Bad Timing

As I mentioned in my previous post, according to the Bible God did some pretty amazing stuff. Not only is there the proverbial burning bush in the in Exodus 3, but also the pillar of fire of Exodus 13:21, and the supernatural plagues that God brought upon ancient Egypt in Exodus 7-11, and the parting of the red sea in Exodus 14:21-22—and that’s all just from one book of the Old Testament!

But when you think about it, the time period in which these conspicuous miracles allegedly took place was during the most superstitious times in history, when there were none of the objective and reliable recording technologies (as video cameras) to capture them. For the Judeo-Christian who believes God works miracles today, why did God stop doing the conspicuous miracles like the parting of the red sea? Why not do them now? Seems to me that if God wanted people to believe in him, he would have made the obvious miracles of legend in the modern day, where we could reliably record them. If God could only choose one place to work fantastic miracles for people to believe in him, a time period with the recording technology we have now would have been a better time, and choosing the most superstitious time period without such technology would be bad timing.

Why doesn’t God heal amputees?

There have been a number of miracles claimed, e.g. someone getting healed from AIDS. Why would God heal those sorts of diseases but not amputees? One factor that's important to recognize is this: AIDS (and other diseases) can be misdiagnosed. Not only is science fallible, but people practicing science are fallible. It is possible to get a false positive on an HIV test, for example. When the person is told they have AIDS, and now it turns out that they don’t, concluding “Miracle!” as opposed to a false positive is the temptation. In contrast, it’s pretty hard to get a false positive on an amputee.

Other claimed healings are those of cancer, but spontaneous remissions have been known to happen. A person might get better from a cold after being prayed for, but the person would have gotten better without prayer anyway. Similarly, it’s not implausible that some people would recover from cancer purely by natural means after being prayed for. Disease is the type of thing that an immune system can fight against, as opposed to a severed limb. People healed of cancer might be tempted to shout “Miracle!” as opposed to crediting the fortunate event to spontaneous remission. In contrast, it's pretty implausible that the immune system would suddenly poof a limb into existence.

So the problem with other healings is this: the evidence is underdeterminative. It isn’t clear that non-divine causes played a role with (for example) cancer, when spontaneous remission is known to happen. And people have been misdiagnosed as HIV positive when a subsequent test answers in the negative, as in the case of Jim Malone. Thus when someone is “cured” of an HIV infection or from cancer, there are non-miraculous explanations. In contrast, if an amputee were suddenly healed after being prayed for, the “Miracle!” explanation would pretty much be the only explanation. Funny how those sorts of miracles are the ones that don’t occur, isn’t it? For the theist who believes that God supernaturally intervenes in the modern world, this should be cause for the theist to reconsider that belief.

Things like a misdiagnosis and a successful immune system wouldn’t apply for such an amputee healing, and the evidence for a miracle would be a lot more determinative. So why don’t we see God perform miracles of this sort? Why doesn’t God perform miracles in cases like these where a miracle would be the only viable explanation of healing, unlike the cases of cancer and a putatively healed HIV infection? Why would God act in such a way that his “miracles” would be indistinguishable from a non-miraculous world of misdiagnosing mishaps and natural healing, as if God weren’t miraculously intervening at all?

One might say “God needs to remain hidden.” This would be problematic for Christian apologists who believe there is strong evidence for their religion. And Christians in general would have to give up the claim that God worked obvious miracles like water into wine, or God raising Jesus from the dead. And let’s not forget the rather impressive supernatural events of the Old Testament such as the proverbial burning bush in the in Exodus 3, or the pillar of fire of Exodus 13:21, or the conspicuous supernatural plagues that God brought upon ancient Egypt in Exodus 7-11, or the parting of the red sea in Exodus 14:21-22—and that’s all just from one book of the Old Testament! So the idea that God wants to remain hidden just doesn’t hold water if the Judeo-Christian God exists. The Judeo-Christian theist is thus in an intellectual hard spot, especially if he or she wishes to claim that God performs miracles today.

Disproof of Eben Alexander’s Proof of Heaven

Introduction

For those who don’t know, Eben Alexander is a neurosurgeon who claimed the following. He was in a coma induced by bacterial meningitis that left him with an all-but-destroyed brain. As such, while in this coma he was incapable of hallucinating or dreaming what he experienced: a trip to heaven. Eben Alexander also had some memories of surrounding events while he was in his coma.

He wrote about his experiences in his book, Proof of Heaven, published October 2012. Some months later, it had sold well over a million copies and had been a #1 New York Times best seller. In case anybody’s worried about his income not being heavenly enough, he also sells a $59 webinar series called “Discover Your Own Proof of Heaven.” Eben Alexander’s website lifebeyonddeath.net describes it like this:

Now fully recovered [from his coma] and determined to share his experience with the world, Dr. Alexander offers this four-part online course, the first of its kind.

He has partnered with brainwave entrainment pioneers Sacred Acoustics to create an unprecedented program to guide you to a blissful brain state where you can seek out your own connection to source. Each session includes a live talk from Dr. Alexander on the insights he gained through his NDE, meditation instructions from Karen Newell, co-founder of Sacred Acoustics, and an exclusive download of a Sacred Acoustics audio meditation designed in collaboration with Dr. Alexander and enhanced by acoustic brainwave entrainment technology.

