Heather butters Sam Harris

Evangelist William Lane Craig awaits a fan, any fan while droves line up to meet Sam Harris at Notre Dame's DeBartolo Center in South Bend, Indiana.

Incapable of rewarding Harris sufficiently for his contribution to humanity, we instead brought him a beer.

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• Sam Harris
• the brights
• Arrogant Bastard IPA
• Rob McColley
• The Heather
• The Moral Landscape
• William Lane Craig
• Notre Dame
• DeBartolo

[Jugglable]

I believe in always asking why, as well. And I believe in God. It is my refusal to stop asking why that leads me to believe in ultimate causality and a necessarily existing ground of contingency.

I've seen Craig lose a debate before. But it's lost on me how anybody thinks Craig lost this one. Harris got so far off topic, talking about the shortcomings of Christian theology, when that didn't weaken Craig's position or strengthen his own.

[TheMcColley]

@Jugglable

That's fair. I'll give you that.

I don't think either of these guys engaged the other's points.

[chinamanspeakenlis]

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha­hhahahahahahahahahahahahahahah­ahahahahhahahahahahahahahahaha­hahahahahahahahhahahahahahahah­ahahahahahahahahahahahhahahaha­hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahh­ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah­ahahahhahahahahahahahahahahaha­hahahahahahahhahahahahahahahah­ahahahahahahahahahahhahahahaha­hahahahahahahahahahahahahahhah­ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah­ahahhahahahahahahahahahahahaha­hahahahahahahahahahaha: LOOK ON WILLIAM LAME CRAIG...hahahaha what a loser...!!!

thanks for the upload guys.

[acepanson]

Thanks for the video. This summarizes the debate very well :)

peace.

[magnusjsolberg]

@Jugglable Also, you seem not to understand that "God" can mean anything. To a lot of people, "God" just means love. If Harris did not narrow it down, he would be arguing against every notion of God on the planet, natural and supernatural.

The definition of "God" Craig utililized in the debate isn't any more "on topic" than Harris' definition. Craig went with Plantinga's God, which is no less arbitrary since a lot of religious people do not believe in such a God either.

[magnusjsolberg]

@Jugglable It seems we will not see eye to eye on this. I will simply end by saying that *of course* Craig avoids talking about Yahweh, because he knows he would have lost the debate in the blink of an eye if he did.

This is from Harris' blog:

"I simply argued for a scientific conception of moral truth and against one based on the biblical God. This was, after all, the argument that the organizer’s at Notre Dame had invited me to make"

[Jugglable]

@magnusjsolberg If he shows Yahweh is not the basis, another deity could be, or nihilism could be true. So even if he'd succeeded, he wouldn't have weakened what Craig was defending that night -- it's ironic that Harris talked about Yahweh more than Craig -- or strengthened what he had agreed to defend. "Good does not come from Yahweh" doesn't entail, or suggest, "Therefore, a transcendent being is not the foundation of morality." Utterly LOGICALLY irrelevant to the debate terms as defined.

[magnusjsolberg]

@Jugglable You're quote mining again. Not content with picking sentences out of context, you're going one step further and picking out *parts* of sentences.I think the point of the debate disappears if we don't at least try to make it relevant to the real world. That's what Sam is doing. He's also on-topic, since, as I've stated before, the debate topic does not exclude Yahweh. Craig, by stating what he's willing to defend, can not dictate what is on or off topic. The debate topic dictates that.

[Jugglable]

@magnusjsolberg To state the topic of the debate as it was defined is not quote mining. It's called sticking to the topic of the debate. The debate topic does not exclude Yahweh, as you say -- Yahweh could be the foundation of morality -- but Craig, who is a Christian, as you say, was not defending that position.

"if the debate is not to be merely an intellectual exercise"

The debate *is* an intellectual exercise.

"We're talking about morality in this world"

Granted. What other world?

[magnusjsolberg]

@Jugglable Stop quote mining. That's not cool.

The debate topic does not exclude Yahweh, and since we all know Craig is a christian, as well as most of the people in the audience, if the debate is not to be merely an intellectual exercise, the christian God should be adressed. We're talking about morality in this world where real suffering is a huge issue. All Craig generally does is muddy the waters while defending genocide. Harris is talking about the real world in which we find ourselves.

[Jugglable]

@magnusjsolberg "it does seem relevant to adress the christian God"

Well then, they should have defined the terms of the debate differently. Had they defined it in terms of the Christian God, as you say would have been relevant, Harris's criticisms of Christian theology may have been on point.

[magnusjsolberg]

@Jugglable LOL. Dude, keep up. Yes, the debate was about God. Not Plantinga's god, which Craig wanted to limit the debate to. In a country where something like 85% of the population identify as christians, it does seem relevant to adress the christian God when the debate topic *does not* define God as simply some omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent being that's spaceless, timeless and issues commands, which is what Craig would have liked.