William Lane Craig and Ben Shapiro Claim to Debunk the Top Atheist Arguments

So apparently William Lane Craig has debunked the "top atheist arguments" - or at least that's the case according to the title of a video he made with Ben Shapiro. This, of course, is a pretty wild claim. Not only is the idea of "debunking" arguments for not believing in something kind of weird, but I've really never seen an apologist do anything close to that. So has Craig finally succeeded? Should we all stop not believing in God? Or is this just more of the same basic apologetics nonsense repackaged with a dramatic title?
It's definitely the last one, but watch and see as we break down Craig's and Shapiro's attempt.
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[@Phreemunny]

The best thing about being an atheist is that I don’t ever feel compelled to perform mental gymnastics to justify slavery.

[@irwinshung809]

That's not the best thing, but it is a perk.

[@Viper40758]

Crazy how that isnt the baseline normal

[@shanewilson7994]

It is weird, huh.

[@paulsmart4672]

The great thing about subjective morality in general (as opposed to supposedly objective divine command morality) is you don't find yourself trying to come up with reasons why in this special case an obviously heinous thing is actually good.

[@MrCanis4]

then one of the many best things.

[@When_Prophecy_Fails]

William Lane Craig saying slavery is an anti-poverty program is just incredibly disgusting.

[@Hurricayne92]

Really sounds like he just wants to own people imo.

[@Phreemunny]

“iT’s AlMOsT pReFferAbLe tO wHaT WE hAVe tODaY!!1”

[@dennisduncan7561]

@@Phreemunny Go away spammer.

[@Phreemunny]

@@dennisduncan7561 -I don’t think you got that I was being sarcastic. I was literally quoting Billy Craig from this video

[@dennisduncan7561]

@@Phreemunny Oh. My mistake.

[@marshallleevalentine]

For a guy who believes “Facts don’t care about your feels,” Ben sure seems to want facts to care about his feelings.

[@paulsmart4672]

I think he just keeps saying it wrong and what he actually means is "My feelingsndon't care about the facts."

[@wiwaxiasilver827]

@@paulsmart4672 He’s just a rapper, honestly.

[@bensalemi7783]

Ah, see, you are missing the hidden emphasis. “Facts don’t care about YOUR feelings” -Ben “my feelings are special” Shapiro

[@zephaniahgreenwell8151]

He said facts don't care about YOUR feelings. Facts do care how Ben feels... obviously.

[@RedAngelSophia]

Yeah - he coined the phrase, but never followed it.

[@FrikInCasualMode]

What the hell? The only way to "debunk" atheism, is to prove that God exists. Good luck with that.

[@AndyCampbellMusic]

🤣😂😅 Sadly, they are going to keep trying....

[@hothog8261]

Great line, Frick

[@FrikInCasualMode]

@@hothog8261 Feel free to use it on every obnoxious apologist blathering at you.

[@tabularasa0606]

They first have to come up with a proper description of what a god specifically is. How one can classify something as being a god and not just some very sophisticated being. I've been asking for that for years and still haven't had a satisfactory answer. How does one test a being to determine if it's a god or not?

[@piercemchugh4509]

I'm so proud of this community. T_-

[@donsample1002]

Even if you accept his “Biblical slavery was just indentured servitude” argument, the treatment of your indentured servants condoned in the bible isn’t even allowed against animals in civilized countries.

[@Phreemunny]

“iT’S aLMosT prEFerABLe to whaT We hAVe tOdAy!!1”

[@dross4207]

@@Phreemunny ...What do we have today?

[@lucasmyers7048]

@@Phreemunny Or as Rosaria Butterfield has said, “That’s what I call a graduate assistant.” 🤦‍♂️

[@Zift_Ylrhavic_Resfear]

@@dross4207 I'm guessing he was talking about the US prison system. They had the very idiotic idea of making prisons a business, with all the negative consequences you can imagine, and probably even more.

[@pauligrossinoz]

@@dross4207 - in our modern society we cannot severely injure an animal, or a person, and escape any penalty if they just take longer than one day to die. That's how slaves _can_ be treated, without any penalty, according to the text of the Bible, which is horrific. Any person, _such as Craig,_ who finds such treatment of people acceptable is a truly horrific person.

[@andrewpush4961]

In Ben's defense as an almost 40 year old man, he spends a lot of his time arguing with 18 year olds on campus. So he probably doesn't have well thought out views besides talking over someone asking a question.

[@trybunt]

I think its more that basic surface level answers are all most people want to affirm their beliefs. It doesn't matter how poor the argument is, as long as there's an argument, it's considered answered in many people's minds

[@angelikaskoroszyn8495]

Wait, he's almost 40? I've always assumed he's younger. Idk how to feel about it

[@leeshackelford7517]

Per uncle's on my dad's side..and aunts on my mom's side: At 4 months old, my parents broke 3 of my ribs, got me soaking wet, then put me under an air conditioner. (Pneumonia induced death being the obvious goal) My grandma came to visit...and rushed me to a hospital. At 6 months old, another attempt at my life....and greenstick fractures in arms and a leg At 8 months old, they conspired to hold me by my ankles and bash my skull in. They succeeded. It took 12 hours to put my skull back together. I was cross-eyed...took 4 operations to move eyes to normal, right eye is a lazy-eye (not used if both eyes open), left eye prescription is 750.....and it went from 725 to 750 in the last 6 years (I used to have a pair of 20 year old glasses with the same perscription as new glasses), I have nerve problems down my entire right side. Everything will be good for weeks... then...for a second or so, leg just stops functioning and I collapse. The court finally removed me from them. So...about evil being allowed to be done to children....by an omni-god..........a pretty piece-of-shit God if he did exist. But then again, who is surprised by the barbarity of the Christian God? He has raped women marrying their rapist, telling soldiers fighting for him to cut out the babies of pregnant women in the town's that are getting sacked.....and so many other examples. I was a Christian for about 10 years. How did I come to be one? My skull was put back together in Presbyterian Medical Center San Francisco area......my heart was getting weaker...they called in a priest to do some rites over a dying kid, me. My heart stopped for over a minute, before they got it going again...So, my foster parents had me continue as a Christian. I was already starting to disbelieve the BS Yahweh, then I met my father's brother at 9 years old and was told the history of injuries done to me. Another uncle and both aunts later filled in a bit. Oh, petit Mal epileptic seizures were a common thing for about 6 years....and I had to wear full braces on both legs until I was 7.....(the braces you see in Forrest Gump) I'm 56. It took several years of psychiatric care as a child to deal with temper control I've been an atheist since 10, hiking, (yes, leg collapsed a couple times on hikes....I then stand up..tap foot to check if it's ok again, then continue) long-distance cycling, softball....... I don't recommend playing baseball at the hot corner (3rd base) with just one good eye........I decided to stick to softball. So, despite WLC and his BS shit about his BS God........children getting abused is 1) an issue that brings out emotions and 2) inexcusable if said God is an Omni gid A normal life, pretty much. Retired after teaching in Taiwan for24 years

[@Phreemunny]

@@angelikaskoroszyn8495 -IKR? He seems both much younger (in his belligerent egocentrism) and much older (as he’d be exuding much less “get off my lawn” vibes living in a time when “certain people” weren’t allowed entry to country club gold courses.)

[@Phreemunny]

@@leeshackelford7517 -jesus; I am so sorry that happened to you. Billy Craig’s arguments come from a place of immense privilege and a shocking lack of empathy. When you’ve decided to make a living defending the indefensible, you end up saying some pretty egregiously awful shit.

[@donaldnumbskull9745]

The first comment I ever made on a KZbin video was "Defending slavery and homophobia does not debunk atheism." Some things don't change.

[@mracula1667]

My top arguments for atheism. 1) I don’t believe in a god 2) Now leave me alone, I gotta cook dinner for my family.

[@1urie1]

"It's not slavery - it's an anti-poverty system!" -WLC 2020 Now ask me again why I'm atheist.

[@soyevquirsefron990]

If god wanted an anti poverty program, he could have not created the concept of poverty in the first place.

[@THATGuy5654]

Man, it's really hard to find an apologist who's willing to be honest about what The Bible has to say about slavery. It's like they know most of their audience isn't actually going to read The Bible.

