Podcasts

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

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Two Rams butting heads: may the best ram win!
Two rams butting heads: may the best ram win!

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

Judge denies Human Rights Campaign co-founder’s offer to settle child sex abuse case

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Gay activist Terry Bean and Barack Obama
Gay activist and top Obama-donor Terry Bean (left) and Barack Obama

A follow up on the story about the criminal charges against Terry Bean – prominent gay activist, Democrat donor, and co-founder of  the Human Rights Campaign – from Oregon Live.

Excerpt:

A Lane County judge denied gay activist Terry Bean’s request Thursday to settle child sex abuse charges by compensating the underage victim.

Bean, 66, and his former boyfriend, Kiah Loy Lawson, 25, are accused of having sex with a 15-year-old boy at a Eugene hotel in 2013.

They each are charged with two counts of third-degree sodomy, a felony, and third-degree sexual abuse, a misdemeanor.

Bean, who lives in Portland and is a prominent political fundraiser, proposed a civil compromise that could result in the dismissal of the criminal charges. Had the request been granted, the criminal charges against Bean would have been dismissed.

Time to review who Terry Bean is, using my previous post about the initial filing of charges.

Let’s review the details of the original charges from Oregon Live:

The former boyfriend of Terrence P. Bean was arrested early Thursday on sex abuse charges stemming from the same alleged 2013 encounter with a 15-year-old boy at a hotel in Eugene.

Kiah Loy Lawson, 25, was arrested at 1:15 a.m. at the Portland Police Bureau’s Central Precinct and booked into the Multnomah County Detention Center shortly after 2 a.m.

He’s accused of third-degree sodomy and third-degree sexual abuse.

[…]The indictment charges Bean with two counts of third-degree sodomy, a felony, and one count of third-degree sex abuse, a misdemeanor, police said.

[…]Both Bean and Lawson are accused of having a sexual encounter with the same 15-year-old boy in a hotel in Eugene last year. They had arranged the encounter with the teen after meeting him via a website, investigators allege.

[…]Bean has been one of the state’s biggest Democratic donors and an influential figure in gay rights circles in the state. He helped found two major national political groups, the Human Rights Campaign and the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, and has been a major contributor for several Democratic presidential candidates, including Barack Obama. He’s also a close friend of former Gov. Barbara Roberts.

Here is his biography from his web site:

Terry Bean is a native Oregonian, successful real estate developer, and President and CEO of Bean Investment Real Estate, a private company that trades and invests in commercial real estate as well as large residential complexes.  Along with these badges of honor, Terry Bean is often first recognized as a pioneer in the national civil rights movement, promoting full equality for the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, queer/questioning communities. (GLBTQ)

Terry Bean is so well regarded as an activist that Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski declared August 23, 2008, to be “Terry Bean Equality Day” in recognition for the work he has done on LGBT rights causes since the 1970’s.

A pioneer in the movement, Terry Bean, started advocating politically for gay rights in the early 1970′s in Eugene, Oregon. Early successes resulted in the passing of a city gay rights ordinance, which, while was later overturned by voters, set the framework for grassroot organizations and strategies which quickly followed—establishing a pattern of victories which have continued well into the new millennium.

In 1979, Bean helped to organize the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights, the first such highly visible effort to empower a minority while educating a majority.

After the march on Washington, Terry Bean turned his focus to the national level co-founding the Gay Rights National Lobby and the Human Rights Campaign Fund. These groups merged to become today’s Human Rights Campaign – HRC.

The Human Rights Campaign is the nation’s largest gay rights organization.

Barack Obama  supports the Human Rights Campaign:

Obama speaks to the Human Rights Campaign
Obama speaks to the Human Rights Campaign

Hillary Clinton also supports the Human Rights Campaign:

Hillary Clinton and the Human Rights Campaign
Hillary Clinton and the Human Rights Campaign

The Democrat Party is on board with the gay agenda.

