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William Lane Craig debates Austin Dacey: Does God Exist?

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Here is the video and summary of a debate between Christian theist William Lane Craig and Austin Dacey at Purdue University in 2004 about the existence of God.

The debaters:

The video: (2 hours)

The video shows the speakers and powerpoint slides of their arguments. Austin Dacey is one of the top atheist debaters, and I would put him second to Peter Millican alone, with Walter Sinnott-Armstrong in third place. This is the debate to show people who are new to apologetics. The debate with Peter Millican is better for advanced students, and that’s no surprise since he teaches at Oxford University and is familiar with all of Dr. Craig’s work. The Craig-Dacey debate is the one that I give to my co-workers.

By the way, you can get the DVDs and CDs for the first Craig-Dacey debate and the second Craig-Dacey debate and the second Craig-Sinnott-Armstrong debate. The Peter Millican debate is not available on DVD, but the link above (Peter Millican) has the video and my summary.

Dr. Dacey’s 5 arguments below are all good arguments that you find in the academic literature. He is also an effective and engaging speaker, This is a great debate to watch!

SUMMARY of the opening speeches:

Dr. Craig’s opening statement:

Dr. Craig will present six reasons why God exists:

  1. (Contingency argument) God is the best explanation of why something exists rather than nothing
  2. (Cosmological argument)  God’s existence is implied by the origin of the universe
  3. (Fine-tuning argument) The fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life points to a designer of the cosmos
  4. (Moral argument) God is the best explanation for the existence of objective moral values and objective moral duties
  5. (Miracles argument) The historical facts surrounding the life, death and resurrection of Jesus
  6. (Religious experience) God’s existence is directly knowable even apart from arguments

Dr. Dacey’s opening argument:

There are two ways to disprove God’s existence, by showing that the concept of God is self-contradictory, or by showing that certain facts about ourselves and the world are incompatible with what we would expect to be true if God did exist. Dr. Dacey will focus on the second kind of argument.

  1. The hiddenness of God
  2. The success of science in explaining nature without needing a supernatural agency
  3. The dependence of mind on physical processes in the brain
  4. Naturalistic evolution
  5. The existence of gratuitous / pointless evil and suffering

One final point:

One thing that I have to point out is that Dr. Dacey quotes Brian Greene during the debate to counter Dr. Craig’s cosmological argument. Dr. Craig could not respond because he can’t see the context of the quote. However, Dr. Craig had a rematch with Dr. Dacey where was able to read the context of the quote and defuse Dr. Dacey’s objection. This is what he wrote in his August 2005 newsletter after the re-match:

The following week, I was off an another three-day trip, this time to California State University at Fresno. As part of a week of campus outreach the Veritas Forum scheduled a debate on the existence of God between me and Austin Dacey, whom I had debated last spring at Purdue University. In preparation for the rematch I adopted two strategies: (1) Since Dacey had come to the Purdue debate with prepared speeches, I decided to throw him for a loop by offering a different set of arguments for God, so that his canned objections wouldn’t apply. I chose to focus on the cosmological argument, giving four separate arguments for the beginning of the universe, and on the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection. (2) I reviewed our previous debate carefully, preparing critiques of his five atheistic arguments. In the process I found that he had seriously misunderstood or misrepresented a statement by a scientist on the Big Bang; so I brought along the book itself in case Dacey quoted this source again. I figured he might change his arguments just as I was doing; but I wanted to be ready in case he used his old arguments again.

[…]The auditorium was packed that night for the debate, and I later learned that there were overflow rooms, too. To my surprise Dr. Dacey gave the very same case he had presented at Purdue; so he really got clobbered on those arguments. Because he wasn’t prepared for my new arguments, he didn’t even respond to two of my arguments for the beginning of the universe, though he did a credible job responding to the others. I was pleased when he attacked the Big Bang by quoting the same scientist as before, because I then held up the book, specified the page number, and proceeded to quote the context to show what the scientist really meant.

Dr. Craig is always prepared!

News

New study: Contraceptives double risk of depression in teenage girls

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The Sydney Morning Herald reports:

A Danish study of a million women has found a link between the use of hormonal contraception such as the the pill and increased risk of depression.

Compared with non-users, women and teenage girls aged 15 to 34 who used hormonal contraception had a 1.23 times higher risk of being diagnosed with depression, especially adolescents, according to a paper published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry.

Researchers at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark analysed health registry data of one million Danish women from 2000 and followed them up after an average of six years.

Of the 55 per cent of those who used hormonal contraception, there were just over 23,000 first diagnoses of depression at the time of follow up.

More than 133,000 had received their first prescription of antidepressants.

The highest risk of depression was among the adolescent girls, who had a 1.8-times higher risk of first use of an antidepressant.

The risk varied slightly among the different types of hormonal contraception, but the risk was three times higher among those who used non-oral products, such as progestogen implants.

Few studies have quantified the effect of low-dose hormonal contraception on the risk for depression, but study author Ojvind Lidegaard says their research warrants the need for further studies into the potential adverse effects of the pill.

