All posts by Wintery Knight

https://winteryknight.com/

What got me started on apologetics? William Lane Craig debate transcripts

Yes, William Lane Craig debate transcripts. In fact, I still read them from time to time to keep up my skills.

Here’s one of my favorites, the Craig-Nielsen debate on grounding morality without God

Summary:

THE CRAIG-NIELSEN DEBATE: GOD, MORALITY, AND EVIL
William Lane Craig and Kai Nielsen
with annotations by William Lane Craig
February 1991, University of Western Ontario

Best part:

Finally, he raises the issue of immortality and says, “Death doesn’t undermine moral values. In fact, things that we value become all the more precious.” Well, in one sense he’s right. It’s the absence of God that undermines the objectivity of moral values, not death. But let’s suppose that there are objective moral values. What would be undermined by the lack of immortality? I think two things.

First, I think there would be no reason to adopt the moral point of view. Since you’re going to die, everyone ends up the same. It doesn’t make any difference whether you live as a Hitler or a Mother Teresa. There is no relationship between your moral living and your ultimate fate. And so in that sense, death undermines the reason for adopting the moral point of view rather that just being an egoist and living for self.

Second, there’s no basis for self-sacrifice on this point of view. Why should an atheist, who knows everything is going to end in death, do things that are morally right that go against self-interest? For example, a few years ago there was a terrible mid-winter air disaster in Washington, DC, as a plane crashed into a bridge spanning the Potomac River, spilling its passengers into the icy waters. And as the helicopters came to rescue these people, attention focused on one man who again and again passed by the rope ladder rather than be pulled to safety himself. Seven times he did this, and when they came again, he was gone. The whole nation turned its eyes to this man in respect and admiration for the noble act of self-sacrifice that he did. And yet on the atheistic view, that man wasn’t noble. He did the stupidest thing possible. He should have gone for the rope ladder first, pushed others away, if necessary, in order to survive! But to give up all the brief existence he will ever have for others he didn’t even know? Why? It seems to me, then, that it’s not simply the absence of God that undermines objective moral values, but ethical living is also undermined by the atheistic point of view because you then have no reason to adopt the moral point of view and you have no basis for acts of self-sacrifice.

By contrast, on the Christian view, where you have both God and immortality, you have the necessary presuppositions for the affirmation of objective moral values and for consistent living of the ethical life.

And another of my favorites, the Craig-Taylor debate on the ontological grounding of morality.

Summary:

Is The Basis Of Morality Natural Or Supernatural?
Richard Taylor and William Lane Craig
October 1993, Union College, Schenectady, New York

Sample Craig:

(2) I argued that moral accountability also exists under the supernaturalist view, and Professor Taylor didn’t deny the point.

(II) What about my critique, then, of naturalism? I said that naturalism doesn’t provide a sound foundation for morality, and here I made two points:

(1) On the naturalist view, objective right and wrong do not exist. Again, Professor Taylor doesn’t deny this point; he just says, “Well, to say that they’re conventional doesn’t mean they’re contemptible.” Well, granted; but it does mean they’re arbitrary, they’re non–objective. There’s no more difference between moral right and wrong than driving on the right–hand side of the road versus the left–hand side of the road. It’s simply a societal convention. And the modern evolutionist thinks these conventions are just based in socio–biological evolution. According to Michael Ruse, a professor of the philosophy of science,

The position of the modern evolutionist…is that humans have an awareness of morality…because such an awareness is of biological worth. Morality is a biological adaptation, no less than are hands and feet and teeth…. Considered as a rationally justifiable set of claims about an objective something, [ethics] is illusory. I appreciate that when somebody says, ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself,’ they think they are referring above and beyond themselves…. Nevertheless…such reference is truly without foundation. Morality is just an aid to survival and reproduction and…any deeper meaning is illusory….{26}

This is essentially the same view as Professor Taylor’s. Moral values are simply rooted in socio–biological evolution, that have passed down as certain taboos and certain commands, but they have no objective validity in terms of their moral rightness or wrongness. Professor Taylor says, “But I have a high regard for people who are truly moral and decent.” I don’t deny that. Of course he does! But the point is that in his ethics, in his philosophy, he has no basis for that affirmation. What I bring is not a new set of values—I think we pretty much hold those in common—but I’m offering a secure foundation for those values that we all want to hold dear.

You see, on Professor Taylor’s view, there really isn’t any objective morality. I think every one of us here tonight would agree that it’s wrong to kill babies and that the holocaust was morally wrong. But in his book Professor Taylor says, “The infanticide practiced by the Greeks of antiquity did not violate their customs. If we say it was nevertheless wrong, we are only saying that it is forbidden by our ethical and legal rules. And the abominations practiced by the Nazis…are forbidden by our rules, and not, obviously, by theirs.”{27} I submit that that is simply a patently false view of moral values and that naturalism, therefore, can’t provide any objective basis for right and wrong.