It should come has no surprise that skeptics wish to debunk Eben Alexander’s claims about his experiences as e.g. hallucinatory. But the real explanation is the ugly word that even skeptics are reluctant to accuse a fellow man of science.

Fraud.

Background from The Esquire Article

The August 2013 issue of Esquire published its findings of an investigation that took months in an article called “The Prophet.” I’ll be citing page numbers from the paper-version of the magazine which begins on p. 88. Should anybody wish to read the online version, it is (as of this writing) available for $1.99, and in my opinion a couple bucks is well worth the price of admission.

According to the Esquire article, Eben Alexander was a man plagued with lawsuits and terminations of surgical privileges. One lawsuit involved Alexander allegedly “not informing the woman that permanent facial paralysis might result from the operation,” which, unfortunately, it did. When inquiring about the two-page consent form the woman signed, Alexander could find only the first page.

And that page, as the lawyer noted, had multiple punch holes and fray marks, indicating that it had been filed in [the patient’s] chart, extracted from the file, and later refilled.” Further, he said, additional documents had also gone missing, including a letter that the patient’s primary neurosurgeon had sent to Alexander, notifying him of her postoperative facial paralysis. The woman’s attorney argued that “it is reasonable to infer that this pattern of disappearance of probative evidence was not coincidental, but was in fact deliberate.” The attorney was arguing, in other words, that when Alexander found things that didn’t fit the story he wanted to tell, he changed them, or made them disappear altogether.

Sometime later, Brigham and Women’s hospital in Boston terminated his surgical privileges by virtue of firing him. Was the lawsuit a factor? Maybe, but another possible factor was a novel his friend Michael Palmer wrote called The Patient. Folks at Brigham who read it soon realized that the protagonist was a stand-in for Alexander (though the protagonist was female) and “the vile, venal chief of neurosurgery, the fictional Carl Gilbride, was supposed to be the Brigham’s real-life chair of neurosurgery, Eben Alexander’s boss” (pp. 93-94) whom Eben Alexander did not get along with.

He later became a surgeon at UMass Memorial Medical Center, but in August 2003 the hospital suspended Alexander’s surgical privileges “on the basis or allegation of improper performance of surgery” (p. 94). One example: “a bit of plastic was left behind in a woman’s neck” which resulted in another lawsuit for poor Alexander. He later resigned from his hospital and moved to Virginia, where he worked at Lynchburg General Hospital.

The lawsuits didn’t end there. Eben Alexander accidentally fused the wrong vertebrae during surgery on a tobacco farmer’s back. By July 12, 2007 he saw his mistake and had his first follow-up with the tobacco farmer, but he didn’t tell him. Instead he edited his operative report of the surgery to make it look like he hadn’t done anything wrong (p. 95). It’s unclear when the hospital found out about Alexander’s mistake, but Alexander confessed to the patient about his mistake and the hospital terminated Eben Alexander’s surgical privileges. The event caused the tobacco farmer to file a $3 million lawsuit. By the time the patient filed the lawsuit, Alexander found another job. While the boss at his new job described Alexander as brilliant, he also said that “Neurosurgery requires the ability to intensely concentrate on one thing for a long period of time” and that this was “not Eben’s MO.”

With a $3 million lawsuit pending, Alexander could really use a lot of cash, and when the lawsuit was in its preliminary stages, Eben Alexander went into the aforementioned coma. After he came out of it, he would claim he had visited heaven, and would write a book called Proof of Heaven. By the time his pending lawsuits are resolved, Alexander “will have settled five malpractice cases in the last ten years” (p. 95). In case you’re wondering whether that’s a lot, Esquire reports that “Only one other Virginia-licensed neurosurgeon has settled as many cases in that time period, and none have settled more” (p. 95).

If I were Eben Alexander, I’d consider obtaining another source of income before my license got revoked, preferably one with a lot of money to help me with that huge pending lawsuit. Guess it’s awfully lucky for this neurosurgeon that he had this very profitable experience of visiting heaven as the $3 million lawsuit was hovering over him, huh? Not only did he make scads of money from the experience via the #1 New York Times bestselling book, he also sells other stuff pertaining to his experience, including the “Discover Your Own Proof of Heaven” webinar series and something he calls “meditative acoustics.” According to his website, he also co-founded an organization called “Eternea” where, if you’re willing to shell out $1,200 a year or more, you can qualify for a membership status called “archangel.” The organization also has something it calls the “Blue Butterfly Society” which according to their website comprises of “high net worth individuals” and “celebrities, top athletes, as well as prominent corporate and political leaders from around the world.” Governors are for “top benefactors.” How “top” is a top benefactor? The web page I saw didn’t say, but an old web page that no longer exists on the website did; it said that membership dues begin at $10,000 per year, and lifetime membership is offered to anyone who makes a major lump sum gift of $25,000 or more. (Guess what Scientology, you might have some competition!) And with Eben Alexander having committed serious offenses of deception (his attempted cover-ups in the malpractice lawsuits) when the deceptions suited him financially, how could anybody not find this man credible and trustworthy?

