Confusion Over On Wm Lane Craig's Website

[♦ ficino ♦]

On a whim I clicked on Reasonable Faith, William Lane Craig's apologetics website.  For starters, there was an advertisement for a children's book by Craig called "God is All Good."  There was a drawing of a teddy bear, a duckie, and other cute animals.  I guess they were all hearing about God's all-goodness.  The thing oughta be on the list of banned books and burned.

 

Then someone named James, who is a leader of a Reasonable Faith discussion group (I didn't know they had those) and is going on a Reasonable Faith cruise with Dr. Craig (didn't know they had those) 

wrote a pretty sensible letter, in my opinion.  He basically said Craig is self-contradictory to talk about following science on some issues and to hold biblical doctrine over science on others, with no clear line telling us in advance when we should be literalists and when we should allow that scripture should not be taken literally.  James said at times, Craig reminds him of Karl Barth.

 

Craig really flipped over the Barth remark and issued a veiled threat that James may be kicked out as a group leader (that's how I read it).  He wants to sit down with James during the cruise and discuss this stuff.  Would love to listen in on that.

 

I wonder whether James is starting on the road to freedom.

 

Anyway, if you care, you can read their exchange.  I think Craig's answer is even more convoluted than his usual spin.

 

http://www.reasonablefaith.org/Confused-about-Concordism

 

Very telling is this from the beginning of Craig's response:

 

"I’m not an evidentialist in the sense that I do not think that faith needs to be based upon argument and evidence in order to be rational. Rather I think that belief in what Alvin Plantinga calls the great truths of the Gospel can be properly basic and warranted for us due to the inner testimony of the Holy Spirit. I am an evidentialist in another, more classical sense of the term: I think that there are Christian evidences which warrant Christian belief for the person who is apprised of them."

 

 

I read this as basically a concession that Christian faith is not rational in any usual sense of the word "rational."  The only sense I can make of this statement is, Christians use rational argument to try to defend what they accept on faith.  In my view, these few sentences expose Craig from his own mouth as a spin doctor for God.

[HymenaeusAlexander]

"I’m not an evidentialist in the sense that I do not think that faith needs to be based upon argument and evidence in order to be rational. Rather I think that belief in what Alvin Plantinga calls the great truths of the Gospel can be properly basic and warranted for us due to the inner testimony of the Holy Spirit. I am an evidentialist in another, more classical sense of the term: I think that there are Christian evidences which warrant Christian belief for the person who is apprised of them."

 

 

I read this as basically a concession that Christian faith is not rational in any usual sense of the word "rational."  The only sense I can make of this statement is, Christians use rational argument to try to defend what they accept on faith.  In my view, these few sentences expose Craig from his own mouth as a spin doctor for God.

 

I think you're absolutely right. It's double-talk. Appealing to the "inner testimony of the Holy Spirit" reduces to a kind gnosticism at best.  It's not a "reasonable faith" at all, it's just fedeism with a pseudo-rationalist veneer. Craig's admission in this clip that OC posted awhile back only confirmed that in my mind.

 

It's Trojan horse apologetics. When I was a Presuppositionalist, I found Craig's approach to apologetics to be rather dishonest, in addition to finding many of his individual arguments unsupported and untenable from a biblical stanpoint. Back in those days I couldn't stand the guy. Now that I'm a non-believer, I find him somewhat comically amusing.

[centauri]

On a whim I clicked on Reasonable Faith, William Lane Craig's apologetics website.  For starters, there was an advertisement for a children's book by Craig called "God is All Good."  There was a drawing of a teddy bear, a duckie, and other cute animals.  I guess they were all hearing about God's all-goodness.  The thing oughta be on the list of banned books and burned.

I see these instruments of propaganda at Wal-Mart, where children are targeted and captured with fluffy pictures and stories that completely ignore the rest of the story.

Perhaps it would shock children to see a book titled "God is All Good" with pictures of the bloated dead bodies of animals that must have littered to landscape after the flood.

But that's the accurate story, not the cheesy crap that Craig tries to sell.

The fact that he targets children is even more disgusting.

[Burny]

Interesting.

 

WLC is a strange dude. For all his blathering on and on about stuff nobody can really follow (it's too convoluted - by design) you'd think that he'd wake up one day and realize how full of crap he is. Of course he makes too much money while going on cruises with people who don't want to think for themselves to ever actually admit it if he does deconvert...

