William Lane Craig vs Ronald De Sousa 13/16 (York University)

From William Lane Craig's Ontario Universities Debate Tour.

Does God Exist? Professors William Lane Craig and Ronald De Sousa debate. Sponsored by Campus for Christ. Hosted by York University

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• William
• Lane
• Craig
• Ronald
• De
• Sousa
• Atheism
• Theism
• Does
• God
• Exist

[Bonitatem]

So many atheists, including educated ones such as De Sousa, lose credibility when they open their potty mouths. At 4:02 he complains about God "Fuck it! Why didn't he get it right the first time.

I'm sorry, this is probably a corollary to the old Chinese maxim: the first person to raise their voice, loses the argument.

[ofinterest2007]

Dr. Craig, please remember that you have said that we cannot paint your god in human terms. You simply can't hold such an entity to human terms. So PLEASE stop painting him as just some loving father that has been SO wronged by his own rebellious creations. That is painting him in human terms.

I noticed this hyprocrisy in your debate with Sinnot-Armstrong. Your contradict yourself sir.

[jbiemans77]

@hexusziggurat But what if I told you to break the rules you were told. With no knowledge of what is good, how can you determine the correct course of action, break the rules, or not break the rules.

It is pretty much a guess isn't it ? It would be like picking what is behind door #1 or door #2. How can you be responsible if door #1 happened to be the wrong choice ?

[hexusziggurat]

@jbiemans77 ?Without knowing what is good, you cannot know the difference between right and wrong.?

If you give me rules & i understand what rules are & you tell me not to break any of the rules & we are both speaking the same language & fully understand each other....i don't have to know anything about good/bad to know how not to break those rules. I just simply don't break them. Now if the thought crept into my head "Why can't i break them?" then we creep into the good/bad realm.

[jbiemans77]

@hexusziggurat yes there is a difference between good and evil, and right and wrong, but the difference is subtle. Its like saying there is a difference between hot and warm.

If you do not know what good is, how do you know that what is right is good, and what is wrong is not good ? Without knowing what is good, you cannot know the difference between right and wrong.

[hexusziggurat]

@jbiemans77 i would agree with you on that point but i'm trying to point out that good/evil are different than right/wrong. So the children would know right/wrong but not understand what evil/good mean exactly. Now if I tell you about a ruleset and say you can't have any infractions against it...you'll create all sorts of ways to live within those parameters which could be evil OR good...but it still remains that you would be following right/wrong codes not neccessarily good/evil codes.

[jbiemans77]

@hexusziggurat What I said was that they wouldn't realize that it was wrong to do something you were told not to, or good to do what they were told.

That is if the tree was actually of the knowledge of good and evil as is said.

[hexusziggurat]

@jbiemans77 well would is seem rather odd for them to actually understand God at all. I mean if they can't understand what it means NOT to do something then it would stand they don't understand what it means to do anything. An entity endowed with the kind of wisdom we associate to God would find it meaningless to iterate meaningless words...anything that was meaningless would therefor depose Him from the concept of divinity. Yes when we apply humanistic versions of the story we see err.

[jbiemans77]

@jbiemans77 I just thought of a good analogy. Imagine if you took someone that was color blind and placed them into the room full of buttons, and then told them not to push the red button. (to make it more analogus they would have to gain the ability to see color after pushing the red button), They go around pushing buttons, but would not realize their mistake until after pushing the button.

Can you blame the person for pushing the red button if they were color blind ?

[jbiemans77]

@hexusziggurat I would have to disagree with you on that one. You get punished if you do something bad, and rewarded if you do something good (in general). So if you are not sure if you are doing something bad or good, how can you know if you will get a punishment or a reward ?

How do you know that it is good to obey me, if you do not know what good is.

Cont....

[hexusziggurat]

@jbiemans77 not knowing the difference between good/evil doesn't mean you don't understand what punishment means or what commiting something wrong means. An infraction against a rule doesn't neccesarily mean evil intent nor does it neccesarily mean evil in and of itself. People can have a perfect understanding about punishment and rules without understanding evil.

[hexusziggurat]

@jbiemans77 if you were responsible enough to let the child know what punishment means...then the whole scenario is fine.