And another of my favorites, the Craig-Tooley debate on the problem of evil.

Summary:

A Classic Debate on the Existence of God
Dr. William Lane Craig & Dr. Michael Tooley
November 1994, University of Colorado at Boulder

Sample Craig:

(2) Christian doctrines increase the probability of the coexistence of God and the evils in the world. Let me just mention a couple of these.

(i) On the Christian view, the purpose of life is not happiness as such in this life. Rather it is the knowledge of God—which will ultimately produce true and everlasting happiness. What that means is that many evils occur in this life which might be utterly pointless with respect to producing human happiness. But they might not be pointless with respect to producing the knowledge of God. Dr. Tooley assumes when he talks about changes that would make this world a better place, that the purpose of life is basically to be happy in this life. And I certainly admit that you could make changes that might appear to make this life a better place, make it happier. But that’s not God’s purpose. So if you understand that the purpose of life is not happiness as such, I think that you can see that the existence of evil doesn’t necessarily cast any improbability upon God’s existence.

(ii) It’s also the Christian view that God’s purpose spills over into eternal life. In the afterlife God will bestow a glory and happiness upon us that is incomparable to what we’ve suffered here on earth. And the longer we spend in eternity with Him, the more the sufferings in this life shrink by comparison to an infinitesimal instant. Dr. Tooley admits in his article that it is possible that immortality could justify such evils. But, he says, it’s “very unlikely” that there is life after death. Well, I have two comments. First, I’d like him to prove that it’s unlikely that there is life after death.{26} Second, I suggest that the resurrection of Jesus gives us grounds for hoping in life after death, and I’ve attempted to justify that historically. So given these Christian doctrines, I think you can see that the existence of God and evil is not so improbable after all.

[…]

(4) Finally, I think that there is actually an argument for God from evil. It would go like this:

(i) If God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist. If there is no God, moral values are either socio-biological by-products or just expressions of personal preference.

(ii) Evil exists. That’s the premise of the atheist. There is real evil in the world.

(iii) Therefore, objective values do exist. Some things are really wrong.

(iv) Therefore, God exists.

Thus the presence of evil in the world actually demonstrates God’s existence because in the absence of God, there wouldn’t be any distinction objectively between good and evil, between right and wrong. So although evil in one sense calls into question God’s existence, in a much deeper sense, I think, it actually requires God’s existence.

So in the light of these four responses, I think that the argument from evil, as difficult and emotionally pressing as it might be, in the end doesn’t constitute a good argument against the existence of God. So I think the four arguments given against the existence of God by Dr. Tooley are inconclusive. You’ve still got my six arguments for God’s existence, and therefore I still think that on balance the evidence favors theism as the more rational worldview.

There are more debate transcripts on Craig’s Reasonable Faith web site.

Knight and Rose Show – Episode 30: Was Jesus a Socialist, Part 1

Welcome to episode 30  of the Knight and Rose podcast! In this episode, Wintery Knight and Desert Rose discuss what the Bible says about Christianity and economics. This episode looks at Bible verses that support the idea that Jesus taught socialism. If you like this episode, please subscribe to the podcast, and subscribe to our YouTube channel. We would appreciate it if you left us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Podcast description:

Christian apologists Wintery Knight and Desert Rose discuss apologetics, policy, culture, relationships, and more. Each episode equips you with evidence you can use to boldly engage anyone, anywhere. We train our listeners to become Christian secret agents. Action and adventure guaranteed. 30-45 minutes per episode. New episode every week.

Episode 30:

Episode  Summary:

Wintery Knight and Desert Rose define socialism, and contrast socialist policies with free market policies. We discuss why a growing number of people find it attractive. The rest of the episode is spent discussing Bible verses cited by socialists that argue for the view that Jesus was a socialist or that Jesus taught socialism.

Speaker biographies

Wintery Knight is a black legal immigrant. He is a senior software engineer by day, and an amateur Christian apologist by night. He has been blogging at winteryknight.com since January of 2009, covering news, policy and Christian worldview issues.

Desert Rose did her undergraduate degree in public policy, and then worked for a conservative Washington lobbyist organization. She also has a graduate degree from a prestigious evangelical seminary. She is active in Christian apologetics as a speaker, author, and teacher.

References:

Podcast RSS feed:

https://feed.podbean.com/knightandrose/feed.xml

You can use this to subscribe to the podcast from your phone or tablet. I use the open-source AntennaPod app on my Android phone.

Podcast channel pages:

Video channel pages:

Music attribution:

Strength Of The Titans by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/5744-strength-of-the-titans
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

What do scientific studies show about the long-term effects of gender-affirming care?