[@Callimo]

They don't see themselves in the position of the slave/indentured servant. They see themselves as the master who get free labor from desperate people. I bet dollars to donuts if you asked most apologists if they would be your slave according to Biblical rules, they would absolutely either decline or huff and puff and deflect.

[@antondovydaitis2261]

Also, as has been pointed out numerous times before, there's a world of difference between how Israelites treat other Israelites who are servants, and the how Israelites may treat those from the "nations around you." Any amount of lying and dishonesty is okay if it keeps even a single member of the flock from leaving.

[@trybunt]

Yeah, it's pretty dishonest. They surely know what the bible actually says, but just pretend the parts about actual lifelong slaves taken against their will don't exist.

[@EdwardHowton]

Man, it's -really hard- _outright categorically not possible_ to find an apologist who's -willing to be- honest -about what The Bible has to say about slavery.- Fixed that for you.

[@fred_derf]

You could have stopped at "honest". They know their audience is looking for some justification, any justification, they can use to support the cognitive dissonance that allows them to continue to be christians while still being decent human beings (although some have given up on that last bit).

[@mathiasrryba]

It's hilarious that his objection to gay marriage is to imply that it's objectively morally correct to oppress people based on how they were born and on their actions that have no negative consequences on anyone.

[@markhackett2302]

Also the bible doesn't say anything about God demanding hetero same species marriage. The ORIGINAL plan was Adam picks an animal no gender is mandated. But Adam gets to refuse, and does so. Does so again with Lilith. So God ABSOLUTELY does not demand hetero marriage. The same bit that says it is abominable for a man to sleep with another man as he does a woman doesn't speak of marriage, but is also in the same bit that says you should never shave your beard or wear mixed fabrics, both of which both of these fundies ignored. And not one peep about lesbians or trans (or non binary, et al). Yet here we have these two making up NEW commands "from God".

[@wiwaxiasilver827]

@@markhackett2302 Yeah, I hate the hypocrisy more than their actual positions. Like Orthodox Jews at least make an effort. These slimy cons just pick whatever they see fit and call it god’s will. And they accuse nonbelievers of viewing themselves as gods… I wonder how much self-awareness I have to lack to get to their level.

[@Isaac-ot6jh]

@@markhackett2302 hell the proper translation for the man shall not lie with another man, is actually thou shall not lie with a boy as thou would lie with a women, it’s about pedophilia not homosexuality in general,

[@AbandonedVoid]

@@markhackett2302 Lilith isn't in the Christian Bible. She's a figure of Rabbinical lore. Also, the New Testament supposedly does away with most of the old testament laws, but it still denounces homosexuality, both between men and between women. Romans 1, for instance. Also, Jesus explicitly says that humans were designed to be heterosexual in Matthew 19:4-6. So... yeah, actually, the Bible is pretty homophobic.

[@farrex0]

@@AbandonedVoid The thing about the bible doing away with most old testament laws and basing it on the New Testament... it is quite funny not only because Jesus specifically said the opposite. But because slavery is also condoned in the New Testament. They are just picking and choosing what they like and what they do not like.

[@KaiHenningsen]

As for slavery, the main problem with Craig's hot take is that there were essentially two different forms: for Jews (set free after 7 years), and for non-Jews (cattle slavery very close to what the US had), and that doesn't even begin to talk about how the rules for Jewish women were much worse, and even Jewish men could be tricked into giving up any hope for freedom. And Craig cannot possibly not know that, so what he does here is blatantly lying.

[@Amateur0Visionary]

Heh, I think you probably meant "chattel slavery" there, my friend. Unless you're very concerned about the plight of our bovine brethren :)

[@KaiHenningsen]

@@Amateur0Visionary True, of course.

[@PrometheanRising]

Many scholars now say that the slave codes were performative rather than practiced, and also the ancient Hebrews treated their fellow Hebrew slaves however they wanted. The Bible even mentions them not following the purported rules.

[@BillGarrett]

Craig: "the atheist has to show evil is inconsistent with an all-loving, all-powerful God". The atheist: "do you believe any evil, natural or human, will be in Heaven? If not, why not?"

[@GameTimeWhy]

sorry I'm too stupid to understand this.

[@SC-zq6cu]

@@GameTimeWhy If heaven does have evil then there is no point in calling it heaven and also that kind of heaven does not match what christians call heaven. If heaven does not have evil then it is possible to have a place without evil. Therefore an all loving, all-powerful God can have a place free of all evil and thus there is no reason that God allows earth to not be like that.

[@stylis666]

@@GameTimeWhy It took me some time but I figured it out :) Those are good questions. If evil is consistent with god's nature then it should exist in heaven, if it doesn't it's because evil is inconsistent with an all loving, all powerful god. But there's an easy apologist way around this by just saying we're here in this not-paradise because we're born shit and have to earn our ticket into heaven by accepting the right claims from people that have never been demonstrated to be correct and seem to always rely for 100% on thinking errors and fallacies. Soooooo.... all theistic gods are demonstrably not loving. The problem of evil isn't a problem at all. The gods already fail by requiring belief without evidence and thus encouraging relying on thinking errors and fallacies and encouraging people to normalize it and set it as an example. That's harmful and abusive if done repeatedly, which is what all relgiions and all apologists do.

[@kalords5967]

@@stylis666 No sex in heaven is evil.

[@BillGarrett]

@@GameTimeWhy God's promise of Heaven is a place without suffering or evil. That promise is all that's required to demonstrate God is opposed to those things, which is what Craig is asking atheists to demonstrate.

[@Slum0vsky]

Actually Shapiro's 'philosophy 101' opening quip is a self-own: if one's position gets refuted by the most basic propositions then it's not very impressive...

[@Phreemunny]

He’s either too dumb or to dishonest to realize “atheist arguments” are simply responses to dumb apologetics.

[@paulsmart4672]

Its basically that Shapiro's attempts to have philsophical arguments just result in his opponent trying to teach him philosophy 101... ...a class where you would probably learn better than to think you're gonna beat the problem of evil.

[@Skeptical_Numbat]

The few things more grotesque than seeing _anyone_ argue that slavery wasn't horrific & fundamentally evil.

[@wesleygarvin8513]

The bible also justifies & commands genocide

[@hegyak]

My Top Atheist Argument: "Got anything non-fallacious?" Never hear a "yes."

[@charlidog2]

Hope I can remember that. Great argument.

[@johndemeritt3460]

Somehow, your reply made me think of Monty Python's "Cheese Shop" sketch.

[@unduloid]

@@johndemeritt3460 That sketch created an intense craving for Venezuelan beaver cheese in me. Unfortunately, there is just as much evidence for Venezuelan beaver cheese as there is for the existence of any gods.

[@fred_derf]

@@unduloid, writes _"Unfortunately, there is just as much evidence for Venezuelan beaver cheese as there is for the existence of any gods."_ There's actually a lot more evidence for it then for god -- Venezuela, beavers, and cheese are all things that objectively exist.

[@unduloid]

@@fred_derf I guess you have a point there.

[@stevenduvall2549]

Craig is absolutely lying about slavery in the Bible. The Bible instructed slave owners in how to keep slaves for life and pass them down to their heirs.

[@lnsflare1]

Not to mention that they were allowed to keep foreigners and female Jews as slaves forever as default, and sell their own daughters as permanent sex slaves.

[@TheHookahSmokingCaterpillar]

Apologist - liar??? No way!!!!

[@stevenduvall2549]

@@TheHookahSmokingCaterpillar Haha! Yeah, I know, right???

[@stevenduvall2549]

@@lnsflare1 Very true. We could cite a million terrible things that "God" supported in their holy books.

[@unduloid]

Ah, two intellectual heavyweights ... among toddlers, that is.

[@hegyak]

Did Ben get owned by some Kids?

[@unduloid]

@@hegyak Oh yeah, that happened. I am sure Craig would meet the same fate if confronted with the same crowd.

[@Leith_Crowther]

It’s fallacious to say a claim is wrong because it came from Ben Shapiro or WLC. But, going strictly by relative probabilities, it’s not fallacious to say a claim is PROBABLY wrong because it came from Ben Shapiro or WLC.

