Podcasts

William Lane Craig and atheist Daniel Dennett discuss cosmology and fine-tuning

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British Spitfire and German Messerschmitt Me 109 locked in a dogfight
British Spitfire and German Messerschmitt Bf 109 locked in a dogfight

Here is audio of a very interesting exchange between William Lane Craig and leading atheist Daniel Dennett.

This audio records a part of the Greer-Heard debate in 2007, between prominent atheist Daniel Dennett and lame theistic evolutionist Alister McGrath. Craig was one of the respondents, and this was the best part of the event. It is a little bit advanced, but I have found that if you listen to things like this over and over with your friends and family, and then try to explain it to non-Christians, you’ll get it.

By the way, this is mostly original material from Craig, dated 2007, and he delivers the speech perfectly, so it’s entertaining to listen to.

Craig presents three arguments for a Creator and Designer of the universe:

  • the contingency argument
  • the kalam cosmological argument
  • the teleological argument

He also discusses Dennett’s published responses to these arguments, and that’s what I want to focus on, since most of you are already familiar with Craig’s philosophical arguments for the existence of God.

Dennett’s response to Craig’s paper

Here is my snarky paraphrase of Dennett’s reponse: (this is very snarky, because Dennett was just awful)

  • Craig’s three arguments are bulletproof, the premises are plausible, and grounded by the best cutting edge science we know today.
  • I cannot find anything wrong with his arguments right now, but maybe later when I go home it will come to me what’s wrong with them.
  • But atheism is true even if all the evidence is against it today. I know it’s true by my blind faith.
  • The world is so mysterious, and all the science of today will be overturned tomorrow so that atheism will be rational again. I have blind faith that this new evidence will be discovered any minute.
  • Just because the cause of the beginning of time is eternal and the cause of the beginning of space is non-physical, the cause doesn’t have to be God.
  • “Maybe the cause of the universe is the idea of an apple, or the square root of 7”. (HE LITERALLY SAID THAT!)
  • The principle of triangulation might have brought the entire physical universe into being out of nothing.
  • I don’t understand anything about non-physical causation, even though I cannot even speak meaningful sentences unless I have a non-physical mind that is causing my body to emit the meaningful sentences in a non-determined manner.
  • Alexander Vilenkin is much smarter than Craig and if he were here he would beat him up good with phantom arguments.
  • Alan Guth is much smarter than Craig and if he were here he would beat him up good with phantom arguments.
  • This science stuff is so complicated to me – so Craig can’t be right about it even though he’s published about it and debated it all with the best atheists on the planet.
  • If God is outside of time, then this is just deism, not theism. (This part is correct, but Craig believes that God enters into time at the moment of creation – so that it is not a deistic God)
  • If deism is true, then I can still be an atheist, because a Creator and Designer of the universe is compatible with atheism.
  • I’m pretty sure that Craig doesn’t have any good arguments that can argue for Christianity – certainly not an historical argument for the resurrection of Jesus based on minimal facts, that he’s defended against the most prominent historians on the planet in public debates and in prestigous books and research journals.

This is a very careful treatment of the arguments that Dr. Craig goes over briefly during his debates. Recommended.

Positive arguments for Christian theism

News

Twelve Pakistani immigrant men get 143 years in jail for gang-raping 13-year-old girl

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Muslim populations in Europe
Muslim populations in Europe

This story is from the UK Daily Mail, and I think it shows the problem with the compassionate “open borders” view of immigration advocated by some people on the religious left.

WARNING: This story is for mature readers, reader discretion is advised.

It says:

[…]12 men were jailed for gang-raping a 13-year-old white girl in West Yorkshire.

The gang of men from Pakistani origin were jailed for a total of 143 years at Bradford Crown Court today, for 13 months of horrendous abuse of the British white girl in 2011 and 2012.

[…]Eleven of the men were today jailed for rape and a twelfth man was jailed for sexual activity with a child under 16 today at Bradford Crown Court, but the ringleader has fled to Bangladesh.

