Inference to the Best Explanation

It's funny because WLC actually has prepared defenses for all of that OT stuff. But he makes sure it rarely comes up, because it reveals how fucking bizarre his worldview actually is.

I mean he goes on and on about the Resurrection, but I think it's much more interesting that he believes in a whole string of military miracles favouring and judging Israel.

Here's what I don't understand about Craig. I'm not trolling, I actually want an answer here:

One of his main points that he gives for evidence of God is objective morality, that some things are just right and wrong, and only God's existence would allow this. I think it's just emotional blackmail personally, but that's not my point.

He then goes on to justify atrocities in the OT by claiming that if God wills something, it becomes moral. Two questions:

1) How can morality be objective if God can change it's meaning on a whim?

2) A more interesting one. If killing babies is okay because "they go to heaven automatically" since they never know sin, has he not just called abortion the single greatest saviour of souls in human history? I'm going to say he's pro-life, so I wonder how he squares the cognitive dissonance.

>has he not just called abortion the single greatest saviour of souls in human history? I'm going to say he's pro-life, so I wonder how he squares the cognitive dissonance.
Easy. For Craig, morality isn't about making sure people don't go to Hell at any cost. Morality is grounded in God's commands.

So even though killing a baby saves its soul, and letting it grow up risks its soul, it's not moral to kill babies because "thou shalt not kill".

Basically, he isn't actually interested in minimising the number of people who go to Hell. Those aren't his orders.

>William Lane Craig likes to show that Jesus rose from the dead as inference to the best explanation

Doesn't this basically rely on treating the gospels as rock-solid reliable historical sources? I mean there's a lot of problems with that already.

What evidence? There literally is none

There are three major problems I can come up with at the top of my head;

>The census which apparently requires literally everyone in the whole empire to return to their homelands, but not causing economic calamity, or apparently, much in the way of mention by historians. It's obviously a way to square the plot-hole about how Jesus of Nazareth didn't come from where the Messiah was said to be born in, Bethlehem, hence why Mark makes no mention of it, or much in the way of a resurrection either.
>The slaughter of the innocents, which not even Josephus covered, despite his love of detailing the atrocities of Herod, and this would have been a pretty big one.
>Pontius Pilate goes from a brutal bastard according to historians to a soft, malleable figure who doesn't seem to care that Jesus claims to be the King of the Jews, or the Son of God, despite these obviously defying Rome. It's an obvious attempt to pass the buck for Deicide on the Jews to gain Rome's favour.

There are probably more, but those are the ones I can think of now.

This

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthyphro_dilemma

I don't really think that the Euthyphro dilemma has much force anymore, since atheists are very likely to deny objective morality nowadays.

So if Craig wants to define morality as God's commands, it's not like atheists can argue. It's just a definition of a word that atheists think is a spook.

I know about the dilemma, I was just confused because Craig seemed to be arguing for both whenever it suited him (ie, Objective morality exists and consequently proves God's existence, and "God did this awful thing in the OT because he makes it holy")

It's really a moral blackmail trick because society hasn't caught up with the actual implications of atheism. So everyone wants to be able to say "sure objective morality exists!" but of course they don't really think that anymore. They just live in a nice society and they're too meek to cause trouble. They don't think about morals at all.

In fact almost every successful modern TV show is about making morality relative to the characters.

Perhaps he's implying that he's got a solution to the dilemma? God is essentially good and good is essentially god, you can't place a hierarchy to them because they aren't separate.

Such duality is awfully difficult to reason with.

>since atheists are very likely to deny objective morality nowadays.

Yes, and you know why?

Because "objective morality" is almost always a euphemism for divine command theory, and if you don't believe in God, divine command theory doesn't hold alot persuasive power does it?

That does not mean however, that atheists do not subscribe to some kind of moral realism.

>some kind of moral realism.
But that amounts to moral nihilism anyway. Because there are all sorts of clever moral realist accounts, and no way to choose between them. Hey, why not make your own if you're clever enough? All of them are unintuitive in their own way, but who cares? Intuitions aren't the point.

Deciding what rules to live by isn't any different than doing whatever you like. It's just more systematic.

Everyone decides what moral rules they live by you moron.

Even religious people.

Have you seen many Quakers or Jews stone people to death lately? No you haven't, because even though that is a proscribed sentence for numerous crimes in the Bible, both Jews and Quakers live in the 21st century, and have morals framed by our society, whether they like it or not.

You're just noticing that most people are horribly confused. That's an interesting fact of human psychology, but it doesn't change the fundamentals.