[@ThEjOkErIsWiLd00]

If either of them told me "the sky is blue" I'd look out a window just to double-check.

[@optillian4182]

@@ThEjOkErIsWiLd00 I'm a cisgender man, and I might just consider being a woman if Benny boi told me I'm a dude.

[@philpaine3068]

It always boils down to the same thing with Craig ---- "Whatever Comrade Stalin says is right is what must be right, and whatever Comrade Stalin says is wrong is what must be wrong." That's his "objective" morality, which is just about as "objective" as anyone dying of torture and hunger in the Gulag.

[@unduloid]

At least Stalin could be shown to actually exist.

[@tris2141]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't that mean that morality is still subjective, but he is only foolishly calling it objective?

[@philpaine3068]

@@tris2141 He is grossly misunderstanding the term "objective". The word applies to an evaluation, measure or judgment of something. A judgment is "objective" if it is determined by examining the facts of the material world ---- thus being based on material "objects" in reality [that's why the word for it is "object-ive"], and not on someone's mere declaration, opinion, or presumed authority. For example, if I come to the conclusion that water boils at 212 degrees F / 100 degrees C at sea level, because I conducted a series of experiments at sea level to determine its boiling point, using actual water in the actual physical world, then my judgment is "objective" --- it relates to objects in the physical world. It doesn't matter who conducts the experiment, and it doesn't matter who is making the judgment, because it is based on standards in which personal whims and desires are irrelevant. Water boils at 212F no matter what your opinions or desires are, and no matter what ANYONE's opinions and desires are. That's objectivity. If I come to the conclusion that water boils at 87 degrees because my cousin Fred said so and I like my cousin Fred, then that is "subjective". If I say that water boils at whatever temperature Comrade Stalin wants it to boil, then that is "subjective", not "objective". No judgment based on supernatural suppositions is "objective." When a Christian claims that morality consists of whatever a God proclaims, they are not describing an "objective morality" --- that's a SUBJECTIVE morality. It is no different from saying that morality is whatever Fred says it is or whatever Kim Kardashian says is moral, or whatever my dog thinks is moral. Only a moral philosophy grounded in the real, concrete, material world (i.e. one based on actions and their effects in the real world, measured by standards agreed upon in the material world) can be called "objective". Christian "morality" is subjective. There is nothing objective about it. Imagining that there is a supernatural being that declares what is moral or immoral by arbitrary fiat is subjectivity in the extreme. On top of that, since nobody has any way of determining what this supposed supernatural being's arbitrary proclamations actually ARE, (there is nothing but arbitrary subjective opinions about what this God has supposedly decided) then it is subjectivity piled on subjectivity. There is no such thing as "objective morality" in the Christian "world view". Craig's ideas of morality are completely random, arbitrary and subjective.

[@matthewgagnon9426]

Gotta love apologists outright *lying* about how slavery in the bible worked in order to defend it. There's no two ways about it, they're outright lying.

[@dethspud]

"If we need God to be the anchor point for objective moral values..." If morals are objective then they don't need God. If morals are from God then they are subjective by definition. In truth morality is a collective and subjective understanding that evolves and refines itself over time naturally and more to the point does so despite religion not because of religion. It's not an anchor point. It's an anchor around our necks that slows our progress. Great video as usual, Professor!👍

[@Ansatz66]

That makes morality sound like morality is akin to fashion or to art appreciation. It makes it sound like morality is just whatever people happen to like at the time without any necessary connection to anything real. This year long skirts may be fashionable and next year it could be short skirts. This year wide ties and the next year narrow ties. But morality isn't really like that because it is fundamentally about helping or hurting people, and what helps people and what hurts people isn't just a matter of subjective understanding. As biological organisms, we require certain conditions in order to thrive, and those conditions are objectively real and they cannot be changed like fashion changes. Murder will always be bad for us no matter anyone's subjective opinions.

[@christiangreff5764]

I have to debate you on the "morality is an understanding" part. If morality where an "understanding", that would, at least from how I see "understanding", imply that there is something to "discover" about morality aka "there is some independent process by which moral judgement occurs and that can be understood better". But if that where the case, morality would be objective. That is of course only if you are not using "understanding" in the sense of "agreement" between people, in which case I might be doubtfull about using the word "refining" for its process of change but would be on board generally.

[@unduloid]

@@christiangreff5764 It's perfectly valid to seek understanding of subjective positions, so your argument makes no sense.

[@poughkeepsieblue]

Excellent synopsis

[@kurtfrederiksen5538]

Sounds like the Euthyphro Dilemma, which was something going around in Plato's day. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthyphro_dilemma

[@KaiHenningsen]

"... God ... that's his prerogative ..." No, it's not. That presupposes that a God had absolute moral authority, which is typically explained by him creating everything. But we have long decided that creating a living being does not give you absolute authority over it, and I can see no reason why God should be exempt from that rule.

[@bariumselenided5152]

People like him thinking like that on this planet really scares me for any sort of sentient ai that we may ever create. Hopefully we manage to get our ethical ducks in a row before that happens

[@Hurricayne92]

@@bariumselenided5152 I'm more worried about what the A.I will do to the rest of us after its finished with him.

[@anure1134]

@@bariumselenided5152 Ethical! Ducks! In! Row! Sabres! Out! CHAAAARGE!

[@AbandonedVoid]

Morality in the West has often been couched in teleological language. A clock is good at being a clock if it tells the time correctly. Your good leg is the one that you can walk on. And so on. So if mankind was created with a purpose, it likewise would make sense to say that someone is good at being a human if they fulfill that purpose. We already say that good children are the ones who obey their parents, and this is pretty common. Honestly, though, I don't think "moral authority" is a coherent concept to begin with. I think the "is-ought problem" and the "fact-value distinction" prove ethical non-cognitivism. I'm just saying that you're wrong about why WLC is wrong.

[@KaiHenningsen]

@@AbandonedVoid _I'm just saying that you're wrong about why WLC is wrong._ Given that I don't object to anything _else_ you wrote, I don't see how.

[@ZenWithKen]

When you put your ideology ahead of people, you give up your humanity. Shapiro and Craig's chat hurts me to the core.

[@jsnel9185]

This. This. This.

[@Phreemunny]

Shapiro has made it very clear he has very little concern for people, so this tracks

[@paulsmart4672]

I mean... Craig basically said poor people should be enslaved for their own good.

[@martifingers]

As usual Zod does a great job exposing the shallowness and disingenuousness of the arguments. It's hard not to see this as, once again, apologetics being directed at believers especially those with doubts.

[@stevewebber707]

I used to think it odd that a respected apologist would put so much stock and work into that cosmological argument. As time goes on, I've seen WLC a bit more clearly. And that he likes such a superficial and flawed argument, now seems entirely appropriate.

[@paulwettstein7071]

any logical argument for god:(insert favourite myth here) and make claims, without any demonstrable evidence, that it exists.

[@jmg94j]

Watch the debate between Sean Carroll and WLC. Sean Carroll explains how Kalam's Cosmological Argument doesn't even rise up to the level of falsehood, or as he says, "It's not even false", because it uses the wrong vocabulary.

[@chinkasuyaro8983]

I gave you a like. You can't see it because it is both spaceless and timeless.

[@daydreamerX200]

@@jmg94j thank you for new video recommendation.

[@bariumselenided5152]

Craig has said a lot of stupid stuff, but “... a man could retain his self-respect by selling himself ...” has gotta be the stupidest thing I’ve heard him say.

[@FireflyProductions]

It’s Olympic level mental gymnastics.

[@paulsmart4672]

It really was exceptionally vile.

[@naysneedle5707]

Switch the genders and see if he stands by his statement.

[@bariumselenided5152]

@@naysneedle5707 Right? It’s shorthand for prostitution, and setting my opinions on sex work aside, it’s used to signify that someone has hit rock bottom and has nothing left. They’ve run out of options and have to sell their dignity to survive. Yet Craig can let that phrase past his lips and still not notice, or perhaps not care. It’s craziness

[@danielmartin5632]

Great video PoZ but, urgh, these two make my skin crawl.