West Yorkshire Police confirmed that the men jailed were of Pakistani origin. 

[…]Arif Chowdhury, 20, allegedly left for Bangladesh during the investigation after he was arrested in 2012 in connection to the raping of the schoolgirl, Bradford crown court heard last year.

He is also accused of pimping her out to his contacts in Keighley when he was just 15.

Louise Blackwell QC described Chowdhury, a convicted drug dealer, as being ‘evil’ and violent.

A jury heard how Chowdhury first raped the girl, who cannot be named, behind a church when he was 15.

He had previously got to know her when she was 13 after persuading her to do drug runs in Keighley.

She had attempted to stop helping the drugdealer, revealing to police how he had racially abused her and then raped her.

Chowdhury subjected her to regular beatings and made her have sex with other men in a year-long ordeal.

The judge’s comments are interesting:

During the case, the Recorder of Bradford, Judge Roger Thomas QC, said their behaviour throughout the trial was the worst he had seen in 40 years of legal practice.

Judge Roger Thomas QC condemned the ‘insolent and disrespectful behaviour’ the accused showed in court which he said reflected their treatment of their victim.

He told them: ‘The attitudes of the majority of you have so clearly demonstrated to these proceedings has been contemptuous, disrespectful and arrogant on a scale that I have hardly seen before in many years of practice in criminal law.

‘Exactly the same attitude to the 13/14 year old girl who you all sexually abused and exploited for your own selfish gratification.’

He added: ‘None of these defendants had any concern for the victim.

‘They were totally uninterested in her welfare and what damage they were causing her.

‘The victim clearly demanded pity and understanding but their view of her was heartless and demeaning.

‘They saw her as a pathetic figure who had no worth and who served no purpose than to be an object that they could sexually misuse and cast aside.

‘They showed her no shred of decency or humanity when as a vulnerable child she so needed care and understanding.’

The court heard their victim now has post-traumatic stress disorder and clinical depression.

Now, this crime is not like these fake rape accusations that you see on college campuses, where the alleged victim never goes to the police and never goes to the hospital. This crime really happened. And it was investigated by the police. And the facts were determined in a real criminal trial In my view, the offenders got off too lightly – they should all have received the death penalty. That would have sent a message to others not to do such things to children. Yes, a 13-year-old girl is a child, and she ought to be protected and nurtured, not abused and degraded. If a girl is fatherless and has no protector, that is all the more reason for good men to be more protective of her innocence and dignity – not less protective. We have to have a vision for what a girl’s life should be like – education, work, marriage, a loving faithful husband, children, a home of her own. Dignity and value.

Christianity is different

That girl was known by God and made by God in order to reach out to him and to know him as he really is. Nothing about her origins, finances, family situation is relevant to the purpose for which she was made, which is the same purpose that we are all made for – to know God in Christ. On the Christian view, there is no room for looking at other people in distress and taking advantage of them. We should always be looking to others as equal in dignity and value, and made to know God. The Muslim men convicted of raping her were not doing what they were designed to do, because they followed a false religion, with false moral values. Christianity is true, and it rationally grounds the duty to love and serve others, and even to give up our lives to save others. That is the example of the founder that Christians are to emulate. Where was that example in the conduct of these Muslim men towards this little girl?

Russell Moore

One last thing I want to say is about Christian leaders who are very generous about welcoming in refugees from Muslim countries. Well, I mean they are generous with using taxpayer money to do this, not with their own money. One of these people  is Russell Moore, who was interviewed by the radically left-wing BuzzFeed.

BuzzFeed was very sympathetic with Russell Moore’s left-of-center view on this issue, and excited to be able to bash conservatives by using Moore as the club.

Excerpt:

Moore was also critical of candidates like Ted Cruz who are now arguing that the U.S. should only accept Christian refugees from Syria, not Muslims.