But the only difference between the competing human morality systems and the one espoused by Craig's apologism for the OT is that God tortures you if you don't comply. Aside from the massive problems this would create for the "loving God" persona modern Christians emulate, if God can just change morality so radically that killing children can be considered okay, whenever he feels like it, then morality has as much depth under God than under man.

I find it darkly humerous that even in the Bible belt, if a guy said, "I murdered my kid because God told me too in my prayers," not one Christian anywhere would defend it or believe it, but they'd gladly excuse the same thing happening in the Bible.

What's your point?

So, religious people who don't ascribe to the biblical morality are confused, but atheists must necessarily be moral nihilists?

Stop shitposting pls.

>But the only difference between the competing human morality systems and the one espoused by Craig's apologism for the OT is that God tortures you if you don't comply.
Exactly. I know it sounds very cynical, but that actually is the key feature that makes morality worth a damn.

Moral good needs to be delayed personal good. Otherwise it's just nonsense.

You don't need to believe in an afterlife to have this sort of view, by the way. For example a lot of Ancient Greeks thought that there was a deep sense of satisfaction that only resulted from behaving morally.

>So, religious people who don't ascribe to the biblical morality are confused, but atheists must necessarily be moral nihilists?
Which one is false? They're both obvious to me. Except replace "religious" with "Christian".

>Moral good needs to be delayed personal good. Otherwise it's just nonsense.

What? Say I help build a village in Africa with my own money. It costs me a lot, financially and health-wise, and the villagers are much too poor to give me anything in return, so the only thing I get is the feeling of satisfaction in building it. I've sacrificed my own selfish desires to help people who had nothing. Why do I need to go to heaven for it to be worthwhile. Is it not even more moral that I did this for the satisfaction of helping other, rather than to gain some future reward?

Morality is worth it because of the warm glow effect and the betterment of the human collective, which is what our biology is hard-wired to do, promote our own species. Being altruistic ensures that society continues to operate, and you can consequently feel safer. You don't need the carrot and stick of divine intrigue dangling in front of you for it to have meaning.

There are plenty of religious people who subscribed to divine command theory(Craig for one), and there are plenty of atheists who are moral realists.

So, you're just wrong in your thesis.

>the satisfaction of helping other
See? Morality is enlightened hedonism. Which is why I don't get why atheists make fun of reward afterlives. It's the same thing.

>Morality is worth it because of the warm glow effect and the betterment of the human collective
Sounds great!
>which is what our biology is hard-wired to do, promote our own species.
What the fuck?

Naturalism is despair. You have to rationalise your decisions by referring to what type of robot you are. Which means you had no "reason" at all.

>Which is why I don't get why atheists make fun of reward afterlives.

Because reward afterlives aren't just simply that.

It's usually "Do X(Which might include murdering infidels, or heretics, or burning witches at the stake, or pay a small fee for absolution) and you'll get eternal life in heaven."

A belief in an afterlife itself might be a benign belief, but it's usually not so simple as that, because it's couched in all the mythology that is flat out ridiculous and can harm people.

The warm glow effect has deeper meaning than temporary hedonism. It unlocks deeper satisfaction than the quick blasts of sex and drugs, and it of course helps others. For all the praise Christians heap on altruism, listen how shocked they get when they discuss the idea of no heaven or hell being a gateway to mass disorder, because they cannot see a way for people to behave in a friendly fashion without divine judgement to threaten anyone.

Heaven as described by the Bible is a batshit system for dozens of reasons, of which I'll name three:

1) The reward system is fucked to begin with. If only good people go to heaven, as the NT repeatedly says, those who are good to other people, then heaven would by extension be another hell, since they would know that their family and friends are being mercilessly tortured and there's nothing they could do. Is God going to wipe our minds Earth Kingdom style to deal with it? How is he dealing with the fact his entire creation is permanently fucked due to Satan's trolling, and he apparently couldn't stop it? For a guy who used the Good Shepherd parable, he sure doesn't care about most of his flock.

2) What the fuck are you meant to do in heaven after a few trillion years? Are we still going to sing the Lord's Psalm? Is God ever going to get bored of everyone babbling about how great he is?

3) The geography. Why would heaven even be a place of "mansions" to begin with? Why is the size of heaven so small according to Revelations, when even the most pessimistic views of salvation would mean that it's going to get pretty damned crowded? Would God have a visual form? The Bible does say he has a face. Why would a spaceless, timeless God have a visual form?

This is even before you get into the moral absurdities of eternal damnation.

>What the fuck?
There's a lot of evidence that humans are hard-wired for certain altruistic behaviors in the same way, for example, that we are hard-wired to recognize faces and facial patterns. Humans are extremely social animals.