I like to write posts to record evidence that I can use when having debates about controversial topics. Thursday night, I was reading The Federalist, as usual, and found an interesting post by Eddie Scarry. He reported that the far-left Washington Post was claiming that people who get “gender-affirming” care are very happy in the short term. But what about in the long-term?

Excerpt:

On Thursday the paper published what it called “one of the largest randomized samples of U.S. transgender adults to date about their childhoods, feelings and lives.” The survey took place last year from Nov. 10 to Dec. 1, among 515 U.S. adults who identify as trans and another 823 U.S. adults who did not.

There were a lot of depressing statistics about respondents who are less likely than regular people to say their childhoods were happy and who are more likely to say they often feel anxious. But the ultimate takeaway was that the vast majority of those who said they had “transitioned” away from their natural sex, 78 percent, were “more satisfied” with their lives than before the transition process.

That survey is just from “last year”. I would imagine that people who take out student loans to study English also feel great during their years at college… but they don’t feel the same when they graduate and have to find a job to pay those loans back. And that’s the real question… what is the effect of chopping off body parts in the long-term? Fortunately, we have a study for that.

More:

A person who decides to live in ways that make him feel more like the opposite sex isn’t a one-and-done. That’s something that has to be examined over an extended period of years. As far as actual genital surgery goes — in theory, the most fulfilling type of “transition” — only one study has done that to date.

Over the course of 30 years, six Swedish doctors and scientists tracked the outcomes of 324 transgender people who had received sex surgeries — 191 male subjects and 133 female subjects. Each subject was cross-referenced with 10 random control subjects of the sex that the trans subject was impersonating. For example, a woman would be a control subject for a man who had had surgery to make himself look more like a woman.

The results were devastating.

Subjects who underwent surgery were more likely than the control subjects to receive inpatient care for a psychiatric disorder, to be convicted of a crime, and to develop cardiovascular disease. The mortality rate by suicide was most striking: Transgender subjects were roughly 20 times more likely to have committed suicide within 10 years of their operations.

“This study found substantially higher rates of overall mortality, death from cardiovascular disease and suicide, suicide attempts, and psychiatric hospitalisations in sex-reassigned transsexual individuals compared to a healthy control population,” the authors concluded. “This highlights that post surgical transsexuals are a risk group that need long-term psychiatric and somatic follow-up.” They noted that surgery and experimental cross-sex hormones may provide some relief for transgender people, but that such treatment is “apparently not sufficient to remedy the high rates of morbidity.”

They have the link to the study right in the quotation above. So next time you get asked about this issue, refer to the long-term study.

Sometimes people prefer to read individual stories about individual people to get an idea of what’s behind the statistics. If you like that, consider this recent story from the New York Post, about an individual who received “gender-affirming care” of the sort that the Washington Post would approve of.

Excerpt:

Transgender flight attendant Kayleigh Scott — who gained fame after appearing in a United Airlines commercial — was found dead Monday in her Colorado home. She was 25.

Scott, who shared her transition story for a 2020 Trans Day of Visibility video produced by United, declared in a 2:30 a.m. Instagram post that she was planning to end her life.

[…]Scott made headlines in 2020 when United featured her as a part of its diversity campaign.

Scott said she credited United for helping her transition.

“My life changed for the better when I came to United as a flight attendant. With the support from the company, our business resource group for LGBTQ+ employees, and all of my loving co-workers,” Scott said at the time. “I was able to break free from the chains that helped me and to this day, I’m living confidently. It’s my true self.”

Everything was wonderful in the short-term. Celebrate diversity. Celebrate pride. Be affirming and non-judgmental and tolerant. That’s what people wanted in the short-term.

Here’s the long-term:

“2022 has been a year packed with upset and difficulty,” wrote Scott in a New Year’s Eve Facebook post. “I saw too much death & loss in my life, I came to realize I work a meaningless job for a company that doesn’t value me as an employee.”

United Airlines didn’t make a virtue-signaling publicity video about that post. The Human Rights Campaign didn’t turn that quote into a publicity stunt. Naturally. The people who affirm recklessness turn their backs on you when the consequences of your choices appear. People who like to party and be happy in the moment don’t want to deal with the fallout of the bad decisions that they told you to make.

Christians tell young people to keep to the moral boundaries, because we want them to be happy in the long-term. In the short-term, we look like the mean, judgmental bad guys. But in the long-term, we are vindicated. Gay activists and gay activism organizations affirm the reckless decisions of young people because they want to be liked and to feel good. But they don’t really love the people they affirm. They don’t want what’s best for other people in the long-term.

Well, that’s the example of long-term consequences for one person. I’m a studies man, myself. I like to argue from studies. If you’re like me, then my previous post about self-ending rates of people who received “gender-affirming care” might also be useful to you.