“I don’t think we ought to have a religious test for our refugee policy,” Moore said, adding that a rigorous vetting process could still make room for innocent Muslims. “We really don’t want to penalize innocent women and children who are fleeing from murderous barbarians simply because they’re not Christians,” he said, though he added that persecuted Christians in the region haven’t received enough attention from the U.S.

Moore wants to give interviews to leftist publications, where they will publicly praise him for his generosity and compassion, while shaming conservatives politicians who have a duty to protect the public. My priority is to protect that little girl from harm, not hand out goodies to grown-ups at taxpayer expense. The UK didn’t have to take in refugees and unskilled immigrants willy nilly, but they did it because they were more motivated by the desire to appear generous with other people’s money than by the desire to protect innocent victims from harm. As long as it’s not their money being spent, and their daughter being raped, people who talk for a living can seem very generous. What happened to this little girl is clearly horrendous, and it’s not the first or last event of its kind. People like Moore who feel we need to be more compassionate and less cautious are effectively turning a blind eye to the reality of the concern.

I support a legal immigration process that has some sort of requirement for some period of following the laws or learning Western customs, e.g. – legal immigration for those who come here to do college degrees and/or get work permits. But Moore wants take in refugees who have no education, no work history, and no idea what our Western values are. Immigrants from Muslim countries who apply to attend school and/or work legally, and go through a process where they follow the law, pay their taxes, and so on, are much safer to allow in than refugees. We need legal immigrants to prove over a long period of time that they can survive without resorting to criminal activity (drug-dealing, sex-trafficking, etc.) or collecting welfare. But refugees are not like that. And we don’t have adequate security screening. We can be generous, but prudent about protecting innocence, too. I don’t want to be responsible for letting in people who rape little kids.

Disclaimer: Half my family is Muslim, and my parents immigrated legally via college degrees and work permits. Legal immigration process. Law abiding. Continuous work history. No collecting welfare. None of us has ever been charged with anything worse than a speeding ticket or parking ticket.

News

DHS whistleblower was ordered to scrub records of Muslims with terror ties

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Is Barack Obama focused on protecting the American people?
Is Barack Obama focused on protecting the American people?

This is from The Hill.

Full text:

Amid the chaos of the 2009 holiday travel season, jihadists planned to slaughter 290 innocent travelers on a Christmas Day flight from the Netherlands to Detroit, Michigan. Twenty-three-year old Nigerian Muslim Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab intended to detonate Northwest Airlines Flight 253, but the explosives in his underwear malfunctioned and brave passengers subdued him until he could be arrested. The graphic and traumatic defeat they planned for the United States failed, that time.

Following the attempted attack, President Obama threw the intelligence community under the bus for its failure to “connect the dots.” He said, “this was not a failure to collect intelligence, it was a failure to integrate and understand the intelligence that we already had.”

Most Americans were unaware of the enormous damage to morale at the Department of Homeland Security, where I worked, his condemnation caused. His words infuriated many of us because we knew his administration had been engaged in a bureaucratic effort to destroy the raw material—the actual intelligence we had collected for years, and erase those dots. The dots constitute the intelligence needed to keep Americans safe, and the Obama administration was ordering they be wiped away.

After leaving my 15 year career at DHS, I can no longer be silent about the dangerous state of America’s counter-terror strategy, our leaders’ willingness to compromise the security of citizens for the ideological rigidity of political correctness—and, consequently, our vulnerability to devastating, mass-casualty attack.

Just before that Christmas Day attack, in early November 2009, I was ordered by my superiors at the Department of Homeland Security to delete or modify several hundred records of individuals tied to designated Islamist terror groups like Hamas from the important federal database, the Treasury Enforcement Communications System (TECS). These types of records are the basis for any ability to “connect dots.”  Every day, DHS Customs and Border Protection officers watch entering and exiting many individuals associated with known terrorist affiliations, then look for patterns. Enforcing a political scrubbing of records of Muslims greatly affected our ability to do that. Even worse, going forward, my colleagues and I were prohibited from entering pertinent information into the database.