“Use of hormonal contraceptives was associated with subsequent antidepressant use and first diagnosis of depression at a psychiatric hospital among women living in Denmark.

“Adolescents seemed to be more vulnerable to this risk than women 20 to 34 years old,” Lidegaard said.

Of course, one wonders where these studies were BEFORE the pill was championed by the radical feminists. We didn’t have studies before we adopted abortion, no-fault divorce, single mother welfare and gay marriage, either. Do you think that those might have unintended consequences? Shouldn’t we care about the consequences before we adopt policies that go against traditional moral values?

Anyway, let’s review some studies on birth control pills, since no one ever tells young people these things before it’s too late.

This is from the ultra-leftist Time magazine, of all places.

Excerpt:

Dr. David Gaist, a neurologist at Odense University Hospital and the University of Southern Denmark, and his colleagues found that women taking hormonal contraceptives — those containing estrogen, progestin or a combination of both — showed higher rates of a rare brain tumor known as glioma. Their results, published Thursday in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, raise questions about the connection between oral contraceptives and brain cancer, but shouldn’t yet be interpreted as a reason to stop taking birth control, says Gaist.

Using data from Denmark’s national registries of health records, cancer cases and prescriptions, Gaist zeroed in on the women aged 15 years to 49 years diagnosed with glioma, and then analyzed whether they were prescribed contraceptives and for how long. Overall, women who had used hormonal contraceptives at any point in their lives showed a 50% higher risk of developing the brain tumors compared to those who had not used them. And women who used the birth control for more than five years nearly doubled their risk of the cancer.

Let’s take a look at some previous studies on the effects of contraceptives.

From the Times of India.

Excerpt:

 Women who take oral contraceptives regularly are at a higher risk of developing breast cancer compared to others, shows a study by AIIMS doctors. Breast cancer risk was found to be 9.5 times more in women with a history of consuming such pills. Early menstruation cycle, late marriage and lower duration of breastfeeding were the other major factors responsible for the disease among Indians, according to the study published in the latest issue of the Indian Journal of Cancer.

The study was conducted on 640 women, of which 320 were breast cancer patients. “We found long-term use of oral contraceptive pills (OCP) higher among those suffering from breast cancer-11.9%-compared to healthy individuals-1.2%,” said Dr Umesh Kapil, a professor at the public health nutrition unit, AIIMS. He said breast cancer is caused by repeated exposure of breast cells to circulating ovarian hormones, and long-term use of OCPs, which contain estrogen and progesterone, may be increasing this risk by causing hormonal imbalance.

The study mostly had women who used OCPs for birth control. Emergency contraceptives, popularly called morning-after pills, were not included.

This is not the first study, nor even the second study, to confirm this link.

Birth control pills

Many studies showed that taking birth control pills caused an increased risk of breast cancer.

Study 1: (March 2003)

RESULTS: Among the youngest age group (<35 years, n = 545), significant predictors of risk included African-American race (RR = 2.66: 95% CI 1.4-4.9) and recent use of oral contraceptives (RR = 2.26; 95% CI 1.4-3.6). Although these relationships were strongest for estrogen receptor-negative (ER-) tumors (RRs of 3.30 for race and 3.56 for recent oral contraceptive use), these associations were also apparent for young women with ER+ tumors. Delayed childbearing was a risk factor for ER+ tumors among the older premenopausal women (Ptrend < 0.01), but not for women <35 years in whom early childbearing was associated with an increased risk, reflecting a short-term increase in risk immediately following a birth.

Study 2: (October 2008)

Oral contraceptive use ≥1 year was associated with a 2.5-fold increased risk for triple-negative breast cancer (95% confidence interval, 1.4-4.3) and no significantly increased risk for non-triple-negative breast cancer (Pheterogeneity = 0.008). Furthermore, the risk among oral contraceptive users conferred by longer oral contraceptive duration and by more recent use was significantly greater for triple-negative breast cancer than non-triple-negative breast cancer (Pheterogeneity = 0.02 and 0.01, respectively).

When people talk about a war on women, maybe they should be thinking about this practice of promoting behaviors to women that make them sick. And eventually, we all have to pay for the increased costs of health care when we encourage people to do things that make them sick. We should not be promoting birth control to young women in order to enable them to have recreational sex. It’s not worth the harm it causes them. When you add in the psychological damage and the risk of abortion if the contraception fails, it really is not the right thing to tell a young woman.

News

Is the new Jim Caviezel movie “Sound of Freedom” worth watching?

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Well, Rose went to see the new Jim Caviezel movie on Wednesday night, and she reported back to me. She said it was the best movie she’s ever seen, or close to it. In this post, I wanted to go over a couple of points about the movie, then we’ll hear from the famous actor. Then I want to say something about whether society wants men to lead on moral and spiritual issues.

So, to start, something from Christian Post:

Devout Christian actor Jim Caviezel, who stars in the upcoming film “Sound of Freedom,” is calling on 2 million people to stand with him and expose the evil of child exploitation and trafficking.

