On the Origin of Morality: The Sam Harris v Wm Lane Craig debate pt 2

reply to post by ghostfacekilah00

For example, he says that Christians believe that all non-Christians are bound for Hell, that Hell is a place where you are eternally tortured in fire,

Most of the Christians I talk to aren't really clear on that either. Some say one thing, some say another. I guess that isn't the atheists' fault, is it?

that God is responsible for tragedies caused by men who have free will

Are you saying he doesn't know what is going to happen with what he gives those men? Are you saying he doesn't know what they are going to do? Are you saying he doesn't know their secret thoughts and secret deeds? Are you saying, in short, that God isn't omniscient?

that true followers of Christ are not called to love everyone including their enemies,

The Bible says a lot of things about unbelievers and harlots and blasphemers, not all of it nice and compassionate.

that the Catholic Church killed people for reasons other than heresy or just war,

Anyone care to correct him on this?

that the papacy approved of executing all heretics,

en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by wildtimes


Well, like I said, it's been a long time since I watched it, and I can't watch videos during the day, so I can't give you any specifics, but this guy's analysis of the debate is pretty much what I remember it being.

What in the world is going on here? I checked my computer to see if this was still the same debate and I hadn’t accidentally switched over to watching a debate on whether the biblical God is awful or not, but no, this was still, supposedly, a debate on whether or not God is required for there to be objective moral duty. But try as I might, I couldn’t detect even a trace of that subject in Harris’s comments, and they certainly did not seemed designed to rebut what Dr Craig had said. As I listened back to the debate for a second time, it really did seem to me as though Harris had taken no notes (mental or otherwise) of the arguments that Craig had used, and had just been banking on the fact that he could reach into a bag of old rhetorical zingers, throw them out there and just hope that nobody would really notice the difference between this and an actual rebuttal.

Where was Harris’s attempt to address what Craig said about the gap between scientific facts and values? What did he have to offer in response to Craig’s charge that he had just re-defined the word “good”? What of the charge that Harris falls afoul of the principle of “ought implies can”? What about Craig’s argument that the property of maximising the well-being of conscious creatures is not identical with the property of moral goodness? Amazingly, Harris chose not to address any of these central issues raised in the debate at all! It’s not that he offered a feeble or easily dismissed reply on these subjects. He simply offered nothing – not a word – on the issues at stake, and resorted to criticisms of Christian theology, begging the listener to think of the children.(Source)

The subject of the debate was whether God was necessary for morality, not whether Christianity was a good religion or not, so anything that Harris put forth on that end is irrelevant for the debate, and as a judge, I would disregard it all.

Again, the winner of a debate is the person who debates better, they're not necessarily "right" -- I've won debates where my perspective was weak, even something I disagreed with, personally, but by couching the discussion in a certain way, or by using a certain point, I easily bested my opponent.

reply to post by adjensen

Again, the winner of a debate is the person who debates better, they're not necessarily "right" -- I've won debates where my perspective was weak, even something I disagreed with, personally, but by couching the discussion in a certain way, or by using a certain point, I easily bested my opponent.

Ah!!! Interesting, again.

Yeah, Craig mentioned lots of 'debate' terms, like 'ontology' and 'epistemology' and 'red herrings', and so on.

But all of that "rhetorical language" does NOT negate the point the opponent is making.

Are you conceding that Craig won it 'on technicalities' rather than on premise???
Harris's explanation and rebuttals made perfect sense to me.

reply to post by adjensen

The subject of the debate was whether God was necessary for morality, not whether Christianity was a good religion or not, so anything that Harris put forth on that end is irrelevant for the debate, and as a judge, I would disregard it all.

I feel it is relevant to the extent that it is shown to be a productive means of achieving a particular end. For instance, arguing about whether a car is better than, say, a bicycle is a means of demonstrating the necessity for motorized vehicles.

AfterInfinity
reply to post by ghostfacekilah00

 

For example, he says that Christians believe that all non-Christians are bound for Hell, that Hell is a place where you are eternally tortured in fire,

Most of the Christians I talk to aren't really clear on that either. Some say one thing, some say another. I guess that isn't the atheists' fault, is it?

that God is responsible for tragedies caused by men who have free will

Are you saying he doesn't know what is going to happen with what he gives those men? Are you saying he doesn't know what they are going to do? Are you saying he doesn't know their secret thoughts and secret deeds? Are you saying, in short, that God isn't omniscient?

that true followers of Christ are not called to love everyone including their enemies,

The Bible says a lot of things about unbelievers and harlots and blasphemers, not all of it nice and compassionate.

that the Catholic Church killed people for reasons other than heresy or just war,

Anyone care to correct him on this?

that the papacy approved of executing all heretics,

en.wikipedia.org...

edit on 4-12-2013 by AfterInfinity because: (no reason given)

AI, much of Christian doctrine about hell came from Dante's Inferno, and Dante sure threw a lot of fellow Christians into the seven levels, with priests at the very lowest level.