Proof of Heaven?

Eben Alexander’s background as depicted by Esquire (and my own bit of web research) is already enough to warrant at least the suspicion of fraud, but there’s more. First, I’ll start with something relatively minor. Alexander reports that during his coma it been raining for six consecutive days that just before he awakened from his coma, the rain stopped and there was a “perfect rainbow.” One problem: the meteorological data don’t support his story of the six consecutive days of rain (though there were three days of rain during the coma), and there could not have been a rainbow on the day he awoke from the coma (p. 125).

Maybe that’s a mild fabrication, but the big one is the cause of the coma. Alexander’s medical records of the coma are confidential, and Alexander hasn’t made them public, but one of the doctors treating him when the EMTs brought Alexander in November 10, 2008 (the start of Alexander’s coma) had to put him in a chemically induced coma, whereas Alexander claims his coma was caused by bacterial meningitis. Alexander doesn’t mention the chemically induced cause of the coma in his book Proof of Heaven. Was Alexander left with an “all-but-destroyed brain” during his coma like he claimed, thus unable to experience hallucinatory experiences? Nope; during the first few days of the coma he was conscious in the sense that he could have conscious experiences (hallucinatory or otherwise). In the words of the doctor, he was “Conscious but delirious” (p. 126). Add this on top of his history of deceitfully altering the historical facts to suit him in the case of his medical malpractices, when all the evidence is considered, Eben Alexander is probably a fraud.

Lessons to Learn

The incident has lessons to teach for both skeptics and religious believers. What lesson might this teach skeptics? Take a look at Scientific American’s response to Eben Alexander in April 2013. If you read carefully, you’ll see that it doesn’t really refute Eben Alexander’s claims. To be sure, it mentions various cases of hallucinatory experiences, such as parkinsonian postencephalitic patients and migraine headaches. But none of these apply to a case where a person reports vivid at-length dream-like experiences when the physical brain is incapable of producing such experiences (and memories thereof) due to the sort of coma Eben Alexander allegedly had. Someone in the article suggests that maybe the near death experience occurred “as he was surfacing from the coma and his cortex was returning to full function.” But that doesn’t quite work because Alexander allegedly had memories of surrounding events that occurred while he was in his coma.

To the unbiased observer who is agnostic about Alexander’s claims, this article would have had all the appearance of blowing smoke in our eyes. If one doesn’t yet have the refutation for some position, the intellectually honest thing to do is to admit we don’t have the refutation yet and do some investigation (which in this case took several months). But that isn’t quite what happened with Scientific American here. From one vantage point that’s understandable; wouldn’t even a temporary silence regarding what’s wrong with Alexander’s claims look bad for us skeptics? So why wait for a thorough investigation to unravel the real truth?

Here’s one unfortunate fact of life that skeptics and everyone else has to face: just because a belief is wrong, that doesn’t necessarily mean we will have the immediate means to show that it is false. I understand it would look pretty bad if someone claims to have scientific evidence for a claim like Eben Alexander’s and us skeptics were stunned to silence, admitting we don’t yet know of a refutation. So the temptation then comes to say something, even if it’s B.S., just to avoid the sort of silence that might lead one to believe the false claim is actually true. Is that what happened here? Yes, but maybe not intentionally. It’s quite possible that the author sincerely believed that what he said had something to do with Eben Alexander’s hallucinatory experiences, but at the very least he gave a false impression of refuting Alexander’s claims when the real refutation had yet to arrive.

I also hope the case of Eben Alexander serves as a lesson for religious believers. If even a neurosurgeon with what seemed to be very strong evidence for a visit to heaven (while in a coma in which he allegedly couldn’t have any conscious experiences, a brilliant neurosurgeon who worked at one of the nation’s most prestigious hospitals experienced a trip to heaven etc.) can be phony, we should also have a great deal of skepticism about supposed trips to heaven (or hell) for pretty much anybody else. Granted, the reason for other people’s phony experiences might not always be fraud, but we should still be skeptical. I think even religious believers are capable of, to at least degree, embracing the virtue of reasonable skepticism.

Fortunately, there are religious believers like that, e.g. this theist who reviewed Eben Alexander’s book who engaged in some healthy, critical thinking. A bit of digging (reading the comments associated with the review) suggests that the reviewer appears to be a theologically liberal Christian who is agnostic about the afterlife. Even though the reviewer wasn’t aware that the cause of the coma was not as Eben Alexander claimed, the reviewer was still astute enough to observe that Alexander’s “medical practice was going down the toilet and he needed to make some easy money.” Christians and other religious believers could learn a lot from this person.

William Lane Craig’s Concession: Atheism is Not Implausible

Earlier this week I searched Reasonable Faith and chanced upon this concession from William Lane Craig in a “Question of the Week” response when speaking of how some atheists don’t put forth very good cases:

I agree with you, Arash, that atheism is not an implausible worldview and that therefore the poverty of atheist argumentation cannot be written off to the bankruptcy of atheism itself.

You read that right, Craig conceding that atheism is not an implausible worldview. Not exactly a ringing endorsement of atheism of course, but admitting that atheism is not implausible seems notable enough considering the decades of time and effort he’s put forth into arguing against it.