[@turboguppy3748]

Mine just flat sprints for the horizon and I'm left skinless and gross as their arguments.

[@danielmartin5632]

@@turboguppy3748 😄

[@thoperSought]

11:23 WLC: _"In ancient Israel, there was no social safety net."_ any sane human: if you're god's so loving, and he was telling those people what to do, why *_wasn't_* there a social safety net? 3:50 WLC: _"It's extraordinarily difficult to show that there's any inconsistency or improbability between the existence of an all-powerful, all-loving god, and the evil and suffering in the world."_ good, thanks for that, *_Dr_* Craig.

[@44yvo]

What does that even mean? Whittle all the negations down and it turns out as "God equals evil".

[@TheMilitantMazdakite]

It was still better than the west's global imperialist order today.

[@yadabub]

Craig, "Prove that the invisible pink dragon in my garage doesn't love me." Craig, "Biblical slavery was good, probably even better than today's _lack_ of slavery." Craig, "Gay marriage is bad, because my god(the Bible) says so."

[@markhackett2302]

On the third claim, no such demand from God. Indeed the refusal of Adam for the first two matchups shows it is not a command from God but a command from a Man overriding God, but there's no reason that any other man take Adam's word. Especially since that Adam didn't exist according to Craig's latest book, it was just metaphorical, so "God Says" in that book would not pertain in fact, just metaphorically.

[@dross4207]

@@markhackett2302 metaphorically on demand, I guess?

[@pythondrink]

​@@markhackett2302 Craig believes Adam didn't exist? Isn't that a self-defeating doctrine? If there was no Adam, the concept of the fall of man goes out the window. Btw what is the title of Craig's book you're talking about?

[@martinmckee5333]

I especially liked the point about how Craig approached the justifications of slavery and same-sex marriage. Despite having seen this clip a couple of times now, I had missed this - very obvious in hindsight - view into his bias. Thanks, as always for your well considered thoughts.

[@putzthewondersloth]

""To call that slavery is just a gross misrepresentation." Except, and hear me out, the Bible calls is slavery.

[@grapeshot]

I know he was disingenuous when it came down to the discussion of slavery in the Bible. Of course doing the usual Christian apologetics.

[@antanis]

But it's indentured servitude. That's definitely not the same as chattel slavery. Oh the chattel slavery in literally adjacent verses? We ignore that. That isn't real.

[@JohnSmith-fz1ih]

“Disingenuous” is too kind. Let’s call out what he did - he flat out lied by ignoring the slavery that is expressly sanctioned in the bible. On a question about slavery in the bible he pretended slavery doesn’t exist in the bible. He’s a dishonest liar in defence of his religion.

[@TheMilitantMazdakite]

Again, to all of you, it is still better than what the west does every single day, and while I, as a Zoroastrian, DISPISE Christianity's views on humanity being sinful, we did pass the torch of communism to them, which means that I do have sympathy for them, and will proudly call them COMRADES.

[@KunouNoHana]

I'd love to see Craig have a debate where any time he told a demonstrable falsehood a third party was allowed to step in with a buzzer and cut him off. I'm not sure he'd get 4 words out in sequence.

[@JosephKano]

That would be a debate between Aron Ra and WLC, but WLC refuses to talk to people he feels aren't his 'intellectual equals'. What's the phrase... He's a stuck up p&*g.

[@donnievance1942]

This video ends the question of whether Craig is an honest interlocuter. There's no way that Craig, a highly credentialed academic, doesn't know that the Bible explicitly describes and endorses two forms of slavery, indentured servitude and chattel slavery, and sets out clearly differentiated rules for the two forms. Male Hebrews can only be indentured servants. But everyone else can be bought and sold as chattel slaves. Hebrew men can sell their own daughters into permanent bondage, and the Bible instructs the Israelites to buy chattel slaves from the "heathen" societies around them, and at times commands the Israelites to depredate other peoples and capture them into slavery. The Bible clearly states that these slaves are property, can be bought and sold, and passed down as inherited wealth. They can be beaten to any level of severity short of immediate death, and this is explicitly stated. Many passages in the Bible make it clear that sexual servitude is an understood aspect of this ownership, as when God instructs the Israelites to slaughter whole populations leaving only the virgin girls alive to "keep for yourselves," and the instance in which Abraham's wife Sarah gives him her bondmaid to produce an heir, because she herself has been infertile. Many, many other passages make this sexual slavery aspect clear. There's no way that DOCTOR Craig doesn't know everything I stated above, otherwise he's never read the Bible. So after this he's a proven brazen liar. We should see the intellectual integrity of his whole body of work through this lens. In his defense of the Kalam Cosmological Argument Craig elaborates more than dubious fringe interpretations of General Relativity and insists that the Bord-Guth-Velenkin theorem necessitates the universe having had a "beginning," despite the repudiation of that idea by at least two of the theorem's authors. He misinterprets mathematical concepts of infinity to that same end. We can see now that he probably doesn't even believe this horse$h!t himself. Craig's aims in apologetics are simply to carry his arguments into realms that are too arcane for his audience to follow, where his falsity can not be easily perceived by the the average person. This is sophistry in the worst sense of the term. How is it that a supposed Christian, who believes that lying is forbidden by God, justifies this crap? We see that Craig is not merely wrong, but a bad man.

[@dross4207]

@@donnievance1942 I think that it has to do more with indoctrination than outright lying. They’ve been taught since early childhood that it’s okay to handwave away the parts of reality that don’t match their beliefs, and they’ve been taught to rationalize things that any sane person could not see as rational.

[@Ponera-Sama]

"It's extraordinarily difficult to prove that an all-knowing, timeless being cannot have a justification for allowing evil." Unless you want to claim that this being is also omnipotent. Because no matter what goals it might have that could otherwise require evil to accomplish, an omnipotent being would by definition be able to accomplish them without allowing evil. The very concept of justification only makes sense from the perspective of beings with limited options who are unable to accomplish their goals without undesirable consequences. The only goal an all-powerful entity cannot achieve without allowing evil, is the existence of evil.

[@paulsmart4672]

They always try to kick the omnipotent leg off the tripod when you're not looking.

[@markhackett2302]

@@paulsmart4672 And the only reason they don't kick the omnipresent leg is it is irrelvant to this dilemma, and theyonly keep omnibenevolent because otherwise we have no reason to do as this God says other than "HE WILL SMITE YOU WITH ETERNAL TORTURE!!!!". So they ignore everything other than omnibenevolent, when it is far simpler to remove the tri-omni case from their God claims. But if they remove anything, they admit the Euthypro dilemma. Why should we call it God?

[@Isaac-hm6ih]

Yes. The typical christian god seems to be severely limited and only called omnipotent to glorify the ruler and threaten people with "my god is more dangerous than yours". He's constantly making mistakes and failing to do the things he's supposedly trying to do.

[@Satans_lil_helper]

I'm gonna take a shot every time WLC says "ultimate." Wish me luck.

[@unduloid]

Stop! You're too young to die!

[@kathryngeeslin9509]

Don't! It's suicide!

[@TheHookahSmokingCaterpillar]

Are they pumping your stomach yet???

[@Johnboy33545]

3 hours, are you still upright?

[@Szadek23]

RIP

[@moodyrick8503]

*If Craig ever ends up in extreme suffering & agony, I hope those around him tell him to, "deal with it intellectually".*

[@jon66097]

If he ends up poor, he should do 'indentured servitude" like in the bible. No welfare benefits, he said at 12:39 that welfare is bad.

[@moodyrick8503]

@@jon66097 Indeed. _God just gets the "automatic" benefit of the doubt._ (mindless)

[@faelheavymetal]

Ben Shapiro wouldn't debunk anything even if his life depends on it.

[@Leith_Crowther]

Ben Shapiro has debunked the idea that every human named Ben Shapiro is honest and good.

[@optillian4182]

His existence debunks intelligent design.

[@Seapatico]

I totally agree with you about all of this except one thing: People who are into Rubik's cubes do NOT solve them dispassionately. You ever see those competitions!? They go bananas!