>Naturalism is despair
Speak for yourself.

>listen how shocked they get when they discuss the idea of no heaven or hell being a gateway to mass disorder, because they cannot see a way for people to behave in a friendly fashion without divine judgement to threaten anyone
Again, religious people are actually being more realistic here. Even if you don't believe in any particular religion, you have to ask yourself why this came about.

It's obvious: psychopaths are naturally occurring events. You can't get rid of them. There will always be people who are only affected by pain and pleasure.

>There's a lot of evidence that humans are hard-wired for certain altruistic behaviors in the same way, for example, that we are hard-wired to recognize faces and facial patterns. Humans are extremely social animals.
Yes, I get the theory. What I'm saying is, when you refer to your physical substance as the reason you did something, you are saying that you are an absurd marionette.

If someone said "I did X because I was possessed by a demon", would you give them credit for doing X?

Well you believe you are always possessed by the demon of physics. You're just observing, not acting.

>delayed personal good
>you can consequently feel safer

What is the problem?

I know that there is no objective reason to anything, but I see the societal benefit in altruism, and consequently structure my life to accommodate it because it is in my best interest in the long run, as well as leaving a fair compensation in terms of initial satisfaction.

I know it's not perfect, but I don't claim it to be, unlike the religious.

>Well you believe you are always possessed by the demon of physics. You're just observing, not acting.
I don't believe we have free will, no. Too many lines of thinking in physics and biology just don't mesh with the idea of free will. I wish we did but I just can't reconcile the idea with physics.

Rene Girard did it better.

1. Civilization/Culture begins when people team up against a scapegoat
2. This creates a sense of unified culture (ie myth)
3. Culture wants to kill the scapegoat/get rid of it. Scapegoat is guilty.
4. Culture says this is important and "God wills it!"
5. Scapegoat is killed, life goes on.
6. Culture thinks "God approves." This violence is sacred. The scapegoat was guilty. The myth is good.

Now, Jesus comes along

1. Culture begins again against Jesus
2. "Kill Jesus, God wills it!"
3. Scapegoat is killed...life goes on. He was guilty
4. But wait! Jesus is still here. WTF!
5. Jesus is more present than ever before
6. People see that Jesus was completely innocent and did not deserve crucifixion.

The scapegoat mechanism breaks down with Jesus. It made Jesus innocent, not guilty. It wasn't a made-up myth. It was God saying THIS person is innocent. God used the scapegoat mechanism in order to prove that Jesus was not a myth made by man. Jesus literally transcends man-made culture.

God deceived satan with the Cross.

I was talking about the big picture of societies.

In terms of giving money to a beggar in another city, or planting a tree in your old age you won't ever see an objective benefit to it, but you do it anyway because it's just gives you a warm feeling.

All actions come down to some form of self-interest, but while an atheist goes in to a moral action often with no anticipation of a reward, the Christian goes into every moral situation thinking of the reward.

>I wish we did but I just can't reconcile the idea with physics.
I think it goes deeper. I don't think you CAN believe that you don't have free will.

Alvin Plantinga has some good points in this area. There are things that we can't actually believe, even though they might be true. We are restricted by what sort of thing we are.

The point is, current physical theories of you COULD be wrong. You're not backed into an existential corner yet. So don't believe it! Why believe what you can't believe?

fake constantine

are you Christian, my man?

Psychopaths are usually mentally ill, and only cover a few percentage points of the population.

In terms of general societies, places like Japan have some of the lowest crime rates on earth, despite being an almost entirely secular society. Even during the Tsunami, people refused to loot their fellows and risked starvation because of it. If a cyclone hit the Bible Belt, you'd see mass looting everywhere, despite the effects of Christianity being everywhere. Places like Japan, with incredibly low crime rates and other anti-social behaviour are the definitive proof that first world secular societies with no Christian influence are not only equally as "moral" as Christian ones, but in many cases, they are far more altruistic.

> first world secular societies with no Christian influence are not only equally as "moral" as Christian ones, but in many cases, they are far more altruistic
Yes, but with this proviso: they are weak. Outside forces that believe in an Ultimate will destroy them.

Ignore the red herring hagues and atheists. Christianity and islam have no moral system* and is therefore not a theology, just a warmachine. To the converse, Judaism has pentateuch*. Christhammled is merely chucky kreuger.

Religion is not the only force that can motivate people. If that was the case, the Papal state would never have been annexed to a unified Italy. Think of that; a virtually entirely Catholic country was willing to take up arms to invade a country ran by the man they thought God's representative on earth simply because the King told them to. Religion is just one motivator.