to debate, Dawkins would come up with some reason not to go on stage with him!
Sigh. Love to see the weird evangelical focus on who will debate whom. "Put down the griddle, Martha, we got some learnin' to do. Theysa gonna do some real 'splainin down yonder. This is where they make they's discov'ries! We doneed no reedin', just pile on in and get learned!"
I think we have a disagreement on this, in that you really think the stated reason offered by Dawkins as his reason for not debating Craig is his real reason, and I have serious doubts about the matter.
In any event, Dawkins' failure to debate Craig is not something I have a problem with per se. It is easy to find fault with the debate format.
In any event, I find the charge of "defending genocide" to be somewhat misstated. Could an omniscient being ever be justified in ordering a genocide if he thought that the overall balance of good over bad would be enhanced by so doing? Regardless of what you think the answer is on this, I don't think you could use that as a basis of supposing that your opponent was an evil person, or that you shouldn't be seen on stage with someone like that.
But the fact is, I have no trouble with Dawkins not debating Craig, except that I consider it to be symptomatic of an overall unwillingness to be responsive to critics of his atheistic programme. An atheist might think that a public debate format is a bad setup for that person to engage the points at issue betwee Craig and himself, which is fine. What he has not done is shown either the ability or the willingness to engage, say, Craig's Kalam Cosmological argument, beginning with any effort to state the argument clearly enough so that his audience can be sure he knows how to distinguish that argument from other versions of the cosmological argument. To take a page from Jesse Parrish's book, anyone who writes about the credibility of belief in God should be able to pass this Simple Test For Understanding. Otherwise....
Victor appears to be supporting people who defend genocide, provided only that they claim that their god ordered it!
Victor might like to ask himself how his life got to the state where he is making such remarks.....
And Dawkins has no need to refute Craig's arguments any more than Magnus Carlsen has to refute Claude Bloodgood's Blackmar-Diemer Gambit, even if Bloodgood uses to win a lot of games with such tactics, difficult as they are to refute in a short time limit.
5 comments:
Sigh. Love to see the weird evangelical focus on who will debate whom. "Put down the griddle, Martha, we got some learnin' to do. Theysa gonna do some real 'splainin down yonder. This is where they make they's discov'ries! We doneed no reedin', just pile on in and get learned!"
Lewis vs Dawkins? What a smugfest that would be.
'Oh, don't worry. Even if Lewis were around to debate, Dawkins would come up with some reason not to go on stage with him!'
Really? Lewis wrote articles defending genocide?
Peter S. Williams is happy to debate me
. See Peter Williams on angels .
Personally, I found myself very scared by this man. Just an impression formed by the weirdness of his writings.
I think we have a disagreement on this, in that you really think the stated reason offered by Dawkins as his reason for not debating Craig is his real reason, and I have serious doubts about the matter.
In any event, Dawkins' failure to debate Craig is not something I have a problem with per se. It is easy to find fault with the debate format.
In any event, I find the charge of "defending genocide" to be somewhat misstated. Could an omniscient being ever be justified in ordering a genocide if he thought that the overall balance of good over bad would be enhanced by so doing? Regardless of what you think the answer is on this, I don't think you could use that as a basis of supposing that your opponent was an evil person, or that you shouldn't be seen on stage with someone like that.
But the fact is, I have no trouble with Dawkins not debating Craig, except that I consider it to be symptomatic of an overall unwillingness to be responsive to critics of his atheistic programme. An atheist might think that a public debate format is a bad setup for that person to engage the points at issue betwee Craig and himself, which is fine. What he has not done is shown either the ability or the willingness to engage, say, Craig's Kalam Cosmological argument, beginning with any effort to state the argument clearly enough so that his audience can be sure he knows how to distinguish that argument from other versions of the cosmological argument. To take a page from Jesse Parrish's book, anyone who writes about the credibility of belief in God should be able to pass this Simple Test For Understanding. Otherwise....
Wow!
Victor appears to be supporting people who defend genocide, provided only that they claim that their god ordered it!
Victor might like to ask himself how his life got to the state where he is making such remarks.....
And Dawkins has no need to refute Craig's arguments any more than Magnus Carlsen has to refute Claude Bloodgood's Blackmar-Diemer Gambit, even if Bloodgood uses to win a lot of games with such tactics, difficult as they are to refute in a short time limit.
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