Craig is also (unfortunately) right about some atheists putting forth an intellectually destitute case for atheism, as I illustrated in Rosenberg’s numerous failures in debating William Lane Craig. The good news of course is that much better arguments and rebuttals are available (and in my series on Rosenberg versus William Lane Craig, I give details on how Rosenberg could have done much better), and there have been some atheists who do a decent job in defending atheism in front of Craig. At any rate, it’s nice to know that one thing atheists and Craig can agree on is that atheism is not an implausible worldview.

Are Debates Worthwhile?

At 1:32:40 in the William Lane Craig versus Rosenberg debate, Rosenberg seems to be saying that debates like the one he’s participating in aren’t worthwhile (which leads one to wonder why he’s participating in it!). Here’s what he says:

But that’s the problem with this kind of debate and with this kind of format, it doesn’t work. It doesn’t work because what I would like to be able to do is to ask William Lane Craig a question and formulate a reply, and listen to his answer and give a view, and listen to his question; which is the way in which philosophical dialogue proceeds and which enables us to at least find out where the crucial issues are between us and how we could mutually agree to adjudicate these matters.

There is something to be said with the sort of dialogue Rosenberg is describing here, but I think there is also something to be said with two sides intellectually critiquing each other for a number of reasons. First, when discussing atheism versus theism (or any other controversial philosophical topic), it is useful for one to listen to what both sides have to say, and the philosophy student might well be curious to see how each side responds to the arguments of the other. I think this can give valuable insight to those who want to learn more about the topic. Second, it is also a good opportunity to introduce people to both sides of a topic that they might not otherwise do. Many are guilty of confirmation bias, absorbing only those books, blogs, lectures, and YouTube videos that already confirm what they already believe. A debate makes it more likely that people of both sides will listen to what the other has to day in a fair manner (both sides get equal time). Third, I also think back-and-forth intellectual critiques helps produce better arguments for both sides, and thereby aids in intellectual advancement.

So are debates useful? My answer is actually this: it depends. It depends on the debate in question and how well each side does their position intellectual justice. All too often I’ve seen atheists drop the ball when it comes to intellectually defending atheism against the likes of William Lane Craig, but there are times where I’ve seen atheists do a pretty good job. One example is the book, God?: A Debate between a Christian and an Atheist. Here the atheist, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, had an advantage that atheists in oral debates didn’t, which is one of the reasons why I think this debate went so well. First, consider the sort of things needed to do well in an oral debate:

1. Be prepared ahead of time. You better research your opponent well so you have potential rebuttals ready, since once your opponent says something, you won’t exactly have very much time to research your response because you’re up after the other guy finishes.
2. Think on your feet. Related to #1, you’re going to have to think of a rebuttal fast (especially if you come up against an argument or objection you have not heard before), and you don’t have very much time to do so.
3. Watch the clock. You’re going to have to be careful about giving an extemporaneous rebuttal within the time allotted.

Craig is a master at all three of these things, which is one of the reasons why he’s so difficult to defeat in an oral debate. But now consider a written debate in book form where each side has ample time to prepare a good rebuttal (think weeks or months instead of mere minutes!) and fit the rebuttal within the allotted space. The result can be something of much improved quality indeed—not so much for Craig, since he’s an excellent debater and has mastered his craft in written and oral form—but an improvement in quality I think for many atheist philosophers who would wish to debate Craig. The result in God? was that Craig is about as good as he is in his oral presentations, whereas the atheist philosopher did a job that is substantially superior to most atheists I’ve seen who engage Craig in an oral debate.

An Idea for Better Debates

What might be worthwhile is for people to do written debates well researched in advance, and then each side gives their oral presentations to the audience. The result, I think, would be better for atheists overall—and it’s something that William Lane Craig might even appreciate. Here’s Craig talking about the written book debates he’s done:

I invite anyone to read these [debate] books and see if he thinks my arguments hold up. In fact, I wish people would read these books! I’m troubled that some people seem to know me only through [oral] debates which are often frustratingly shallow because my opponents rarely bring up any good objections.

Craig might be wrong about how well his arguments hold up, but in oral debates against Craig the pro-atheist side often is frustratingly shallow to some thinking atheists (e.g. Luke Muehlhauser, who laments, “When debating him, atheists have consistently failed to put forward solid arguments”) and evidently to Craig also. Considering how video debates on the internet are (alas) more popular than reading books nowadays, I’m hoping this idea of preparing all statements in advance will catch on. In the meantime, it might be worthwhile to check out the debates-in-book-form talking about Craig talks about, including the one I mentioned earlier with Walter Sinnott-Armstrong.

William Lane Craig versus Rosenberg (part 11)

My series on the February 2013 debate between William Lane Craig and Alex Rosenberg:

1. The Leibnizian Cosmological Argument
2. The Kalam Cosmological Argument
3. The Applicability of Mathematics to the Physical World
4. The Fine-Tuning of the Universe for Intelligent Life
5. Intentional States of Consciousness in the World
6. Objective Moral Values and Duties in the World
7. The Historical Facts about Jesus of Nazareth
8. God can be Personally Known and Experienced
9. Arguments Against Naturalism
10. The Argument from Evil
11. Wrap-Up

Introduction

In February 2013 atheist philosopher Alex Rosenberg debated Christian philosopher William Lane Craig over whether faith in God is reasonable (debate begins at around 17:14). I’ve mentioned before the reason why William Lane Craig wins debates, and since this debate is a good example of how not to debate William Lane Craig, I have been going through some of what Rosenberg did wrong and how he could have done a lot better.