But it's like anything that arises from mob mentality, once a group is convinced against a person, then the group starts looking for anything in anyone that they don't like. That's what happens, even with atheists. It's called mob mentality. You don't like all atheists lumped together, so it's only right to not lump all Christians together. But even Christians throw other Christians into hell all the time.

I just think some people deserve it because they have been so terribly destructive in their lives, and that goes for whether or not they are religious. But that's just my opinion, because I look at the person before their proclaimed worldview and judge them by their actions. But I'm not putting them into hell because that's not my job, I just think once a person has completely destroyed so much in this life, maybe hell is a just reward. But eating bacon, not eating cows, doing other things like that, what's that got to do with anything? I would hope that people would not use a religion to starve children, that isn't right either.

But if you ask me about who should go to hell, only people who have been so completely destructive in their lives that there is no fix in this life for the people they damaged completely. That may sound very harsh to you, but what do you think, as a caring human being, what a just punishment should be? Maybe we can come to some middle ground about how to deal with members of our society that live like there is no consequence to destroying others. What should we do?

reply to post by WarminIndy


This isn't about my opinion regarding effective punishment of whoever. This is about a debate regard the source of morality as reflects upon theism and atheism.

reply to post by windword


Though shall not kill, steal, lie, covet. Honor your father and mother. The root of immorality? Mkay.

I'm not sure what's the function of these kinds of debats. neither party will know with certainty in this life. the both have faith in what they believe. They both will find out once we die. So anything they say to or against is null and void. It's like to some the nicely cooked medium rare bbq steak is heavenly, to others it's a rotting piece of meat full of worms that they wouldn't eat even if they were starving. Also that's what's suppose to make for a free country, diversity of beliefs and the right to choose what you believe. There's one other aspect to religion which is concerning scripture of being called or chosen. If you're not chosen, I think you'll pretty much always be trapped in disbelief. Or think that there not trapped but rather that's the superior and more evolved way of thinking about life. I just think it's a pointless debate. Because no conclusions will ever come out of it. if anything probably only just make the people on both ends more entrenched in there ways of thinking. Life is a paradox, I can't be a christian unless you're an atheist and visa versa. You can't know what hot is unless there's cold. But I still think "YOU'RE WRONG!" because you are. So there, nahh naah naaahh booo booo you're a dumb atheist!!

reply to post by wildtimes

Are you conceding that Craig won it 'on technicalities' rather than on premise??? Harris's explanation and rebuttals made perfect sense to me.

Again, you need to recognize that debates are formal contests, with rules, methodologies and proper evaluations. Craig didn't win "on technicalities", he won because he is someone who knows how to debate, while Harris is a lecturer, who knows how to lecture.

When your opponent puts forth an argument, you have to respond to it, at least in passing, otherwise you are in danger of being seen as conceding the point. When the debate has a set subject, anything that you put forth that doesn't address that subject can be disregarded by the judges, because it's irrelevant. Most of Harris' points outside of his opening statement had nothing to do with whether God is required for morality, so, as a judge, I'd have thrown the majority of his points right out.

If one evaluates the debate as one on whether God is required for morality, recognizes the fact that anything which doesn't speak to that point is irrelevant, and penalizes Harris for not responding to Craig's claims, the obvious conclusion is (whether you agree with him or not) that Craig clearly won the contest.

wildtimes
reply to post by ghostfacekilah00

 

For example, he says that Christians believe that all non-Christians are bound for Hell, that Hell is a place where you are eternally tortured in fire, that God is responsible for tragedies caused by men who have free will, that the beautiful and diverse world we call home is somehow a terrible place because there are occasional natural disasters, that God killed righteous people, that God destroyed cities without warning them through prophets and giving them a chance at repentance, that true followers of Christ are not called to love everyone including their enemies, that the Catholic Church killed people for reasons other than heresyor just war, that the papacy approved of executing heretics, etc. He is ignorant and often just wrong.

It took me 3 times to read this to get your meaning, but I'm still not sure I really do.

Are you saying that Harris says that "Christians believe all those things"? Or that Harris does??

I think you mean that he says that all Christians believe that..... (starting with 'all non-Christians are bound for hell, and then continuing on)

Is that correct?

So, have you seen the debate, then? Or read either of their books? What did Craig say that is considered by some to be a 'slam-dunk'?