[@Szadek23]

Rubik's cubes are all about learning the Algorisms

[@lnsflare1]

I mean, Yahweh was pretty clearly the villain of the Bible in every major story, so the Problem of Evil isn't really relevant if you factor in that he was lying every time he said that he is good, especially since he has shown as explicitly lying repeatedly in the Bible. It's entirely in character for Yahweh to allow childhood cancer because the majority of his depictions make him out to be the kind of person who probably needs at least that kind of thing to get hard anymore.

[@mostlyholy6301]

The Bible makes perfect sense if you read Yahweh as one of those trickster demons who mislead people into worshipping them. That or if you accept all the monotheism and omnipotence are very late additions to an originally fully pagan and polytheistic Bible.

[@sentientbean7695]

While I agree, it can be said that since God is all loving and all good everything he does is by extension also good. The Bible morality is based on whatever God does being considered good. So in a way all the evil acts for Christians are done with a good reason since God cannot by its very nature be evil.

[@lnsflare1]

@@mostlyholy6301 I mean, he explicitly does all the things that they blame on Satan (who was only ever depicted as a member of Yahweh's Court in good standing in the Old Testament), like being the origin of Evil, controlling lying and evil spirits, sending false prophecies, mind controlling people to disobey Yahweh and his people (to give himself and his people an excuse to commit genocide on people who would otherwise have given them what they wanted without violence), ordering mass atrocities, commanding animal and human sacrifices, etc...

[@mostlyholy6301]

@@sentientbean7695 If you are going to say that everything God does is good by definition, then we will need another word for those things that seem good to us humans, that excludes God's various murderous and jealous acts.

[@paulwettstein7071]

@@sentientbean7695 so causing the first born of every family, whose doors weren't covered in sheep's blood, to die just because the Pharaoh pissed him off is somehow good? To me it makes this god seem capricious and cruel. Not exactly characteristic of a benign being.

[@adruiddrummer8841]

I never hear this mentioned by counter apologists, but regarding Craig's very first lie about slavery: *I* don't immediately think of historical American slavery when dealing with this topic. *I* think of Israelite slavery. ...Hebrew slavery. ...whatever it was that the bible says they were doing in Egypt before the Exodus. You know, slavery. The Hebrew word for slavery is the same throughout Exodus so whatever they meant by it at the end is what they meant by it at the beginning. If the story is to be believed, these people knew quite well what slavery was and they didn't like it at all. Is the argument supposed to be that the Israelites were just unhappy about the indentured servitude they sold themselves into in Egypt so they ran away? Or were they slaves that escaped? And, yes... I know that the word can be interpreted either way, but if they meant indentured servants at the beginning then why did they make a distinction in chapter 21 saying not to treat other Israelites like slaves when taking them as slaves? Nope. They knew what slavery was. They knew it was toxic and abusive. They escaped from it. And then decided that they were just fine with doing it themselves, but that they would just be nicer to Hebrew slaves than any others. And their god told them that this was perfectly acceptable. At least, that's what's in the story. ...bunch of dishonest apologist assholes! Don't let them get away with claiming that ancient slavery wasn't the same as historical American slavery. It was. As far as I can tell the Hebrews in Exodus were slaves in exactly the same way as slaves in the antebellum South.

[@qcsorter4626]

It's staggering at times how much people like Craig can lie about slavery in the bible.

[@matthewgagnon9426]

"but that they would just be nicer to Hebrew slaves than any others." Nicer to Hebrew *male* slaves. Women and children were permanently slaves without recourse, it was only the unmarried Hebrew men who might be able to go free after seven years. And that's only if they stay single the whole time, or decide they're okay with leaving their wife and children behind as slaves when they go free. And if they decide to stay after that seven years to be with their wife and kids? Permanent slavery for them! No leaving when the wife dies, or the kids reach the age of maturity. If anything the Bible is even more horrific than American slavery because it not only has the slave breeding thing built into it, it also has rules for tricking people into being forever your slave who might otherwise be free.

[@Szadek23]

@@qcsorter4626 It's a stupid red herring argument, but they know their fans won't fact check them. Although it is quite funny when those fans then talk to people that know their shit and get their asses handed to them.

[@unduloid]

You mean, the Hebrew slaves in Egypt that never existed? _Those_ slaves?

[@adruiddrummer8841]

@@qcsorter4626 Yeah. It's bananas!

[@wax99]

"It lays a burden of proof on the shoulders of the atheist which is so heavy that has been proved to be unsustainable". I agree that such a claim is so incredibly heavy that WLC must now resort to shifting the burden of proof. All of a sudden it's not for him to prove, but for us to disprove. I think Ben and WLC are fantastic orators that can get away with a ton fallacies because they know how to exploit the narrative. I'm grateful for videos such as this that can point out the flaws on argumentation.

[@Savannah_Simpson]

Ben Shapiros voice physically hurts to listen to.

[@REAVER117]

"People are objecting to the existence of God because of the seemingly immoral commands found in the Bible." "Well, God said them so they aren't immoral." - Craig God's existence confirmed.

[@findsharon]

I was hoping you'd bring up the 2 kinds of slavery. I couldn't believe it when you said he was lying because I was thinking the exact same thing. Another great dismantling of their apologetics. WLC has reached a new low.

[@jjbradian3834]

Ben has said before that he "feels" he has the true religion. Funny how he doesn't care about facts when it suits him.

[@fmtpulmanns7593]

"The atheist has to show that god doesn't have sufficient reasons." No, you're the one claiming that that god exists and that he (must have) sufficient reasons to allow suffering. The burden of proof to show those reasons (and said god) exist is on you, Craig, not me. You're claiming they exist, not me.

[@anure1134]

He put his foot in his mouth and shot it, there.

[@shanewilson7994]

I find it funny that Craig's argument against slavery back in the day is all about "well they didn't have a social safety net" which is also something that Ben would entirely argue against. On top of all of the horrified stuff that is ignored and the fact that WLC just openly defended slavery is appalling.

[@jon66097]

WLC just condemned a safety net at 12:39, so he actually agrees with Ben.

[@shanewilson7994]

@@jon66097 yeah I caught that later, and then goes on to literally state slavery (or that version of slavery) is better than what we have today. WLC is just despicable.

[@paulsmart4672]

How's it go? "He who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit attrocities." Something like that.

[@庫倫亞利克]

WLC also justified the genocide of Canaanites in an earlier video with "There was no Geneva convention in ancient Israel" and "uh the Canaanites are evil demonspawns so it's not only okay but morally just to wipe them out." When you're that lost you would cheer for literally anything God does as long as it's God who does it, even if it's God doing human barbecue after flaying their backs and rubbing salt on it. Oh wait.

[@donnievance1942]

@@paulsmart4672 Pretty sure those two will be down with the atrocities if our society actually gets to that point.

[@grapeshot]

Well if you're invisible sky wizard is all-powerful then there shouldn't be any evil. Since it had the power to make this world without it. But I know here comes the free will BS. Even though free will is not mentioned in the Bible and invisible sky wizard punished a number of people in the Bible for exercising their god-given free will.

[@TheMilitantMazdakite]

Free will is heavily emphasized in the Avesta, and Zoroastriansim heavily influenced Christianity, hence, where it comes from. Also, in those free will verses, Zoroaster also often goes to to say that, for example, since Ahura Mazda gave us free will, thus everyone should practice their religion freely.

[@garryfounds3737]

Ben is the perfect example of a good speaker masquerading as an intellectual giant. Get past his ability to speak quickly and to use the occasional large word, and there is nothing of value or substance left. Unfortunately, many Christians are fooled by this kind of eloquent foolishness.

[@markhackett2302]

Ben "PWord" Shapiro is a FAST speaker. Not a GOOD one. Also, since they insist that others get to say what gender you are, it is called "Benjamina Sharpie", and we must refer to it as "it", not "Him", because for that person to demand we call it otherwise would be imposition.

[@markhackett2302]

Take a look, see if YOU can see this post: Garry Founds Garry Founds 2 hours ago (edited) Ben is the perfect example of a good speaker masquerading as an intellectual giant. Get past his ability to speak quickly and to use the occasional large word, and there is nothing of value or substance left. Unfortunately, many Christians are fooled by this kind of eloquent foolishness. 2 Mark Hackett Mark Hackett 1 hour ago Ben "PWord" Shapiro is a FAST speaker. Not a GOOD one. Also, since they insist that others get to say what gender you are, it is called "Benjamina Sharpie", and we must refer to it as "it", not "Him", because for that person to demand we call it otherwise would be imposition.