It’s tempting to write off Craig’s victory in this debate to Craig’s debating skills, but that would be a mistake. Don’t get me wrong; Craig is an excellent debater. But the main reason Rosenberg lost had to do with the abysmal case he presented for atheism. I’ve had quite a bit to say about the debate, and I figure it’s high time I try to wrap it up. In a nutshell, Rosenberg lost the debate primarily because he:

1. Attacked straw men.
2. Failed to adequately research for the debate.
3. Failed to attack a premise in a pro-theism, deductively valid (conclusion follows from the premises) argument.
4. Failure to spot holes in Craig’s arguments.
5. Used bad objections instead of good ones.
6. Clumsily handled the argument from evil.
7. Used time in a non-economic fashion.

I’ll explain each one in a little more detail below.

The Problems, in a Nutshell

1) Straw Men

One problem is that Rosenberg attacked straw men. In the Leibnizian cosmological argument, Rosenberg failed to attack the version of the principle of sufficient reason (PSR) that Craig actually used. In the case of the kalam cosmological argument, Rosenberg said, “For Dr. Craig to insist on the arguments that rest on the claim that every event had a cause, that had to have brought it into being, is just bluff.” Craig however has made it clear in his writings and his talks that this is precisely what the first premise of the KCA (“anything that begins to exist has a cause”) does not claim. You might be able to get away with a straw man when you’re preaching to the choir and nobody calls you on it, but that won’t work against William Lane Craig. Some theists might think Rosenberg intentionally distorted Craig’s position, but that’s clearly B.S. Rosenberg had everything to lose (and did lose!) and nothing to gain by wasting his time attacking a position Craig didn’t hold, because Craig would obviously call him on it. If you’re going to debate William Lane Craig, make sure you attack the positions he actually advocates.

2) Failure to Do Adequate Research

Another problem is that Rosenberg failed to do adequate research. You know the point about the first premise specifically not claiming that every event has a cause? A brief Google search of the Reasonable Faith website (William Lane Craig’s main Christian apologetics website) for “every event has cause” reveals William Lane Craig saying things like, “Notice that I might add that this premise doesn’t say that every event has a cause” and Craig clearing up someone else’s apparent confusion that the first premise of the KCA commits us to believing that every event has a cause. Indeed, both of these pages were the top two results of the Google search I did. To the very least, Rosenberg should have read Craig’s writings or seen Craig’s talks and attack only those positions he sees Craig actually putting forth, and not blindly assume Craig holds the position he wants to attack.

Even if we ignore that, there are other examples of Rosenberg failing to do the needful research. Rosenberg made embarrassing statements like saying the New Testament documents were originally written in Aramaic not Greek, and then there’s the fact that he was completely unprepared for Craig’s response to the Euthyphro dilemma. Seriously, did Rosenberg think that Craig had never thought of the Euthyphro dilemma as an objection to his moral argument, or that Craig’s response to the Euthyphro objection couldn’t easily be found via an obscure little thing called Google? He also brought up the World Ensemble objection right after Craig already rebutted it and Rosenberg had no response to Craig’s rebuttal. If you’re going to debate William Lane Craig, you’re going to need to prepare for Craig’s responses to objections. And when you’re dealing with philosophy of religion, researching Craig’s responses to the Euthyphro objection (a common objection against the moral argument) and the World Ensemble explanation (a common rebuttal to the fine-tuning argument) is pretty close to common sense, because those rebuttals against those pro-theism arguments are pretty well known and you have to figure a guy like Craig responded to them. If you want to deliver a high-quality intellectual rebuttal to Craig’s positions in an oral debate, you’re going to need to prepare and do some research.

3) Not Attacking a Premise in a Valid Pro-theism Argument

Another reason Rosenberg lost is that in some cases Craig presented a deductively valid argument for God, when Rosenberg did little or nothing to attack a premise of those deductively valid arguments. Since the conclusion follows logically and inescapably from any valid argument (that’s what the word “valid” means in logic), the logical thing to do is to show that a premise is false or at least insufficiently supported. Remarkably, Rosenberg didn’t attack any premise of Craig’s moral argument for God anywhere in the entire debate. That’s a pretty big lapse when you consider that a false premise is the only way Craig’s argument can fail to be sound. Rosenberg also did little if anything to attack a premise in Craig’s argument from intentional states of consciousness in the world. Unfortunately, Rosenberg is not the first person to make this sort of mistake, so I’ll kind of reiterate here: when a theist presents a deductively valid argument for God, the atheist needs to attack a premise, because a false premise is the only way a deductively valid argument can fail to be sound.

