William Lane Craig on ad hominem attacks (redo)

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• ad
• hominem
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• atheism
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[mistergarth]

There's something deliciously twisted about an advocate of creationism complaining about the dumbing down of public education. High school biology texts dance around natural selection—the cornerstone of modern biology—to keep from offending the delicate sensibilities of creationist Christians. The result is dumbed down biology.

[ManicEightBall]

@mistergarth

The interesting thing about that is that he is really tight-lipped about whether or not he is a creationist. I've never heard him say it, and never heard him deny it. He does talk about evolution, but he always talks about it in the third person. "If one believes that evolution is true..."

[ProfMTH]

LOL. The music really makes this a homerun.

[ManicEightBall]

@ProfMTH

Thank you. Finally, someone noticed the music.

[supersmash43]

0:34-0:36 not necessarily an ad homenim attack because he said their thinking was unsophisticated but he could still be insulting their intelligence.

[ManicEightBall]

@supersmash43

I think the problem here is really poisoning the well. That is, he's telling his followers that they don't need to pay attention to his opponents because his opponents are unsophisticated or irrational, or whatever. His followers are not likely to delve into atheists arguments as much as he does, and won't really know why we're supposed to be wrong. For example, do any of his followers know that he basically has said that the theory of relativity is wrong?

[THEHARMONIKZ]

WELOME TO YOUTUBE, home of the freethinking,secular,humanist,­atheist types.

freedom from church and mental state.

[ManicEightBall]

@tarasan1 " i assume that u have no idea how logic works"

This is really not relevant, but yes. I have studied quite a bit of logic. I have studied natural logic, propositional calculus, predicate calculus, lambda calculus, and more.

Logic is not all about informal fallacies, and this video is not about ad hominem attacks.

[supersmash43]

@ukchristian28 ok fair enough...you are correct. 

[ukchristian28]

@WilliamHawthorne1

Thank you for being someone with some sense.

[ukchristian28]

@supersmash43

Insulting someone's intelligence is not in itself an ad hominem. It is only an ad hominem if a personal attack is used as an argument against someone's position. "John is an unsophisticated ignorant fool, therefore his argument against the design argument is false". However if you say "John is an unsophisticated ignorant fool for the following reasons" then that is not an ad hominem. Calling John that without backing it up would not be an ad hominem either.

[ukchristian28]

There are no ad hominem attacks in this video. Craig throughout is talking about the kinds of arguments he receives and how they are stupid and shallow. At no point do we see him attack someone's character and then use that attack as an argument against their position. You clearly don't understand what an ad hominem attack is.

[ukchristian28]

@mistergarth

Errr, Craig's not a creationist from what I know of him.

[lfzadra]

@ManicEightBall Craig is a creationist, but he never really use this therm because the guy wants to pass the idea that he is in line with mainstream science. Craig believes that evolution happened, but thinks that God guided the process, otherwise it would be impossible. So, he is some sort of ID/Creationist guy. In the end, all this things are more or less the same (god did it). His position is vague on the topic, and I never saw him giving clear definition of it.

[SHIBBYiPANDA]

@ManicEightBall He has?

[TheYazoo321]

hes a wanker

[Hektor88]

@ManicEightBall He has referred to himself as a "progressive creationist," and is a fellow of the Discovery Institute. So yeah, he is a creationist. Not that totally insane Kent Hovind kind, but creationism itself is insane enough that he is still pretty high on the scale.