Interestingly, the night itself sounds as if it was a cracker, even without Dawkins' presence. Apparently 3 Oxford Philosophers took to the stage as a panel, responding to and critiquing Craig's talk. One of those philosophers was Daniel Came (an atheist from Oxford University whose name should ring a bell for anyone who's been following this). I cannot wait for the video/audio to turn up on premier.org.uk/unbelievable or bethinking.org.

Also, I strongly recommend you check out the debate Craig had against Millican. (http://apologetics315.blogspot.com/2011/10/william-lane-craig-vs-peter-millican.html). I'm onto the second rebuttals now and it is very, very substantive. Unlike Law, who used sneaky debate tactics (exactly what Atheists accuse Craig of, funnily enough), Millican engaged Craig on a whole heap of issues. The Q and A, I expect, will be brilliant.

Unlike Dawkins, Craig isn't afraid of having his ideas scrutinised in the public circle.

This is the sort of "logic" that annoys me.

"If Dawkins did not agree, either he is afraid that his ideas in the book will be torn to shreds or he himself does not believe they are worthwhile defending anymore."

These are not the simple "either/or" explanations that they purport to be, but a debating trick employed to deliver two unacceptable alternatives so that the target may be more easily attacked. There are literally hundreds of other possible reasons. Some - but not all - of which have been aired on this forum.

The verbal trickery continues:

"Dawkins’ worshippers... defending their high priest’s stance..."

All in the service of an attempt to perpetuate the myth that atheists are somehow religious folk, wearing different hats.

Indicating to me that the Dawkins-bashers are getting a little desperate, since their bête noir refuses to play their deceitful little game.

Christopher Hitchens far-less-famous brother tries a similar tactic, to belittle Dawkins:

"I would imagine that an equally serious Atheist philosopher would be able to give [Craig] a run for his money, but Dawkins isn’t that."

I doubt you would find a "serious atheist philosopher" who would find it amusing to debate religion on the grounds selected by Craig. While there is no doubt that philosophers have spent a great deal of their time wondering why people find the need to identify a "God", the vast majority of those find in favour of Spinoza's "God is the asylum of ignorance".

Those of a more charitable nature might open with Percy Bysshe Shelley's simple "God is not a fact, but a hypothesis, and as such, stands in need of proof". Then stand back, and request that the theist actually provides some.

However, since there is none, it would make for a very short debate.

The debate may indeed be a short and simple one.

A scientist has artificially created a copy of a bacterial gene sequence, with a slight modification as a marker to differentiate it from the original copied natural gene. He then implanted his synthetic gene into a living bacterial cell in which the nucleus or original genetic material had been removed. This "synthetic" bacterium cell remained alive and replicated itself successfully.

That experiment demonstrated that gene sequences can be created or assembled artificially. What scientists haven't done yet is to "create" a complete living cell, since the activation of the synthesized genetic material required it to be inserted into an existing "living" cell. The missing component in creating true artificial "life" could only be obtained by using an existing living cell as a surrogate.

Lifeform design and diversity may be explained by evolution - chance genetic mutation and natural selection - but it does not explain the origin of the original "spark" of life, without which all the genes in the world would be of no consequence. When the light goes off in a living cell, the "spark" disappears or shuts down or whatever, the cell is dead and cannot be "revived". No-one has yet identified the nature of the "spark", but it is the basis of life.

The atheist viewpoint may hold that "life" is a result of sheer "chance", the theist would hold that chance alone could not produce life, and the agnostic may be undecided.

We may forget about debating the possible origins of the universe, though it is something truly amazing, wondrous and beautiful. (Our perceptions. Do other lifeforms gaze at the stars and wonder? I wonder.) No, we need really only concern ourselves with life itself (and maybe the wonder of ourselves) and wonder at the origin of the spark of life, without which we and all life could not exist.

Cause to wonder? Is sheer chance maybe just a cop-out?

Neat attempt at a back 2½ somersault pike (degree of difficulty 3.0) Saltpetre. Not many can pull that one off with a straight face.

>>Cause to wonder? Is sheer chance maybe just a cop-out?<<

By bundling all the gazillions of physical and chemical possibilities together into a single phrase, you attempt to make the contest a one-on-one, mano-a-mano shootout between "sheer chance" in the red corner, and "God" in the blue.

If the concept of God creating life is too hard to grasp, I hear you ask, what makes the idea of sheer chance easier to accept?

Nice tactic, co-opting the atheists killer blow, the one that targets the concept "it wuz God wot dunnit" as being the theists' convenient catch-all filler for anything they cannot understand or explain.

The difference is, when you think it through, that science will at some point determine what caused that spark. Meanwhile, there is absolutely nowhere else the God argument can go.

Let's face it, a hundred years ago, the experiment you describe with the bacterium cell wouldn't be remotely conceivable, let alone be performed. And in another hundred, an additional layer or two of the mystery will undoubtedly have been peeled back.

Much of recent abiogenetic thinking is encapsulated in "Origins, Abiogenesis and the Search for Life in the Universe", a collection of 28 papers edited by Michael Russell. One of the overall conclusions is that "the origin of life and evolution of prokaryotes was not a matter of chance, but deterministic, probable and necessary"

I'm afraid "sheer chance" is not quite so sheer as you imagine, nor is it the cop-out you wanted us to believe.

The science also discusses the probability of life on other planets. Where can we find reference to that in the Bible? Or would you have us believe that we are somehow the only life forms...?

Just askin'.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12760#220989

Squeers, sorry for not getting back to you sooner. i accept that you were being "concilliatry" towards both sides, but is that part of the problem?

If we "equivocate" or are "relative" about morals & ethics rather than taking a firm stand, does this lead to "grey areas", "evil prospers while good men do nothing", "complicated/colourful" rather than simple, black & white issues?

BTW are you familiar with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cusanus an early christian reformer & philosopher?

I’d like to thank Trav for bringing that debate to our attention and would encourage anyone who wants to understand exactly why Craig is not worth debating to view it.

Straight off the bat, Craig begins with a strawman claiming that “typically, atheists have said that the universe is eternal and uncaused”.

Really?!

That’s news to me.

Most atheists I know of say they don’t know. In my experience, about the closest atheists get to asserting that everything must have just always existed, is to simply point out that if God can, then why can’t matter and energy too?

No amount of assertions about alphas and omegas or special pleads for uncaused causes can answer that in any satisfactory way.

Craig then continues his assault on this strawman by pointing out - with a demonstration of the absurdity of using infinity as a number, using coins for his example - that infinity is a concept, not a number. But then, in order to conjure a philosophical problem with an infinite past, he makes an illogical leap by replacing the coins with “events”. The problem with doing this is that there didn’t necessarily have to be any events occurring. There’s no reason to believe that “events” always had to have been occurring.

The universe, for example, may one day suffer a heat death, but does this mean that time will stop? Time, as far as mathematical equations with regard to relativity, may stop - but the relativity portion has been removed. It will still continue infinitely regardless.

Craig then moves onto a second strawman alleging that some atheists claim that the universe just popped into existence ...and so it continues.

Eventually Craig get’s to his famous five proofs for the existence of God (which have been debunked more times than he’ll ever be able to present them - so I’m not enthusiastic about going over them again), the first being, of course, the Kalam Cosmological Argument.

Just look at the tatters this thread has left that one in.

And that’s his best.