4) Failure to Spot Holes in Craig’s Arguments

Perhaps the biggest example of this is when Craig argued for the Resurrection of Jesus. In Craig’s opening statement, he said three facts support the resurrection of Jesus and says most New Testament historians agree with those three claims. Craig never offers any source for his claim that most New Testament historians accept his three claims. Even ignoring that, there would be the somewhat obvious concern about whether most of these New Testament historians who accept these three claims are already Christians. And apart from Craig’s questionable appeal to authority (and he also appeals to the opinion of the religiously motivated Christian scholar N.T. Wright), he doesn’t offer any reason to believe that these three claims are true! This is a big, gaping hole, and Rosenberg seemed not to notice it.

5) Using Bad Objections Instead of Good Ones

This is related to the above problem (failure to spot holes in Craig’s arguments). It’s almost as if the reason Rosenberg used bad objections was because he didn’t know any good ones. To use a specific example, instead of pointing out the gaping holes I mentioned in Craig’s case for the resurrection, in his first rebuttal he attacked the reliability of eyewitness testimony in general. When you think about it, this is a remarkably and obviously bad objection. If the prosecution offers three eyewitnesses saying they saw the accused do the crime, do you think the defense attorney can just get up and say, “Eyewitness testimony is unreliable” and let that be a sufficient reason to reject the claims of the eyewitnesses? Obviously not. Then there’s the fact that most knowledge of ancient history is ultimately based on (written or otherwise) eyewitness testimony. If we had to throw out all historical claims that critically rely on eyewitness testimony, we’d basically have no ancient history at all (there’s only so much you can learn from the existence of statues and buildings if you reject what any and all ancient documents have to say).

Unfortunately, Rosenberg isn’t the first atheist to use bad objections instead of good ones. I’ve seen a number of atheists on the internet (and even some atheists in books) do the same thing. Again, when preaching to the choir, a lot of atheists won’t call people out on this, but in a debate, Craig probably will. One has to realize that just because a belief is true, this does not mean that every argument for it will be a good one. Before making a pro-atheism objection, think critically about it; think of how you would respond if you were a theist. If the objection doesn’t work, admit it to yourself and find one that does work. This might require some research (just because a belief is false doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll know the refutation right away) but I think the effort will be worth it. In this blog, I’ve tried to shun the bad objections in favor of better ones. Heck, pretty much any part in this William Lane Craig vs. Rosenberg series is an example of me doing just that.

6) Clumsily handling the argument from evil

Done properly, the argument from evil is a great argument against the existence of an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good God. Which is why I was so dismayed to see Rosenberg mess this up. First, he seemed to be putting forth a bad version of the logical problem of evil (the idea that the existence of God and evil is logically incompatible) that has long been refuted. Moreover, the logical argument from evil in general just doesn’t work, because while God doing nothing as he watches childhood cancer victims die is highly implausible, it is not, strictly speaking, a logical contradiction that he allows them to suffer for some greater good.

In a previous blog entry, I illustrated why the logical possibility of a greater good defeats the logical problem of evil with my story I called Bill the idiot theist. Let’s label the sum total of suffering that has ever existed in this world and will exist Φ. Bill the Idiot Theist thinks Φ suffering makes the angels in heaven smile, and that “Φ suffering making angels smile” is a great good, a much better good than eliminating all the suffering in the world. So on this view, God cannot eliminate any of the suffering that exists without also eliminating the greater good of “Φ suffering making angels smile.” This is the theodicy that Bill the Idiot Theist believes. Bill’s idiotic theodicy is terrible, but it’s not self-contradictory, and so a perfectly good God allowing evil isn’t a logical contradiction even if it is highly implausible. As such, the logical problem of evil doesn’t work.

The failure of the logical problem of evil doesn’t mean it’s all sunshine and daffodils for theism though. Rosenberg could have pointed to the obviously low probability that a perfectly good, omniscient, and omnipotent God would do nothing as he watched child cancer victims succumb to horrible deaths, even if God behaving that way isn’t strictly self-contradictory. If the theist puts forth a terrible theodicy (as in the case of Bill the Idiot Theist), the atheist can point out how terrible it is without saying it is self-contradictory. Rosenberg should have used the evidential argument from evil (the idea that the existence of evil and suffering is evidence against theism), as I did in my own argument from evil.

Rosenberg clumsily handled the argument from evil because at first he seemed to be arguing a bad version of the logical problem of evil, and he didn’t clearly gainsay Craig about it being an issue of logical incompatibility between God and evil (indeed, he says this fairly explicitly in 1:20:03-1:21:43, where he also insists that the problem of evil is a logical one). When Craig responds on how even atheist philosophers have abandoned the logical problem of evil, in Rosenberg’s next round he acts as if he and Craig were talking about a more generic problem of evil all along (1:34:47) rather than the logical problem of evil specifically; e.g. he portrays Craig as asserting that “invoking my best friend, Peter van Inwagen, asserting that nobody anymore believes” that the argument from evil is a problem for theism, even though Craig’s quotes from philosophers that Rosenberg alludes to in this response were clearly about the logical problem of evil specifically, not the argument from evil in general. Rosenberg was egregiously clumsy in handling the argument from evil.