[@SqwarkParrotSpittingFeathers]

I thought this at least might be kind of convincing, but this two intellectuals have fallen way short trying to convince atheists.

[@phillipplays4965]

If you are seeking good arguments don't look at people who take the Bible as the actual word of god. There are arguments that can be made for theism in general that aren't complete garbadge. I don't find them convincing but they aren't as stupid. (Cosmic sceptic often tackels this from an Atheist/agnostic perspective often in debates with more or less reasonable people, I don't know many on the theistik side of things directly but Sean McDowell seems decent)

[@naysneedle5707]

Calling either of these people intellectuals is a stretch in my opinion.

[@Xenophon122088]

Your videos and thought points are solid. Thank you for your continued activism and teaching. I also agree that WLC didn't even attempt to honestly debate the issues. It's also annoying how he trivializes the "problem of evil," as some of the best minds have wrested with that topic, and many people still yearn for a compelling answer.

[@kimmyswan]

How can we know anything about god if it is so “incomprehensible” and beyond our understanding? Christians preach about the goodness of god, the mercy of god and the justness of god - but when it comes to the “inconvenient” actions of god - suddenly it “works in mysterious (aka incomprehensible) ways”.

[@MisterLumpkin]

Craig's argument against the problem of evil boils down to; God has a reason... which is what my mom told me 50 years ago when I was seven and my hamster died.

[@Boris99999]

Kraig actually shot his own foot when he tried to solve “the problem of Evil” by appealing to “God works in mysterious ways!” If we as finite creatures can’t understand all the reasonings behind God’s actions or non-actions then how can we even know if he is omni-benevolent? Let’s take a simpler example: there’s an schizophrenic person right before you, he shows no emotions and is hiding something behind his back. Then the next moment he stabs you with the knife that he was hiding - did he stab you out of good will or because he hates you and wants you dead?

[@naysneedle5707]

Bloody good point. On a related note, it does my head in when they start talking about how God is 'outside time and space'. What does that mean and how the heck did they find out with their puny human brains.

[@Boris99999]

@@naysneedle5707 Yup! At that point I would usually ask the person that mentioned the “outside space and time” thing - what does “existing” mean then? Because for me everything that “exists” does that “in some specific space and some specific time”! Isn’t it equivalent to saying that god never existed and there’s no place where he exists now?

[@FireflyProductions]

Great refutation here, POZ! Love it! I find it utterly predictable that Billiam Craig and Shapiro didn't even bother addressing things like divine hiddenness, or our refutations to fine-tuning, or anything interesting. They just picked two softball questions that were easy for Craig to strawman, and act like he had any compelling rebuttal for. Craig is pretty widely recognized for his intellectual dishonesty though (and Shapiro is too) so I doubt anyone here is surprised. I'd say the only thing that really surprised me was Craig's take that slavery is a better system than government aid. That's a weird fucking flex, Bill.

[@archapmangcmg]

"God has sufficient reasons!" But God's all-powerful. It's RIGHT THERE in the problem, literally. Craig is lying about what that means. It means there's NO reason to allow evil as there's nothing that NEEDS evil because God HAS THE POWER to do it ANY way he wants. Craig's excuse to philosophers boils down to "God isn't all-powerful".

[@goldenalt3166]

If he wants us to love him, he should avoid all appearance of being evil.

[@archapmangcmg]

@@goldenalt3166 Clearly, Shapiro doesn't want us to love him! :D

[@anure1134]

@@archapmangcmg Fine, I don't want to love Shapiro.

[@archapmangcmg]

@@anure1134 No one does!

[@naysneedle5707]

It is clearly possible for him to create a world without suffering because that's what heaven is (supposedly). So I'll never accept the bs about him having good reasons and us just not understanding.

[@IT_217]

Did Craig really just drop in 'God could say not to eat pork' with no push back from Shapiro? Surely there should be some discussion there between them on whether or not God allows eating pork, or does Craig agree on that?

[@paulsmart4672]

Weird. Its like Shapiro is not actually a spiritual person and is just a right-wing propagandist or something.

[@naysneedle5707]

That was a jawdropper for me. Really bizarre moment.

[@grumpylibrarian]

Great analysis of the slavery and homosexuality questions. I'd heard the first part of this before, and Craig is being patently disingenuous on the problem of evil. If a god in this universe exists, it is possible it is a good and loving god who has morally-justifiable reasons for his actions and inactions. But that's not the whole problem of evil. Having a morally sufficient reason for a limited and incomplete solution to the suffering in the universe can only be because it was the best solution one could implement with limited power (a lower-suffering solution was beyond this god's capabilities) and/or limited knowledge (the god would implement a solution with unforeseen consequences, or be too cautious in implementing a solution for fear of stoking unforeseen consequences). If the proposed god is omnipotent and omniscient, then it should be capable of crafting a solution with zero suffering that met its other goals that the god we have must be prioritizing. There is a similar problem; the problem of honesty. If a god has morally sufficient reasons to allow suffering while being omni-benevolent, then it could have morally sufficient reasons to lie. If an omnipotent and omniscient god lied, then we would not be able to verify anything it told us. Therefore, nothing this god is believed to have said can be presumed to be true. As for me, I don't think the argument from evil is sufficient to demonstrate that a god does not exist. I merely presume that there's no reason to believe, biblically or otherwise, that any god is benevolent in any fashion. It would simply have its own agenda that might happen to align with human well-being at times, and be in dire conflict with it at other times. The whole concept of the tri-omni god is not explicitly biblical, and is derived from the ancient Greeks. Objective morality cannot exist, but divine commands might, along with divine punishment for violating those commands. They don't keep me up at night.

[@TheMilitantMazdakite]

No, the idea of a tri-omni God is the product of Zoroastrian influence.

[@mattwhite399]

William is Christian and Ben is Jewish. Let’s have one convince the other that they’re wrong.

[@DoctaOsiris]

You gotta love the arrogance of Apologists, William Lame Craig being one of the most narcissistic and Ben Shapiro being one of the most arrogant, add those volatile things together and this is what you get, shame it's all "arguments" they've had debunked thousands of times before... Also, when will they finally get it into their heads that a terrible "argument" isn't evidence? 🤷

[@IronCladBeliever]

You can’t say god is caring and loving and then make an argument for god being emotionless about the suffering he puts innocent people through.

[@nicolasandre9886]

When I hear dr William Lane Craig talk about slavery, that's when I really wonder what made him gain the reputation of being one of the best christian apologists out there.

[@AbandonedVoid]

Because all of the other apologists are even worse :/

[@nicolasandre9886]

@@AbandonedVoid : fair enough :D

[@trevorjames6185]

The last shred of respect for Craig died with his pro slavery stance.

[@Marniwheeler]

"Well you see, if we just ignore Gods bad traits, he is all good, all knowing, and all powerful. Simples."

[@artimusbranesample9072]

The first thing we learn in the video is that Ben didn't take a philosophy class in college. MY question is, "If God is omnibenevolent, how can suffering and hell exist?"

[@anure1134]

Answer: "He's not omnipotent" or "He's not omniscient".

[@Zahaqiel]

I think William Lane Craig fails on the problem of evil because he has attempted to use a defense that would shift the burden of proof, but that also requires a definitional distinction he doesn't want to make. For God to have "morally sufficient reasons for permitting natural and moral evil in the world", it would require God to consider the method and the outcome to be superior to a universe where those evils did not exist. And for God, as modern Christians describe him anyway, that means _loving_ those methods and that outcome more than the alternative. And herein lies the distinction: an all-loving God is not an omnibenevolent God. An all-loving God must love suffering and what we would call evil equally to goodness, otherwise they are not _all-loving._ The motivations of such a God are inherently suspect because they define their own version of goodness by fiat, not by consistent principle. But WLC doesn't want to ever acknowledge that, so he only alludes to it.