A few weeks later, in my office at the Port of Atlanta, the television hummed with the inevitable Congressional hearings that follow any terrorist attack. While members of Congress grilled Obama administration officials, demanding why their subordinates were still failing to understand the intelligence they had gathered, I was being forced to delete and scrub the records. And I was well aware that, as a result, it was going to be vastly more difficult to “connect the dots” in the future—especially beforean attack occurs.

As the number of successful and attempted Islamic terrorist attacks on America increased, the type of information that the Obama administration ordered removed from travel and national security databases was the kind of information that, if properly assessed, could have prevented subsequent domestic Islamist attacks like the ones committed by Faisal Shahzad (May 2010), Detroit “honor killing” perpetrator Rahim A. Alfetlawi (2011); Amine El Khalifi, who plotted to blow up the U.S. Capitol (2012); Dzhokhar or Tamerlan Tsarnaev who conducted the Boston Marathon bombing (2013); Oklahoma beheading suspect Alton Nolen (2014); or Muhammed Yusuf Abdulazeez, who opened fire on two military installations in Chattanooga, Tennessee (2015).

It is very plausible that one or more of the subsequent terror attacks on the homeland could have been prevented if more subject matter experts in the Department of Homeland Security had been allowed to do our jobs back in late 2009. It is demoralizing—and infuriating—that today, those elusive dots are even harder to find, and harder to connect, than they were during the winter of 2009.

Has the Obama administration done a good job of preventing terrorist attacks? Does his attitude of blaming America deter terrorist attacks, or does it embolden radical Islamists to perform more attacks?

The Daily Caller lists 7 terrorist attacks that occurred during the 7 years of the Obama presidency, as of July 2015.

Here is one:

In November 2009, Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan opened fire in an attack at Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas. Hassan killed 13 people and wounded over 30 more.

In a document dated Oct. 18, 2012 obtained by Fox News, Hasan wrote: “I, Nidal Malik Hasan, am compelled to renounce any oaths of allegiances that require me to support/defend man made constitution (like the constitution of the United States) over the commandments mandated in Islam.”

The U.S. government has steadfastly refused to call Hasan’s militant slaughter a terrorist attack. Instead, federal officials have repeatedly characterized Hasan’s actions as “workplace violence.”

A U.S. military court sentenced Hasan, a military psychiatrist, to death in 2013.

And another:

In April 2013, Chechen brothers Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev exploded two pressure cooker bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon.

The bombings killed three people including an eight-year-old boy. Hundreds of runners and spectators were seriously injured. Seventeen people saw their limbs blown off.

Three days later, the brothers ambushed and killed a Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev died when his brother ran over him with a stolen Mercedes SUV in the midst of a shootout with police. In April, a jury found Dzhokhar Tsarnaev guilty of 30 criminal counts. He later received the death penalty.

There is a plan to protect us from these sorts of activities, and it was recently announced by Obama’s attorney general, Loretta Lynch.

The Daily Wire reports:

Speaking to the audience at the Muslim Advocates’ 10th anniversary dinner Thursday, Lynch said her “greatest fear” is the “incredibly disturbing rise of anti-Muslim rhetoric” in America and vowed to prosecute any guilty of what she deemed violence-inspiring speech.

“The fear that you have just mentioned is in fact my greatest fear as a prosecutor, as someone who is sworn to the protection of all of the American people, which is that the rhetoric will be accompanied by acts of violence,” she said.

[…]After touting the numbers of “investigations into acts of anti-Muslim hatred” and “bigoted actions” against Muslims launched by her DOJ, Lynch suggested the Constitution does not protect “actions predicated on violent talk” and pledged to prosecute those responsible for such actions.

This is the same woman who declined to charge Lois Lerner for using the IRS as a weapon to persecute conservative groups in an election year.

Do you feel safe now? Do you think that the Democrats are serious about the threat of Islamic terrorism? Do you think that you should elect the Democrats again in November 2016?