7) Using time in a non-economic fashion

Formal oral debates typically have time limits, so it behooves the debaters to use their time efficiently, e.g. not take four minutes to rebut an argument when a thirty second rebuttal would suffice. Rosenberg screwed up big time on this when it came to addressing William Lane Craig’s army of arguments against naturalism, where such arguments attempt to show that naturalism implies absurd consequences. One problem with Craig’s army of arguments against naturalism is that the debate is about theism versus atheism, not theism versus naturalism. As such, the logical thing to do for Rosenberg when first speaking on the arguments against naturalism would be to point out that he is arguing for atheism in the debate, not naturalism. But while Rosenberg does try to separate the issue of naturalism and atheism in 1:13:02 to 1:18:25, where he says atheism and the other claims follow from science, rather than the set of claims following from atheism per se, he wasted several minutes doing so instead of a much shorter response like, “While those other strange claims of mine are interesting topics in their own right, they are not the subject of tonight’s debate. Tonight I’m arguing that theism is false, not that naturalism is true.”

To be fair, later in the debate, Craig does try to prevent his arguments against naturalism from being a total red herring by claiming that if atheism is true then naturalism is true, but he failed to mention this when he first gave his arguments against naturalism, hence the “While those other strange claims of mine are interesting topics in their own right…” response would have been adequate the first time Rosenberg rebutted Craig’s anti-naturalism arguments. But what about when Craig claimed that naturalism is the most plausible form of atheism, and he argued that naturalism is false? Another tactic would be needed, but it’s not too difficult to think of one once one keeps in mind the following two facts: (1) Craig’s only support of the most controversial premises is that Rosenberg supposedly agrees with them; and (2) what Rosenberg really believes is that it’s not atheism or naturalism per se that implies the apparently absurd consequences, but science. So Rosenberg could have said something like this:

It should be remembered that tonight I’m arguing that theism is false, not that naturalism is true. Craig seems to think that naturalism is the most plausible alternative to atheism, but that won’t matter if atheism plus our background knowledge does not imply the apparently absurd consequences he thinks they do. So for Craig’s arguments to be relevant, Craig would need to show that atheism plus our background knowledge implies those consequences. I don’t believe it’s atheism or naturalism per se that implies things like sentences not having genuine meaning, but rather our background knowledge, especially science, that implies such claims. But because whether I’m right about what science implies about this is not the subject of tonight’s debate, and because I could be wrong about what our background knowledge implies, I’ll play devil’s advocate here so you can better judge for yourselves whether we’re justified in thinking that atheism plus background knowledge implies things like sentences not really having meaning.

At which point, Rosenberg could have pointed out that Craig didn’t really given any justification for the idea that atheism plus background knowledge implies those consequences, and it would have been Craig who wasted a bunch of time (it took a quite bit of time arguing for all those arguments against naturalism), not Rosenberg.

Parting Thoughts

It is worth noting that the last mistake (using time in a non-economic fashion) is the only mistake I’ve catalogued here that is solely about debating skills, as opposed to mistakes relating to the intellectual quality of Rosenberg’s pro-atheism case (using bad objections instead of good ones etc.). So while good debating skills are certainly a valuable asset, we shouldn’t lose sight of the main reason Rosenberg and many other atheists collapse in front of Craig: presenting a tragically inferior intellectual case for atheism.

William Lane Craig versus Rosenberg (part 10)

My series on the February 2013 debate between William Lane Craig and Alex Rosenberg:

1. The Leibnizian Cosmological Argument
2. The Kalam Cosmological Argument
3. The Applicability of Mathematics to the Physical World
4. The Fine-Tuning of the Universe for Intelligent Life
5. Intentional States of Consciousness in the World
6. Objective Moral Values and Duties in the World
7. The Historical Facts about Jesus of Nazareth
8. God can be Personally Known and Experienced
9. Arguments Against Naturalism
10. The Argument from Evil
11. Wrap-Up

Introduction

In February 2013 atheist philosopher Alex Rosenberg debated Christian philosopher William Lane Craig over whether faith in God is reasonable (debate begins at around 17:14). I’ve mentioned before the reason why William Lane Craig wins debates, and since this debate is a good example of how not to debate William Lane Craig, I have been going through some of what Rosenberg did wrong and how he could have done a lot better. In this entry I’ll address Craig’s various arguments against naturalism. In this entry I’ll address Rosenberg’s argument from evil and Craig’s responses.

The Argument from Evil

What Rosenberg did

At some points in the debate Rosenberg seems to be making a logical problem of evil (where there is alleged to be a logical contradiction between God and evil). At 56:29 or so before he points out the obvious existence of suffering, he says that

if the theist[’s] God exists, he is omnipotent and benevolent. A benevolent creature eliminates suffering to the extent that the benevolent creature can. Therefore if there’s a God and he's omnipotent and benevolent, he eliminates all suffering.

This argument is a bit clumsy as it stands. For one thing, the conclusion, “Therefore if there’s a God and he's omnipotent and benevolent, he eliminates all suffering,” doesn’t quite follow from the previous statements, and needs to be cleaned up a bit. We can phrase Rosenberg’s argument more charitably and rigorously though like this:

1. If God exists, he is omnipotent and benevolent.
2. Any omnipotent being would have the power to eliminate all suffering.
3. Any benevolent being would eliminate all suffering to the extent it is able to.
4. Therefore, if God exists he would eliminate all suffering (from 1-3) and there would be no suffering.
5. There is suffering.
6. Therefore, God does not exist.(from 4 and 5).