I meant that Harris says that that's what Christians believe, which is not true. I did not watch the debate, but I have watched a lot of Sam Harris talking about the moral wrongs of Christianity and seen some of his debates. Christians do not believe that all non-Christians go to Hell. Christians believe that children who haven't reached the age of reason don't go to Hell. Christians believe that those who have never been properly introduced to the Gospel can still go to Heaven because God's laws are written on our hearts, so they are judged by what they thought to be good and just in their life.

According to Church teaching, if the person in question, through no fault of their own, “does not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church” but even so “seeks God with a sincere heart, and is moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they see it” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, #847).

Satan is eventually destroyed according to the book of Revelation, as are those who go to Hell because of the sin that separates them from their creator in what the Bible refers to countless times as the "second death." "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." Key word: death. It doesn't say that the wages of sin is eternal torture in fire, that's Dante's inferno. Don't take what people say as Gospel, even those who claim to be true Christians with complete knowledge of the Bible. We are all imperfect sinners. The only divine authority is God (this includes Jesus) and the Bible, and you should seek out answers from those sources for yourself. At least this is what the vast majority of Christians believe.

Read more: rcspiritualdirection.com...

reply to post by AfterInfinity

I feel it is relevant to the extent that it is shown to be a productive means of achieving a particular end. For instance, arguing about whether a car is better than, say, a bicycle is a means of demonstrating the necessity for motorized vehicles.

What?

The subject of the debate was whether God was required for morality. It was not whether God exists, or whether the Christian God was the true God, or whether Christianity was better than another religion, or anything else. Harris' points regarding Christianity were as relevant as me talking about whether I like grapes in your "car versus bike" debate.

reply to post by wildtimes


I'm sorry, but I don't see Craig winning this debate at all. His claim is that because God, objective morality exists. Harris agrees that objective morality exists, but qualifies his assertion by saying that it exists in the mind. He likens object morality to best way to avoid the worst scenario.

Craig says that we know God and his essence of love and mercy and goodness because of his commandments, through which, God's morality is dispensed to us. Then he goes on to say that one doesn't have to believe in the biblical god to have this standard belief in objective morality being grounded in a god. So, he fails to to prove his point, that God is the basis for objective morality, because he has failed to present God's (divine) commandments for us to examine, to see if his claims are true, and that God's (divine) commandments reveal God to be loving, generous and good and that his morality is objective and good.

Where is the evidence of God's (divine) commandments? Where is the evidence of God's morality or that it is loving, good and generous? How can we compare our morality with God's morality is there is no evidence of God's morality.

Okay, now I'll watch the final arguments.

ghostfacekilah00
reply to post by windword

 

Though shall not kill, steal, lie, covet. Honor your father and mother. The root of immorality? Mkay.

reply to post by windword

I'm sorry, but I don't see Craig winning this debate at all.

Again, if I was judging it as a debate Craig wins it on points, hands down. As a judge, the hardest aspect is that you need to divorce yourself from the issue, because you don't give someone the win because you agree with them, you give them the win because they presented their case and rebutted their opponent's case better. In judging in the ATS Debate Forum, I've had to award the win to people I absolutely disagreed with, and could have torn apart their arguments if I was in the debate, but because their opponent didn't do that, they lost.

And, in this case, Harris did not do sufficient damage to Craig's points for an unbiased judge to deem him the winner.

Harris agrees that objective morality exists, but qualifies his assertion by saying that it exists in the mind. He likens object morality to best way to avoid the worst scenario.

Relying on memory here, but as I recall Harris' basis there was that objective morality was about abject misery and wanting to avoid that? Unfortunately, "abject misery" is a subjective thing -- what one person deems misery might be embraced by someone else, so that argument cannot be the basis for objective morality. People like Harris need objective morality as a basis for their arguments in other areas (such as the problem of evil or, in Harris' case, declaring some people and ideologies worse than others,) but they can't rely on God for it, so they flounder around with stuff like that. The more honest approach would be to accept subjective morality and just deal with the baggage that brings along.

reply to post by adjensen

Again, if I was judging it as a debate Craig wins it on points, hands down.

I disagree. I think that Craig failed to prove his points. He claimed that objective morality exists because of a god, while Harris claimed that objective morality exists in the mind. Harris proved his point.

Craig claims that there is no objective morality without God. He failed to prove that point. Harris proved that biblical morality is no better than Craig's definition of atheistic morality. Craig could only counter that claim with advice to read other people's books and with mockery.

Craig claimed that God is just, generous, loving and kind. He proved no such thing. He claimed that there is a divine command, but failed to present it.

