The God Debate II: Harris vs. Craig

The second annual God Debate features atheist neuroscientist Sam Harris and Evangelical Christian apologist William Lane Craig as they debate the topic: "Is Good From God?" The debate was sponsored in large part by the Notre Dame College of Arts and Letters: The Henkels Lecturer Series, The Center for Philosophy of Religion and the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts.

Comments

1. I would like Craig to answer this question: For homosexuality to be considered immoral, wouldn't we all have to be bisexuals, having a sexual attraction to both sexes, therefore having the free will to choose between the two things, one considered moral and one not? If one is only attracted to the opposite sex or the same sex, they have not made any choice at all so how can being homosexual be immoral?
2. Craig is an epic failure. You can not argue that morals are grounded in a god if you can not even demonstrate that a god exists. How the heck can you apply qualities to a god if you have no idea if the god even exists? As they would say in legal terms, his argument lacks foundation and therefore anything built upon it is without merit. Craig is a disingenuous morally bankrupt fool.
3. Christian are worshipping a homophobic god that commanded people to kill gay and apostate!!be skeptic toward your Bible folk..but..but its the Old Testament.. still doesn't change a #fact that christian are worshipping a god that commanded those horrible things.
4. I appreciate Sam Harris' answers. But I really wish he'd actually address WL Craig's stances.
5. Pretty clear Craig wins this. There are no objective moral duties without a deity. Nietzsche knew this and set it forth 100 years ago. Non-theists just don't like that answer because it leaves open the allowance of any number of things they personally view as reprehensible such as murder, rape, incest, slavery, the Taliban, or the atrocities of the Holocaust. So while it's good that the two parties are in agreement that there is objective moral good and evil in the world, only one actually grounds his position in firm ground, Craig. Harris starts with essentially a poor man's version of John Stuart Mill's utilitarianism which has been dismantled numerous times over, especially by Nietzsche. When Craig notes the flaws in Harris' logic in his rebuttal, Harris doesn't even attempt to defend his original position of a scientific objective morality. Instead, he just launches into a laundry list of Atheist talking points about why he personally dislikes Christianity to try and create a school of red herrrings rather than defending his position against Craig's critiques. This of course does nothing to support Harris' own claim and leaves open infinite possibilities of other theistic moral codes beyond that of Christianity. So all in all, this wasn't a close one. Harris wasn't ready for the topic and left it as soon as possible. Craig stayed on topic, resisted the baiting to stray from the subject matter, and was consistent in his position. Craig beat Harris soundly in this one.
6. craig as an athiest i take offence at your rebuttal.
7. I honestly think Harris failed to win this debate (as did Craig though) as he didn't sufficially answer the question for the debate: Is morality natural (science) or supernatural (God). But he DESTROYED religion. Which is neat, but not really answering the question at hand directly.
8. Why does Dr. Harris only refer to our technological advancement in the last "few thousand" years and not to the millions of years that evolution tells us it has taken us to get to our current condition?
9. 1:50. If love between two people is good even if it is explored sexually then why do Sexually Transmitted Diseases exist?
10. Why is it that in the debates on morality, as this one, the arguments come in such a convoluted way? Indeed, as somebody said below in the thread, empathy is the simplest and most straightforward answer for how we can derive moral values without a God. The golden rule is faithless and as long as people act on others as they wish other would act on themselves, that solves the problem of putting a God as the benchmark for good. Granted, there are several exceptions needed to be made for psychopaths, masochists and other in this bucket.
11. 9:29
    
    Interesting. So not even five minutes in he has misread Harris and attributed something Steven Pinker said, to Sam. Even though this was some form of Rapoport rules on the side of craig, by attempting to placate Sam with a point of agreement, Craig totally embarrasses himself by literally putting words from someone else into Sam's mouth.. What other fatal misunderstandings does Craig commit?
12. As much as I hate Craig's arguments, I have to say I love his voice.
13. Wlc argues from point that God already has been proved to exist rather than what the debate is as usual he cheats but to people of lesser intelligence makes himself sound reasonable
14. I find that after listening to quite a few christian philosphers/apologists that after a while, all I hear is complex language and undistinguished arguments. I find it very difficult to summarise what DR. Craig has talked about in this lecture and it certainly is not accessible to the wider audience. I can however with Sam Harris. Why does the argument for faith need to be so complex? The atheist stand-point just seems so much more tangible and simplistic. If christianity needs such a complex argument to prove itself, surely it can't be a simple 'choice' as to whether you follow it or not? Surely the fact that it's so easily debated, debunks the idea of 'rejecting christ as your saviour' as one can simply claim that there's unsufficient evidence in science, history and geology, to support the bibles own claims?
15. How can a grown up, sane person of even the slightest intelligence believe in a man in the sky who "loves" us but treats us with such abhorrence?! Come on, God lovers, grow up!
16. 1:13:00... big error in logic by billy, "if god exists then we have a moral foundation for moral values.." "if god does not exist, then we have no foundation of moral values and duties"... since it is a subjective choice, not an objective choice to believe that 'god exists' !
    The existence of god IS only a subjective decision due to the facts that there is no 'objective' proof of this existence... this is the red herring in the debate... god's existence. 'Everybody knows' is not proof..and Billy's entire premise is founded upon the existence of his imaginary nasty god.
    
     Without god's existence... as Billy himself demonstrates and argues there is no objective moral set of values...which in itself is subjective but back to the point... all Billy's argument is fallacious...as it is based upon the existence of god... an idiot would see the reason for the comment by Sammie that the basis of moral objectivity cannot exist because the objective existence of the basis of this moral objectivity (the existence of this imaginary god) Billy's cannot be proven, thereby the premise, as put by the rules of logic is plainly false.
    put it in context please; the tooth faerie is the basis of objective moral values. the tooth faerie has proclaimed that good children, if they put their extracted tooth under their pillow at night will receive payment for that tooth, BUT .. oh oh, if the children are not good... they wake up disappointed with no freakin cash...
    exactly the same arguement with a change in protagonist. Rightly fallacious due to the resting the entire premise upon the existence of the tooth faerie having an objective moral code for paying only children who are 'good'.. lol
    
    children very early in their development, if they are not fucked with, see right through this bullshit and here we have a grown man figuratively arguing for the existence of the toothfaery god.
17. "There is no possible world in which entity A is not identical to A". Go learn some Homotopy Type Theory if you're trying to pretend to know how identity works.
18. Why does Craig insist so much on having moral values being objective? I am happy with subjective ones. Without gods there cannot be objective morality, he keeps saying. So what? Replace "morality" with, I don't know, "humor" for example. No objective humor. I'll still laugh at jokes.
19. Dr. Craig is like a buzzsaw to Atheists.  I'm amazed at how he was able to see right through Mr. Harris' semantical word-play and get right to the heart of the issue (and the argument).  When I was younger, I easily fell prey to the emotional appeals of Atheists' arguments.  But as I've gotten older and a little more knowledgeable on issues, I see just how weak the Atheists' position actually is.  Thank you Dr. Craig.
20. so God didn't tell the Taliban to do what they do? prove it Craig. that's the problem with everything he says is it's just assertions. baseless assumptions and assertions. once you tell a lie it keeps getting bigger and bigger. religious people don't be stupid use your brains.