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mikassyna
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28 Apr 2013, 5:03 pm

The ironic thing is that people who love Dawkins and the idea of memetics cannot understand that his staunch stance on atheism is also a meme and virulently oppose that idea. It is hypocrisy at its finest.



MCalavera
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29 Apr 2013, 9:46 am

jekenai wrote:
MCalavera wrote:
fueledbycoffee wrote:
MCalavera wrote:
A great Christian apologist debater like William Lane Craig could easily defeat him in an official debate because he actually sucks at philosophical arguments.


I've read a few of Lane Craig's arguments here and there. I've never been that impressed. What's so 'great' about him?


He has very good debating skills, something that most outspoken atheist celebrities lack. Even Hitchens had some uncomfortable moments when they had a debate a while ago. In my opinion, only Shelly Kagan has defeated him in an official debate.


Maybe he is good at "debating", but not very good at logic and either his ability to imagine different possibilities are pretty limited or he refuses even to think about other possibilities. Also his debating style isn't one of the most fair and polite. See for example RationalWiki: Craig's debating tactics and criticism of opponents

An example of Craig's argumentation with comments:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tE80p6i8Sug[/youtube]


The guy who made that video is really underestimating William Lane Craig and I suspect he committed a couple of strawmen there. If he thinks that atheist debater didn't do too well against Craig, let him try and see if he could. Just because you think you can come up with good arguments against his doesn't mean that you'll suddenly be in control in the debate. It takes a lot of thinking and studying to reach where Craig has reached even if his position does not ultimately support the actual truth. And this is what most atheists who debate him fail to understand. If you want to beat him in a debate, you have to take the subject as seriously as he does and without wavering and not addressing what he actually says.



jekenai
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29 Apr 2013, 10:54 am

MCalavera wrote:
The guy who made that video is really underestimating William Lane Craig and I suspect he committed a couple of strawmen there. If he thinks that atheist debater didn't do too well against Craig, let him try and see if he could. Just because you think you can come up with good arguments against his doesn't mean that you'll suddenly be in control in the debate. It takes a lot of thinking and studying to reach where Craig has reached even if his position does not ultimately support the actual truth. And this is what most atheists who debate him fail to understand. If you want to beat him in a debate, you have to take the subject as seriously as he does and without wavering and not addressing what he actually says.


It depends on what you mean by being good in debate. One can use some tricks to improve his position, but you won't use them if you want to debate, you'll use them if you want to make some people think you are better. For me Craig is a bad debater, because he uses circular reasoning, special pleading and arguments from ignorance. I don't know if I've ever heard a good argument by him. He definitely has some skills in those tricks, but you don't need an exceptional skills, I've seen a lot of politicians that uses the same tricks pretty well. But using them means that you actually aren't interested in the discussion at all. One has to think very critically of whatever someone using this tricks says, their purpose is to confuse and distract. The problem is that it's pretty difficult to defend against such tricks, if you don't want to do the same (turning the whole debate meaningless) and you actually want to debate.



ruveyn
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29 Apr 2013, 11:05 am

MCalavera wrote:

The guy who made that video is really underestimating William Lane Craig and I suspect he committed a couple of strawmen there. If he thinks that atheist debater didn't do too well against Craig, let him try and see if he could. Just because you think you can come up with good arguments against his doesn't mean that you'll suddenly be in control in the debate. It takes a lot of thinking and studying to reach where Craig has reached even if his position does not ultimately support the actual truth. And this is what most atheists who debate him fail to understand. If you want to beat him in a debate, you have to take the subject as seriously as he does and without wavering and not addressing what he actually says.


Debate is ka ka. Debate is rhetorical kung fu. Debate is the flow of hot air.

More important than debate are verifiable facts, careful and reproduced measurement and sound logic.

Thomas Edison never debated. He just invented the light bulb and produced a power system that could make it shine.

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29 Apr 2013, 12:10 pm

Dawkins is a joke, when it comes to his atheist views they're simply the rants of a child screaming 'If you don't agree with me you're wrong! LA LA LA I'm not listening to you!', for as long as he avoids discussions on religion by claiming those who are religious or negative-atheist are 'part of the problem' then he isn't capable of any real thought or argument on the subject. He's just a sad angry little atheist, who ironically thinks he's gods gift to the thinking world.

He's no idiot, but his ignorance and arrogance rules him out as a great thinker.


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MCalavera
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29 Apr 2013, 12:18 pm

jekenai wrote:
The problem is that it's pretty difficult to defend against such tricks, if you don't want to do the same (turning the whole debate meaningless) and you actually want to debate.


Nope, one does not have to be intellectually dishonest in order to be a good debater. Consider Shelly Kagan for example:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7g3lsFZ47Y[/youtube]

He held a relatively rational view in that debate and yet he was able to overpower William Lane Craig in the debate. That takes knowledge on how to debate properly. Notice how he actually addresses what Craig says and with clarity and eloquence. And he avoids making weak arguments that Craig can take advantage of.

Now consider the following video and note the difference:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vnjNbe5lyE[/youtube]



jekenai
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29 Apr 2013, 1:08 pm

MCalavera wrote:
Nope, one does not have to be intellectually dishonest in order to be a good debater.
...


I've never said that. I think one actually has to be intellectually honest to be a good debater. I meant that there are some unfair tactics which one can hardly defend himself against. For example Gish Gallop. You can only point out to public what tactics the opponent uses and maybe refute a few claims showing that the opponents claims doesn't have to be as sound as it can seem. My point was that one needs more skill to defend against such tactics then to use them.



JNathanK
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29 Apr 2013, 1:12 pm

i dont agree with the decission



CaptainTrips222
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29 Apr 2013, 2:11 pm

Who really decides this? Probably a staunchly atheistic group of elitist intellectuals, and it's all a bunch of backslapping. There are probably better candidates, but he happens to be the biggest name among them.



TheValk
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29 Apr 2013, 2:53 pm

Very interesting people referenced here; I've learnt many new things from this topic.



puddingmouse
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29 Apr 2013, 5:18 pm

TheValk wrote:
Very interesting people referenced here; I've learnt many new things from this topic.


And so it was with purpose.


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Tensu
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30 Apr 2013, 9:32 pm

#1 Thinker? REALLY?

More like "winner of a popularity contest participated in by a statistically irrelevant percentage of the global population, the vast majority of who were presumably atheists"

While I don't like Greco-Roman paganism, there are plenty of Ancient Greek philosophers whose ideas I respect.

What non-atheist has any respect for Dawkins?



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06 May 2013, 1:59 am

First of all, William Lane Craig is an absolute moron.
His arguments make no sense whatsoever, and are entirely based on rhetorical trickery.

Second, Richard Dawkins is just winning a popularity contest here, his books are hardly that amazing, and his aggressive style is off-putting.

I would vote for someone like Slavoj Zizek if forced to vote for a thinker who's alive... I'm not really sure if even he deserves that title.

All in all, both parties (Craig and Dawkins) are missing the point entirely.



Declension
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06 May 2013, 2:35 am

Yikes. That's a bit embarrassing.

He might be a strong contender for "World's Best Explainer" though. His biology books are great.



MCalavera
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06 May 2013, 5:27 am

uwmonkdm wrote:
First of all, William Lane Craig is an absolute moron.
His arguments make no sense whatsoever, and are entirely based on rhetorical trickery.


If he do that, then he's not a moron, just very intellectually dishonest possibly.