Scheduled for release on July 4, “Sound of Freedom” tells the true story of one man’s journey to combat child sex trafficking. The studio behind the film, Angel Studios, unveiled the first trailer at their Illuminate event on Thursday.

“God’s children are not for sale,” the actor declares in the trailer.

Caviezel then delivered a call to action for anyone willing to buy a ticket to see the film and raise awareness against this prevalent form of slavery.

“We know this is heartbreaking and it hurts to look at, but the first step in helping these children is hearing their story. Not enough people know this problem exists and even fewer people are willing to do anything about it,” Caviezel declared.

“Our goal is to inspire 2 million people to attend the film’s opening weekend to represent the 2 million trafficked children around the world.”

[…]“Sound of Freedom” is based on the life of Tim Ballard, a former U.S. agent who battles human trafficking after rescuing a little boy whose sister remained captive to traffickers and was sent to Colombia.

Hollywood, which is largely dominated by secular leftist Democrats, does not like movies that are critical of pedophilia and sex-trafficking.

The film was rejected by multiple Hollywood studios but Angel Studios acquired worldwide distribution rights earlier this year.

Angel Studios is a platform for filmmakers to collaborate with the audience and bring projects to life by crowdfunding. It currently creates and distributes films and TV series worldwide and is known as the studio behind “The Chosen” and “Dry Bar Comedy.”

Angel Studios CEO Neal Harmon said his company feels a responsibility to take action and answer the prayers of the 2 million children around the world who are crying for freedom.

You can’t watch the movie on Netflix, HBO Max, Hulu, or Amazon Prime, because they apparently oppose movies that make pedophiles and sex-traffickers feel bad.

According to this video, Disney did not want the movie to come out, which is understandable, given their actions in Florida:

This interview with Caviezel is also very good, and makes the point that Hollywood is opposed to movies that are critical of pedophilia and sex-trafficking of children.

So what I wanted to comment on was this article that Rose sent me from the Daily Wire, which has some challenging words for Christians about moral evils like sex-trafficking:

“The problem is that modern day Christianity has become so weak and useless,” Caviezel told Fox News Digital in a new interview. “I mean, modern day Christians are more afraid of the devil than they are of God. God could destroy the devil without a glance, but he looks to us to make a decision.”

The “Person of Interest” actor went on to say that Americans mostly “don’t want” God in their lives, which has led to the overall deterioration of society.

So I wanted to say something about whether Christians – especially Christian men – are allowed to make truth claims and moral claims. I think a lot of opposition to truth and morality comes from inside the church. Let me explain.

I have no problem with Christian teachings like a real, eternal Hell or the immorality of homosexuality. But when I bring up my views in Christian environments, it is not well received by emotional people in the church. And that’s because the emotional people in the church are forming their views on truth and morality based on their feelings. They liked the idea of postmodernism – that things are true and false based on feelings. They liked the idea of relativism – that right and wrong are different for each person. When they hear a man claiming that something is false, or that something is wrong, they feel bad. They want everything to be equally true, and they want everything to be equally right. “Don’t judge” they say.

That’s what I see happening today. This emotion-dominated view of truth and morality has taken over the culture, making it hard for Christian men to lead on moral and spiritual issues. The new religion is “don’t judge”. So, when a man sees someone acting in reckless, irresponsible ways, he cannot be allowed to identify their action as the root cause and shame them for it. Because that would hurt their tender feelings. The answer to evils can only ever be that other people are forcing the bad behavior. “The cause is systemic, so don’t judge” the emotional people say. And then the emotional people demand that you solve problems with forgiveness and redistributing wealth to equalize outcomes.

I have even had one woman tell me not to judge women who have unpaid student loans for useless degrees, because “if God forgives them, then you have no right to speak out against student loans for useless degrees”. That’s where we are now. “Don’t judge” is ruling and reigning our culture. We can never warn people before they make a costly mistake, by telling them the truth, or by telling them what’s right and wrong. That’s “judging”. We have to let them follow their hearts, and then pay the costs ourselves.

Imagine that you walk into the house and find the floors covered with 2 inches of water. You go upstairs and find that all the faucets in the bathtub, shower and sinks are on, and overflowing. You say “It’s wrong to flood the house” and then you take action to turn off the faucets. Right now, the emotional people are telling the truth and morality people not to turn off the faucets, but to take a bucket and throw water out. Why? Because we don’t want to make the person who opened the faucets feel bad for doing reckless, irresponsible actions. Just leave the faucets on, and grab a bucket instead.

Well, I’m not going to use my time, money and effort to fix problems without addressing the root cause. Either we go back to allowing men to tell the truth and defend right and wrong – even if some people’s feelings are hurt – or we can count men out of solving problems. Men are not designed to be servants who tip-toe around the feelings of other people. Men tell the truth, and men defend the moral law. We are not here to be the clowns and servants of emotional people. And we are not here to be slowed down in our championing of truth and morality by the emotional people.