Craig vs. Krauss: Is There Evidence for God?

A debate between William Lane Craig and Lawrence Krauss at North Carolina State University on March 20, 2011 about evidence for the existence of God.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• God
• Christianity
• William Lane Craig
• Lawrence Krauss

[OccamsKatana]

Btw, this is not

A debate between craig and krauss. Its Lawrence krauss adressing creationist nonsense. Lawrence krauss would never debate craig alone because craig isnt anything, he is a theologian wich basically means NOT a scientist and this is a scientific issue.

[RFunofficial]

@OccamsKatana Define "creationist."

That a person is a "theologian" doesn't logically imply that he is "not a scientist." (Take someone like John Polkinghorne, for example, who is a theologian with scientific credentials.) Moreover, Craig has a Ph.D. in philosophy (of science, if I recall correctly) from Birmingham and a Th.D. in theology from Munich, so don't write him off as a lunatic so quickly, friend! :-)

[OccamsKatana]

@RFunofficial - it would be largly the same in the sense that, matter, as opposed to non-matter or space, makes up the smallest most minute portion of the entire universe. Simply put, the universe is 99% nothing and 1% something. If you removed that 1% of something, the universe would be almost exactly the same.

[RFunofficial]

@OccamsKatana The trouble is that Krauss tends to mislead people when he refers to the quantum vacuum as "nothing." Sure, it contains no *matter*, but that doesn't mean it is *no thing*. I'm not sure what the significance of the 99:1 ratio is supposed to be, so feel free to elaborate. Clearly, the fact that a house is mostly empty of furniture doesn't make it any less significant or detract from its purpose.

[vaguevocalist17]

Craig's biggest mistake is that he gives special pleading for God. If His existence is "necessary" because something HAD to create the universe, then something HAD to create god as well. He says "No, god is eternal and just cool like that." This would be a fine statement if THERE WAS ANY EVIDENCE FOR GOD. But there is not. Craig assumes the existence of God and then cherry picks what things point to one. Science does not indicate the necessity of God.

[OccamsKatana]

@RFunofficial - your metaphorical example completely misses the point.

The empty space between the objects in a house is in no way comparable to the empty space between steller objects.

Furthermore, matter itself is also mostly empty, if you do not understand this take another good long look at the atom.

This is also what krauss ment, not only is there a huge amount of space compared to the amount of matter, the matter itself is also largly composed of space.

[iMentieth]

@Requiemxtoxinnocence The problem I see is that suppose we could have particles travelling back in time, or backwards causation. Okay. Depends on where you're looking from ... says relativity.

[Requiemxtoxinnocence]

@RFunofficial Neutrinos are suggested that they can travel faster than light sending them back in time. Well of course but it certainly brings question to kalam, if particles can do that there might be a loop in time.

That's relying on the anthropic principle. Krauss has stated that we are actually a small part of the universe and act more like cosmic pollution compared to the heavy amount of dark matter. But this is just one view, there are still many things yet to be answered.

[RFunofficial]

@Requiemxtoxinnocence I don't really think it's clear that some particles can travel back in time; which particles, and under which conditions? In any case, even if backward causation were possible, that wouldn't explain the universe.

"If you removed all the galaxies the universe would be much the same." Really? How do you mean? Without stars, life couldn't exist as we know it.

[27182818R]

@Requiemxtoxinnocence Hello! To be honest I don't know much more than you do. What I would say is that there plenty of physicists talking about a big bounce where the big bang was preceded by just such a deflation. There was quite a lot about it in the recent Scientific American special edition on "Time". String theorists think that a collision between two "branes" could equally have caused the big bang; but WLC's enlargements do need addressing.