Craig could not prove that god is, in fact, kind and moral, or that god was not evil, or that there weren't many different gods. Harris proved that Craig's god, and his morality, exists in Craigs mind. He also proved that Craig's morality was not objective, but subjective.

The only debate judges that could rule on behalf of Craig's argument are one's who were dazzled with his intellectual dishonesty, arrogant mockery and the many red herrings he dragged through the debate.

reply to post by windword


Well, I suppose it should come as no surprise that you're as stubborn on this issue as any other

However, watch the Craig/Hitchens debate... if you don't agree that Hitch made a fool of himself, case closed as to whether you're an unbiased judge.

reply to post by adjensen


I remember watching that debate. It was disappointing to see Hitchens give up on rebutting some of Craig's most arrogant, absurd and intellectually dishonest claims, but to be fair, he didn't look well. He looked like he was fighting bouts of nausea, dizziness and cold or hot sweats.

Many of Craig's tactics involve sending his opponents down some absurd rabbit hole of conjecture and assumption on Craig's part. He intends for his opponents to waste their precious time rebutting silly stuff, instead of presenting their own case. I think that they should get extra points for ignoring unsubstantiated facts as valid points in a debate, personally.

reply to post by wildtimes


Seems that the debate is between someone who has close ties to ape people with bad teeth and lots of hair and someone society might be considered more refined and who uses a different form of rhetoric .

Harris uses visual's from the Biblical stories of war ,genocide and other pictures without looking at the context in which the occurred . I dont know of anyone who hasn't been bothered about them until they have dug into it deeper so his presentation doesn't really address the questions without framing them in the hear and now but reverts back to a time when, he says we were crawling out of some primordial slime.

Harris says imagine a world in the worst possible scenario of suffering ..seems like he can only win his point if we imagine something that all though we can see now ,we can also see good as well in the now . Harris is using logical fallacies to try and make his point at 41:30 when he quotes Craig saying one thing in one context and than goes on to agree with him ..He seems to agree when he doesn't and then disagrees when he does .A very hard person to listen to and follow ...honestly op I am almost sorry I am taking the time to watch this debate ...

Harris seems to define good health with longevity when in actually there are healthy people dying and people that suffer ill health so its logical fallacies he uses to try and make his points or so it would seem from what I am hearing . I would think that someone who has incorporated vomiting into their daily life may have some underpinning to it but not for Harris . He appeals to evidence and logic but we know that sometimes we can misinterpret the evidence and twist the logic so ..just saying

I have to admit that Craig is a mental giant compared to me but I do take some solace in that I can pick up on some of the nuances use by Harris that Craig brought out ...gee I wish I was smarter to absorb some of the higher thinking of Craig .

Harris appeals to imagination and feelings while Craig uses thought and reason ...Craig wins IMO ... Harris is not only a midget in his mind he is wrong in how he judges God and who is going to hell ...God saves the children ...Oh and God takes no pleasure in punishing the wicked so Harris is wrong wrong wrong .

Harris really should have been kept on topic because he does not debate the moral aspect but goes on about the evil that man has committed because of corrupted religion and attributes it to God . eyes that do not see ....Harris's gospel of there is no god will not change the marvelous gospel of Christ ... Harris's analogies are void of reason and he uses ad hominins ....too bad ... Harris is wrong in saying that God is not going to give a sign ...make no mistake when the sign comes it will be too late , but it will come ...

Harris makes a claim that all of the authors knew what they were writing ..All they knew was what God told and showed them .. LOL Harris actually appeals to the lack of production to the discovery channel lol g A stupid question got the best response so far ..none by Craig ..seems that even University students can ask such stupid questions . but hey I guess we have all been there ..
Gee I hope that student learns from Craigs none response . a question about consensus is not a good question within the Christian community because all who cry Lord Lord in that day will be received . Done ...thanks Op S&F ..I sure hope there are some bigger minds to move in and add so I can watch and learn ...be gentle ..peace.

reply to post by the2ofusr1

Harris says imagine a world in the worst possible scenario of suffering ..seems like he can only win his point if we imagine something that all though we can see now ,we can also see good as well in the now . Harris is using logical fallacies to try and make his point at 41:30 when he quotes Craig saying one thing in one context and than goes on to agree with him ..He seems to agree when he doesn't and then disagrees when he does .

Okay. You didn't "grok" Sam Harris' definition of objective morality. How would you define objective morality?

I wonder how much they get paid for putting on this show? 5000 for the 20 minutes maybe 10k? It's just another scam. No wonder the tuition fees are so high. They have to be in order to afford these guys to put on a little show that prove ziltch. Both parties only walk away more entrenched in there beliefs. It proves nothing accomplishes nothing.