[@stylis666]

The "problem of evil" is also just a red herring. The actual problem is the problem of interpretation. If you and I interpret data differently and come up with different moral ideas for which actions are good or not we can try them and show which is correct, if not both or neither are. If you and I interpret scriptures differently, there is no way to show anyone to be correct or not and since a god's moralilty might seem harmful over hundreds of generations and it might lead to some greater good in a society in some paradise, we would have to accept that any interpretation, including deadly and torturous ones can be correct with no way of knowing if they are or not. Theistic morality is completely useless and dangerous. Secular morality is the only way and even theists who wish to do less harm with their religion inevitably fall back on it to show if their interpretation has any value, but it doesn't. If something works, it just does, regardless if a god came up with it or not. We will still have to test it. It's never gods advice that leads to a working interpretation but always the demonstrable data that leads to retroactive interpretations to say that a god wasn't wrong on the subject. Gods and scriptures are unnecessary for learning what is moral or not. At best it can be used to guide what you're thinking about; inspiration. But it can never teach you something to be moral that you didn't know to be moral - we'll have to do that all by ourselves. I mean, how many christians have you met who said:" I never thought it was morally good to offer my daughters for gang rape to protect to strange men I let into my house, but after reading the bible I changed my mind. Daughters are tools." After all, the whole reason Lot was visited and told to leave was because he was the only moral person in town, so it must be moral and no one can show that interpretation to be wrong.

[@FakingANerve]

The last thing I heard was "Ben Shapiro hosts William Lane Craig." My eardrums did me the courtesy of bursting themselves.

[@blueboi5140]

Man the deep breath after WLC brought up southern slavery got me. Also I guess he's just ignoring Leviticus 25:44-46.

[@kevinhengehold4387]

I had to rewind on the first argument to make sure I heard it right. Proving god exists by assuming god exists and then asserting that because you don't know the mind of god that you can't prove the evil isn't justified is a bad argument for like, five reasons at least.

[@Xbob42]

I got this question into my head about a week ago and I just can't reconcile it anymore: What the hell is the point of "objective morality" in a religion whose only rewards and punishments are doled out based on, and I quote this from Catholic dotcom's "how to go to heaven" article: "To come to God and be saved, you need to repent, have faith, and be baptized. If you commit mortal sin, you need to repent, have faith, and go to confession. That’s it. That’s all there is to it. And we can show each of these things from the Bible." No words, no deeds, no ANYTHING matters in the end. As long as you do these things, you go to heaven. Where in the ever-loving hell does morality of any sort come into play besides knowing what you need to repent and go to confession for? If anything, this is the most amoral bullshit I've ever seen that encourages you to do whatever the hell you want, no matter how evil or unjust, just so long as you earnestly say sorry after.

[@bariumselenided5152]

The religion is that, yes. But most people subconsciously recognize that that’s crazy and don’t actually practice if that way, in my experience. They _say_ that you only need to repent and then you’re saved forever, but they also say that no one who doesn’t habitually act like a good person is really saved. I know from experience because this line of thinking made me never confident I was really “saved” as a kid, because I’d still be tempted to steal a cookie or look at a cute girl. Had horrible insomnia for a good while because of fearing waking up in hell. In reality, the morality Christians give out only actually functions to make people feel guilty at this point. It’s the poison they give out so you’re desperate for their cure. The Bible itself even says something g similar; it talks about how the Old Testament law was meant to be impossible for anyone to follow, so that they would all know how deplorable they were and that they needed a savior. Can’t remember where, I wanna say a Pauline epistle but I’m not sure

[@AbandonedVoid]

The idea is actually that nobody can be perfectly sinless, which is why they need Jesus's sacrifice. Someone who is faithful and who would be genuinely regretful about their imperfect nature is someone who would strive to be as sinless as they possibly could be. Jesus just helps them make up the difference. This is why Christians say that "faith without works is dead." If you're committing sins, then you haven't really "come to God" and if you keep doing it after repenting then you weren't really sorry. This means that all non-Christians are condemned, but so are many Christians who fail to repent all of their sins, including if they forget the sins they need to repent or die before they are able to repent. Given that many sins are uncontrollable feelings, like lust and covetousness, this means that even a faithful Christian who does their very best to act righteously can be condemned to Hell. So... it's worse, because only some of the righteous escape Hell and they do so only by admitting that they're inherently evil and need Jesus to forgive them for existing.

[@Xbob42]

@@AbandonedVoid It's cool bro just repent for having forgotten your sins too!

[@canucklehead1937]

I like how these two can't even agree which version of god is real but "he's definitely real guys"

[@ladyselenafelicitywhite1596]

Adding a comment to feed the KZbin algorithm 🙆🏼‍♀️💁🏼‍♀️🙋🏼‍♀️

[@unduloid]

Nom!

[@ConservativeSatanist666]

🍪

[@2l84me8]

Videos like this make you realize how ignorant Ben Sharpiro actually is.

[@patrickwoods2213]

Craig is just doing what apologists do best- answering tough questions with philosophical jargon in order to create the illusion that Christianity has smart answers. He doesn’t realize that these rhetorical answers are no better than what the average church layman would give you- Craig just knows how to wrap up the package in a fancy way that makes Christians feel less stupid about what they believe.

[@paulcarey1708]

On the problem of evil, Craig's argument was basically the old "God moves in mysterious ways". So his answer is that knowing the answer is not possible.

[@ericlarue8010]

To the religious, morality isn't something you hold, but rather something held over you. This is what they mean by 'objective'. He's explaining totalitarianism, but he doesn't realize it.

[@Oswlek]

That's all Abrahamic religion is. I guess it shouldn't be surprising how attractive for some that totalitarianism is as a political platform. Just find a way to portray your position as a twisted form of "freedom" and you're in.

[@mathiasrryba]

I think he does realize it and is very happy about it because of how happy he says he'd been if god told him not to eat beans. Go figure. Shame that god did tell to not wear mixed fabrics but WLC most certainly doesn't care to follow that commandment...

[@i.j.dragonfly3123]

The sheer audacity to say the burden of proof is on non-Christians to prove that God has no good reason to allow evil, while bending over backwards to justify the thousands of evils the biblical God actively endorses... If a judge asks a murderer why they killed someone, and they say "Your honor, you can't prove I DIDN'T have a good reason to kill them" without saying what that reason is, that murderer is going straight to prison.

[@dalailarose1596]

Oooh I love the jacket, my man!

[@kfjw]

It's strabge that he uses "don't eat pork" as an example of an arbitrary rule while speaking to a Jewish man.

[@rationalsceptic7634]

So an intellectual analysis of Cancer in Babies somehow exonerates Gods responsibility...O my God,Craig,you really are a Crank,arnt you?

[@irgus9641]

It never ceases to amaze me that Ben Shapiro gets any air time at all, he just comes across as whiny and annoying.

[@MarkN51]

If God is the author and giver of all morality, then virtually anything would be his prerogative. He could, for example, decree that it is moral and good for deities to lie to mortals. Which means Craig can never be sure that God isn't lying to believers about saving them. Since morality is determined solely by divine decree, and nothing (like lying) is inherently wrong in itself, God could have defined divine lying as a moral good, and thus there is no way for believers to know if God is ever telling them the truth about anything.

[@donnievance1942]

I think in Islam there is an explicit principle stated that it is permissible to lie to further the project of bringing the world into Islam. If that is the case, one could presume that God himself reserves the right to lie. I'm curious about whether the Bible might also contain some equivalent passage, but reading the whole thing to find out would be a huge challenge for possibly no gain.

[@JohnSmith-fz1ih]

Genuine question: Is there a single person here who was convinced by Craig’s response questioning what basis we have to question Gods morality? Did anyone think to themselves “Gee that’s a good point. I felt slavery is morally repugnant but actually now I see it’s perfectly fine unless I have an objective standard to refer to”? Anyone?

[@bradypustridactylus488]

Wow! The two greatest know-it-alls in all the Internet have brought out their entire arsenal of snobbish superiority, misdirection, evasions, and downright dishonesty. We are treated to a display of gaslighting at least equal in grandiosity to the pyrotechnics display on the Fourth of July on New York Harbor.