News

Planned Parenthood senior executive who sells baby parts: “I want a Lamborghini”

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Planned Parenthood senior executive: organ harvesting so she can get a Lamborghini
Planned Parenthood senior executive: organ harvesting for a Lamborghini

A Lamborghini is a very expensive car, so you have to do a lot of late-term abortions and organ harvesting if you want to save up enough money to afford one.

Here’s the second video from Center for Medical Progress:

Story here from Rachel Alexander, writing for The Stream.

She writes:

The Center for Medical Progress has released a second undercover video showing a Planned Parenthood abortionist discussing the cost of selling aborted fetuses. Perhaps even more so than in the first video, it appears that Planned Parenthood is committing federal felonies, selling body parts for profit.

[…]The exposé begins with a statement by Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards that the organization is not selling the fetuses for profit. “I want to be really clear,” she declares, “the allegation that Planned Parenthood profits in any way from tissue donation is not true.”

Then it moves to the undercover footage. The undercover buyers sit down for a business lunch with Dr. Mary Gatter, president of the Planned Parenthood Medical Directors’ Council, and another unidentified woman. When the undercover buyers ask what the cost is for intact tissue, Gatter responds, “Well why don’t you start by telling me what you’re used to paying?” They haggle over who is going to throw out a number, and the buyers instruct her not to lowball it. Gatter finally says $75 per specimen. She admits she’s sold them for $50 in the past at a different location, and — in a clear attempt to cover her tracks about negotiating the profits — explains that Planned Parenthood is not in it for the profit and doesn’t want to be accused of selling tissue. She asserts there are costs associated with “the use of space and such.” The buyers then offer $100, and Gatter doesn’t object but seems pleasantly surprised.

Later on, she says “I want a Lamborghini” – a very expensive car.

Rachel suggests two ways that Planned Parenthood appears to be violating the law.

Here is possibility number two:

Planned Parenthood also appears to violate the law after the undercover buyers tell Gatter they are interested in second trimester 10-to-12 week old specimens. Gatter explains that to obtain them intact at that stage, they have to change the suction method used, which means a change in their protocols. She says she can ask their surgeon to change the suction method to “a less crunchy” technique, but admits that it contradicts the patient consent form, which says they are not changing any of their procedures with them. The consent form states, “I understand there will be no changes to how or when my abortion is done in order to get my blood or the tissue.”

When the buyers in the video ask Gatter if she’s comfortable with having the doctor change the procedure despite the consent form’s stipulation not to do so, she says she’s fine with that since, as she asserts, it doesn’t increase the pain and the patients surely wouldn’t care if they knew. Congress passed the National Institutes of Health Revitalization Act of 1993 prohibiting abortion doctors from altering procedures or timing in cases where a fetus is to be used later for medical research.

Getting Gatter to talk about this at length is useful, because it shows her thought process and rationale. It will be interesting to see what the Republicans in Congress do with this, and whether they are going to be able to overcome Democrat support for organ harvesting for profit. After all, Planned Parenthood donates tons of money to the Democrat Party, and why would the Democrats want to do anything to cut off their supply of campaign funding?

In fact, the Obama administration is taking a position on Planned Parenthood’s organ harvesting – they support it:

On Friday, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the group’s explanation was good enough for the White House.

“I did read the news reports indicating that the policies that are followed by Planned Parenthood are entirely consistent with the strictest ethical guidelines that have been established in the healthcare industry,” Earnest said.

He then tried to refer questions about Planned Parenthood’s compliance with those standards to the group itself, and deflected when a reporter pressed him on whether the president believes it is ethical to sell aborted fetus remains.

Here’s Barack Obama speaking at Planned Parenthood:

Barack Obama and Planned Parenthood
Barack Obama and Planned Parenthood

Here’s Hillary Clinton speaking at Planned Parenthood:

Hillary Clinton and Planned Parenthood
Hillary Clinton and Planned Parenthood

That’s what Democrats think about rich white people selling the parts of murdered black babies in order to buy Lamborghinis for themselves. They have no problem with it.

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