Craig’s Classic Crap: Flew v Craig part 2

The whole debate:

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[MoovySoundtrax]

Gotta love the non-argument from experience. I really really really like God exists, therefore God exists.

[JohnDoeSchmoe]

I've never seen a disembodied mind, but there seems to be quite a few mindless bodies walking around out there.

[TheMuffinMasher]

Your channel really needs more attention, your videos are just so damn good. Quick, clear, and cohesive with just a bit of a snarky personality to make them entertaining as well as educational. Keep it up man, you rock.

[puckerings]

Craig asking for proof of an assertion is the most mind-blowingly ironic thing I think I've ever heard.

[FGuilt]

Funny how proof is only acceptable to craig when someone counters him. But his resurrection "hypothesis" is JUUUST fine. double standard little guy?

[ErgoCogita]

I feel all warm and fuzzy, therefore God. Unless it's just the whiskey kicking in...

[FishHeadSalad]

Being how nowhere in recorded history has any woman ever given birth to a bodiless person, I think it is safe to say that the existence of a bodiless person is impossible. It is right up there with the existence of a cordless extension cord.

[indionysus]

Preachers of Atlanta is your advertisement in the beginning!
You always have great points!

[ChipArgyle]

Excerpt from an upcoming Craig speech: "You must also believe the unsupported absurdities I believe because for some reason they make sense to me so they'll make sense to you too, eventually. And if you don't believe them, you'll be tortured forever, once you're dead of course, because a god who loves you more than anything designed this horrifying game for all of us to play. If you're a loving dog owner, imagine setting it on fire because it had difficulty learning a new trick. Same idea."

[TessaBain]

What always gets me when seeing that debate is the beard.

One being on his numpty face drags down the general awesomeness of facial hair as a whole.

[fowlfables]

0:38 "The facts of the empty tomb, the appearances of Jesus, and the origin of the disciples fate are best explained by..." *myth, legend, and fantasy.*

[TheBackwoodLink]

Yeah, and I've got a Leprechaun in my pocket.

[jakubpekarek]

Apologist complaining about insuficient argumentation and lack of proof for assertion? I might laugh and cry at the same time, then go to shout really long into a very fluffy pillow which I might be forced to throw away after that. Flabbergasted.

[willm]

Craig's go-to strategy seems to be shifting the burden of proof.

[pretendigm]

Let me get this straight: Craig is, apparently, very concerned about the fact that Dr. Flew merely ASSERTS that a “bodiless person is impossible” without any proof, yet doesn't seem to have a care in the world when he merely ASSERTS without proof to have had “immediate experience” of God?” Craig complains that, in the absence of any good arguments for atheism, he can't see any reason to deny his “immediate experience, ” yet he doesn't seem willing to grant that Dr. Flew, absent any good arguments for the deity that Craig is promoting, would have no reason to deny his immediate experience that all persons have bodies?

Now what could possibly motivate such an incongruity as this on the part of Craig? Wouldn't a sincere concern for the truth require him to be consistent on the question of whether or not arguing by assertion is logically acceptable? There can be no doubt that consistency on this issue would require him to abandon the whole argument—but then what other more logically acceptable argument could he have failed to offer in its place? I submit that no other would provide him with a more convenient opportunity to shift the burden of proof with the hope of no one noticing!

Equally suspicious is Craig's assertion that this “immediate experience” he speaks of lets him KNOW that God exists, whereas he seems to be denying that one's “immediate experience” that all persons have bodies could never put them in a position to KNOW that bodiless persons can't exist!

Well this gets to the heart of the question of how a burden of proof is established in the first place! If bodiless persons actually exist—and one claims to KNOW that they exist by “immediate experience, ” the controversy could easily be put to rest by simply producing just one example of a bodiless person for observation and critical analysis. However, there seems to be no conceivable way to falsify, with absolute certainty, that a person who claims to be having an “immediate experience” that is in no sense detectable, measurable, or otherwise empirically verifiable is NOT in fact having the experience she claims to be having. In the latter case, therefore, no absolute burden of proof could ever be met! Given THIS particular incongruity, who do you suppose has the PROPER burden of proof in this controversy? Could anyone really answer, with a straight face, that the side of the controversy for which the “meeting of the burden” is practically impossible, be reasonably expected to shoulder the burden of settling the matter once and for all? Would any Christian accept the burden of disproving, one-by-one, every religion or religious sect ever maintained as true by millions of people over time?

Look, let's be real; people don't argue about whether or not persons with bodies exist. The claim is not a controversial one—and no one in their right mind would bother to demand proof for such a thing! However, it is far less clear—even for those who believe in such things—that bodiless persons actually do exist in the same way that anything else exists! (Granted, this observation assumes that Craig is using the term “exist” in a coherent manner rather than an esoteric one that's sole purpose is to obfuscate what is usually meant by the very idea of “existence”).

Craig would apparently like for his audience to believe that Dr. Flew—and those who would agree that bodiless persons don't exist—are begging the question in order to redirect attention from where the real question begging is taking place. Craig is asserting that bodiless persons not only CAN exist but in fact DO exist—and he claims to have immediate experience of this! This debate with the late Dr. Flew took place many years ago: what has Craig done in the time since this debate took place to establish in the slightest that bodiless persons exist? The answer is simple: nothing! Therefore, the “argument” he's put forward here is not only logically flawed but extremely disingenuous! Craig is on record as having stated that in cases where the evidence or arguments seem to point away from his immediate experience of God that he would reject the arguments and evidence a priori in favor of his experience. Thus, he does not honestly seek “good arguments for atheism!” This is just a tired old canard!

Given all of the complaints I've heard from Christians over the years about internet atheists accusing them of being dim-witted and gullible buffoons, it never ceases to amaze that so many would regard the “arguments” of apologists like Craig to confer even the slightest hint of intellectual respectability for their theistic views when these so-called arguments not only assume the stupidity of their intended audience but actually require it!

[PhrontDoor]

I'd also lean more toward the argument that the person needing a body is an analytic proposition.
Once you've taken the body away, what you have is never considered a person. In fact, we consider persons to be human beings. So it clearly can't be a dog, or a fish nor a rock. So it's got to be an animal, a chordate, a mammal, a primate and so on... There are no human beings which are not ALL of those things, by necessity.

[francoislacombe]

Well, Craig's beliefs include the belief that those who don't share them are doomed to an eternity in hell, so of course he'll want to convince others to adopt them.

[SmilingSynic]

WLC was right to call out Flew if Flew indeed said "the notion of a body-less person was impossible."

Flew instead should have said that the burden of proof was on WLC to show that it was possible, not that it was impossible.

[ThePharphis]

This remind me of when WLC (with Ehrman?) tried to use probability calculations in which he did indeed say that the probability of a miracle occurring is no longer zero-ish but extraordinarily high because god can do anything. Of course, that makes his argument quite circular.

[TheRazz]

Craig gets it backwards. I want to see proof of a disembodied mind. That's called shifting the burden of proof and it's a standard ploy of apologetics. Positive claims require positive evidence, remarkable claims require remarkable evidence.