[@user-of7ss3fk9l]

The more I hear Craig speak, the more I'm convinced he's a lizard monster wearing a man-suit.

[@MatthewCaunsfield]

Craig really does come off as being uninformed about his own book

[@hailsagan8886]

Philosophy can't will a deity into existence

[@moodyrick8503]

*LESSONS;* There is no lesson that a human could only learn through extreme suffering & agony. For a God that supposedly loves us immensely, and for which nothing is impossible, _necessary suffering, is a pathetic excuse._

[@entropy8634]

I'd say that studying for an exam that will get you your dream career is necessary suffering.

[@alextrio3995]

@@entropy8634 Uh.....no. If it's your dream career why would studying the subject matter you want to spend the rest of your life involved in be suffering? When I went through school I didn't find studying to be at all "suffering", I wanted to understand the subject as best I could because that was what I wanted to do with my life....it was interesting to me, studying it wasn't even a displeasure, let alone suffering. Things like training or studying are difficult and time consuming, but that's not the same thing as suffering. When people talk about suffering, they aren't talking about going to the gym when you want to get stronger, or reading over material in order to understand it....they are talking about things like being handcuffed to the radiator in a serial killer's basement.

[@entropy8634]

@@alextrio3995 I'm not really willing to argue over semantics just because of my joke

[@silverlightsinaugust2756]

As I think Matt Dillahunty once said, slavery means you own a person. The length of time or different cultural treatment or laws in that location that change the limits on how badly you can treat the slave don’t render it no longer slavery. Also it not being racially motivated still doesn’t make it not slavery.

[@darwinskeeper421]

Interesting that Craig and Shapiro both avoid the arguments that have always been the largest one in my book, Devine hiddenness. Given the number of different ways religions have defined Gods, how can I be certain that William Bike-Lane Craig's form of Christianity defines God and his system of rules, rewards and punishments correctly? It is within God's power to set the record straight on who he is, and what he expects from people. Yet he does nothing to clear up the religious confusion in the world. To me, this divine radio silence has four probable explanations. No Gods exist. Gods exist but they are all unaware that humanity exists. Gods exist and are aware of humanity and may even be curious about us, but don't care about which actions we take, or what we think about them. Gods exist and have their own preferences for human behavior and have even created different after-life worlds for human souls to live in depending on how their actions please the Gods, but are just as happy to send humans to bad places as good places. For all we know, God is just an omnipotent version of the kid who enjoys pulling the legs off of insects or frying ants with a magnifying glass. It makes more sense than anything I've heard from an apologist on the matter.

[@broski365]

Here's another rabbit hole (mental gymnastics) idea: in order to create a "super faith hero" character like David in the 21st century, who blindly follow the " because God said so" fallacy.... he created this philosophically flawned situation to test people's faith.

[@paulsmart4672]

I'm open to the idea that gods exist, are pursuing an inscrutable agenda which we can not comprehend, and are effectively meaningless to us. The universe is weird. We'll really never fully understand how and why it works. Maybe there's a god or gods somewhere out there in it. But if they don't show themselves, then even if they have notions about how we ought to behave, they might as well not exist so far as we are concerned.

[@JGM0JGM]

Explaining that slavery was the social security net of the time is so appalling and ludicrous at the same time, I'm not sure if that makes someone a monster or an idiot... can it be both? Or it might just be cognitive dissonance applied at desperate levels. Oh, and by the way, homosexuality is not a moral issue, it's only a moral issue if you are bigoted.

[@Cat_Woods]

Wasn't sure my hypocrisy meter was going to make it all the way through - a few seconds in and professional apologists are complaining about the same arguments being "trotted out" by unbelievers. I honestly have a hard time grasping how apologists who supposedly believe in "truth" can be so consistently dishonest and manipulative, and all they ever do is "trot out" arguments that were debunked decades ago. You literally can't find a single one of their "proofs of God" videos that doesn't contain the same old debunked arguments. Craig's saying that I can't prove that God doesn't have a good enough reason for giving child rapists sufficient free will to rape children but not enough free will to the child victims to be able to be protected. If he thinks that can be considered a moral choice of God's, then he doesn't believe in objective morality at all, just the subjective morality that that pervert in the sky who's fine with standing by watching child abuse has re-defined as good. So no one can "prove" that an all-good all-powerful God doesn't exist, just that if one exists, it has redefined "good" to encompass horrific sadistic abuse. That's all anyone really needs to know about Christianity. Explains blood sacrifice, genocide, slavery, misogynist and anti-gay bigotry, pedophile priests, the Crucifixion, and the doctrine of Hell at the same time. And William Lain Craig, Ben Shapiro, and Dennis Prager to boot. (Didn't know WLC opposed gay marriage, btw. Isn't that a pretty hard right turn for him? Wonder if he's going to back-pedal on ridiculing Genesis fables next.)

[@Kyeudo]

6:10 - When dealing with an omnipotent entity, anything that happens within that entity's sphere of awareness is what that entity wants to happen. Omnipotent means not needing to make any trade-offs. You get to have your cake and eat it too. Add omniscience to omnipotence and everything that happens anywhere at anytime is what that entity wants to happen. If suffering exists, then your omnipotent and omniscient entity wants that suffering to happen. A perfectly benevolent entity only makes trade-offs when the gain is greater than the loss. If that entity is omnipotent, there are no trade-offs. You can't cite character development or greater gains later, because that entity can just imbue the character development or get the greater gains without any suffering. The only way that a perfectly benevolent entity that is also omnipotent can create human suffering is if you redefine "benevolent" to either not reference humans (so maybe that entity is being benevolent to flesh-eating bacteria or something) or to redefine "benevolent" to consider "pointlessly inflicts pain upon billions" to be benevolent. Basically, there are no possible reasons other than "I want it that way" for an omniscient omnipotent being to have suffering anywhere in the universe and with no trade-offs to make, a perfectly benevolent being couldn't want to have suffering anywhere. 10:10 - There is no reason for the Bible to be backwards, for the same reason that there is no reason for a tri-omni god to allow suffering anywhere. Any deficit can be compensated for with divine power, be it a lack of social impetus or a lack of a social safety net or anything else. 14:20 - The Euthyphro Dilemma tells us two things. The first directly disproves Craig's "moral argument", which is "If there is objective morality, a god cannot be the source of it". The second is that "if there is no objective morality, even a god's morality is subjective". Once you acknowledge the subjectivity of morality, you can then define what goals you believe morality should accomplish, prioritize them, and weight them, you can objectively evaluate any moral decision-making strategy by those criteria. You could even potentially quantify and mathematically maximize behaviors to fulfill those goals.

[@ApostateSublime]

3:50 bros *been practicing his German

[@theskepticalskeptic1351]

It’s kind of hilarious that Craig is talking to Ben Shapiro of all people about how great Social Safety nets are 😂

[@Isaac-hm6ih]

I think "christianity" can be divided into three broad categories for this kind of conversation, each of which needs to be addressed differently: - Deism with a christian skin. - The bible with its many competing gods and bloodline-based morals, its magic wielded by means of items and words rather than just divine decree, and its heroes who talk their patron god into acting as a living super-weapon. - and finally an arbitrary mishmash of the two, plus adding in various other elements such as a dualistic "evil" deity and magic which comes exclusively from serving one of the two.

[@Sharetheroad3333]

FINALLY! FINALLY! Someone deals with Craig in the only way he should be dealt with! Prophet of Zod- you are needed in this discussion - so desperately needed.

[@boleperishon5272]

The funniest thing about that conversation is that it happened. Two, basically conflicting religions, discussing non-religion.

[@rangda_prime]

The thing about Craig is that from the angle of philosophical ethics he's just such a damn lightweight. The nature of ethics is deeply studied in both ancient and modern philosophy and his argument that without objective moral prescriptions form his deity nothing matters anyway would get him laughed out of a freshman course on the subject. It's not that objectivism isn't a position without thought through arguments, it's that Craig never even comes close to formulating those or to make any coherent counter argument to subjectivist ideas of ethics. Him and Shapiro are truly charlatans. Above average intelligence enough to be able to understand complex statements, but too biased and not bright enough to meta-analyze their own thought processes to overcome these.