[Ellwood]

I am very convinced that it is the money and the connection to the Christian culture that keeps guys like WLC from ever deconverting.   I have a "secular" job so I did not have that holding me back.   But most people who want to "chat" with me about my deconversion make a living off the myth.

[LifeCycle]

I am very convinced that it is the money and the connection to the Christian culture that keeps guys like WLC from ever deconverting.   I have a "secular" job so I did not have that holding me back.   But most people who want to "chat" with me about my deconversion make a living off the myth.

I agree.  This has crossed my mind many times.  God is real because he's been so good to them.  "Success" is often the breath that keeps the myth alive - especially when it's all attributed to their preaching and teaching of the gospel.  They look at it as reinforcement of their faith.

[◊ crazyguy123 ◊]

 

On a whim I clicked on Reasonable Faith, William Lane Craig's apologetics website.  For starters, there was an advertisement for a children's book by Craig called "God is All Good."  There was a drawing of a teddy bear, a duckie, and other cute animals.  I guess they were all hearing about God's all-goodness.  The thing oughta be on the list of banned books and burned.

I see these instruments of propaganda at Wal-Mart, where children are targeted and captured with fluffy pictures and stories that completely ignore the rest of the story.

Perhaps it would shock children to see a book titled "God is All Good" with pictures of the bloated dead bodies of animals that must have littered to landscape after the flood.

But that's the accurate story, not the cheesy crap that Craig tries to sell.

The fact that he targets children is even more disgusting.

 

 

What about all of the images of the dead children, men, women, and human infants that would have also littered the landscape, along with the animals that drowned? If the children saw those, they would see how much their god really cares about children...

[centauri]

 

 

On a whim I clicked on Reasonable Faith, William Lane Craig's apologetics website.  For starters, there was an advertisement for a children's book by Craig called "God is All Good."  There was a drawing of a teddy bear, a duckie, and other cute animals.  I guess they were all hearing about God's all-goodness.  The thing oughta be on the list of banned books and burned.

I see these instruments of propaganda at Wal-Mart, where children are targeted and captured with fluffy pictures and stories that completely ignore the rest of the story.

Perhaps it would shock children to see a book titled "God is All Good" with pictures of the bloated dead bodies of animals that must have littered to landscape after the flood.

But that's the accurate story, not the cheesy crap that Craig tries to sell.

The fact that he targets children is even more disgusting.

 

 

What about all of the images of the dead children, men, women, and human infants that would have also littered the landscape, along with the animals that drowned? If the children saw those, they would see how much their god really cares about children...

 

Indeed, the fluffy sales gimmicks are just tools of the trade.

In a sense, apologetics is a great industry to be working in.

It's lifetime employment, your job probably won't be outsourced, your church organization is tax exempt, and people come to you for advice.

[◊ crazyguy123 ◊]

 

 

 

On a whim I clicked on Reasonable Faith, William Lane Craig's apologetics website.  For starters, there was an advertisement for a children's book by Craig called "God is All Good."  There was a drawing of a teddy bear, a duckie, and other cute animals.  I guess they were all hearing about God's all-goodness.  The thing oughta be on the list of banned books and burned.

I see these instruments of propaganda at Wal-Mart, where children are targeted and captured with fluffy pictures and stories that completely ignore the rest of the story.

Perhaps it would shock children to see a book titled "God is All Good" with pictures of the bloated dead bodies of animals that must have littered to landscape after the flood.

But that's the accurate story, not the cheesy crap that Craig tries to sell.

The fact that he targets children is even more disgusting.

 

 

What about all of the images of the dead children, men, women, and human infants that would have also littered the landscape, along with the animals that drowned? If the children saw those, they would see how much their god really cares about children...

 

Indeed, the fluffy sales gimmicks are just tools of the trade.

In a sense, apologetics is a great industry to be working in.

It's lifetime employment, your job probably won't be outsourced, your church organization is tax exempt, and people come to you for advice.

 

If I was a greedy bastard, I would just become a pastor!

[sdelsolray]

Craig is a creationist whore, all dressed up with a disingenuous gift of gab, purposeful and directed obfuscations and an addictive desire to lie and cheat to feed his ego.