The argument is deductively valid, i.e. the conclusion logically and necessarily from the premises. But it has long been realized in philosophy of religion that line 3 is false. Suppose for example a friend is stranded on the road and suffering of thirst. I am benevolent and have the ability to eliminate his suffering but, being ignorant of my friend’s condition, do not help him. We could change line 3 to “Any benevolent being would eliminate all suffering it knows about to the extent it is able to,” but that isn’t quite true either. Suppose two of my friends are stranded and I’m the only one capable of helping them. Alice will die if I don’t immediately take her to the hospital, and Bob will suffer some mild aches if I don’t give him aspirin. I take the first friend to the hospital, thereby not eliminating the suffering of Bob, even though eliminating the suffering of Bob is within my ability, albeit at the risk of preventing the greater good of helping Alice.

All this may seem trivial, but rigorous thinking matters not only in science but also in philosophy. Theists have long maintained that God is not omnipotent in the sense that he can do literally anything; God cannot do the logically impossible. (If the atheist insists that God can do even the logically impossible, then the logical problem of evil poses little problem for theism, since such a God is capable of creating the logical contradiction.) Many theists have argued that, as in the case of Alice and Bob, God cannot eliminate the suffering without also eliminating a greater good. This may well be implausible, but the bare logical possibility of this is enough to defeat the logical problem of evil, and as such Rosenberg should have given a better argument from evil.

To illustrate why the logical possibility of a greater good defeats the logical problem of evil, consider a scenario I’ll call Bill the Idiot Theist. Let’s label the sum total of suffering that does exist, has ever existed in this world, and will exist Φ. Bill the Idiot Theist thinks Φ suffering makes the angels in heaven smile, and that “Φ suffering making angels smile” is a great good, a much better good than eliminating any of the suffering in the world. So on this view, God cannot eliminate any of the suffering that exists without also eliminating the greater good of “Φ suffering making angels smile.” This is the theodicy that Bill the Idiot Theist believes. Bill’s idiotic theodicy is terrible, but it’s not self-contradictory, and so a perfectly good God allowing evil isn’t a logical contradiction even if it is highly implausible. As such, the logical problem of evil doesn’t work.

What Rosenberg should have done

It should first be remembered that a belief doesn’t have to be logically impossible to be ridiculous and highly implausible. What Rosenberg should have done is say that while it is not logically impossible that a perfectly good God would allow the evil we see, it is highly implausible that he would.

So one would be better off pointing to the obviously low probability that a perfectly good, omniscient, and omnipotent God would do nothing as he watched child cancer victims succumb to horrible deaths, even if God behaving that way isn’t strictly self-contradictory. If the theist puts forth a terrible theodicy (as in the case of Bill the Idiot Theist), the atheist can point out how terrible it is without saying it is self-contradictory. Rosenberg should have used the evidential argument from evil (the idea that the existence of evil and suffering is evidence against theism), as I did in my own argument from evil. It’s quick, simple, and pretty devastating.

In fairness to Rosenberg, I should point out that it isn’t entirely clear in the debate whether Rosenberg was presenting an evidential argument from evil, a logical problem of evil, or both. At certain times he seems to be presenting an evidential argument from evil, and at other times he seems to argue for the logical problem of evil. At around 58:43 he characterizes his argument from evil as a

logical deduction which shows the incompatibility of an omnipotent and benevolent creature with suffering on this planet.

This kind of suggests he’s talking about the logical problem of evil, but within a minute after this he says that it’s not enough to fob it off on “the mere logical compatibility” of God and suffering, thereby also suggesting he’s talking about an evidential argument from evil. Craig seems to interpret Rosenberg as presenting the logical problem of evil (0:59:59 to 1:00:47) and Rosenberg doesn’t clearly gainsay Craig on that point anywhere in the debate. Indeed, Rosenberg seems to suggest fairly explicitly that his argument is about the logical incompatibility of God and evil at around 1:20:03-1:21:43, where he also insists that the problem of evil is a logical one, seemingly contradicting what he said earlier about it not being enough to demonstrate the “mere logical compatibility” of God and suffering.

And the confusion gets worse. When Craig responds on how even atheist philosophers have abandoned the logical problem of evil, in Rosenberg’s next round he acts as if he and Craig were talking about a more generic problem of evil all along (1:34:47) rather than the logical problem of evil specifically; e.g. he portrays Craig as asserting that “invoking my best friend, Peter van Inwagen, asserting that nobody anymore believes” that the argument from evil is a problem for theism, even though Craig’s quotes from philosophers that Rosenberg alludes to in this response were clearly about the logical problem of evil specifically, not the argument from evil in general. While near the end he seems to be talking about a more generic problem of evil and rightfully points out that God (if he existed) could have given us free will without giving us the bubonic plague (1:36:46-1:36:52), the fact remains Rosenberg seems to have made a confused mess of things, and so if nothing else Rosenberg should have been clearer about presenting his own position and been more careful to remember what was said in the previous rounds. He also shouldn’t have given an initial version of the argument from evil that was so flawed.

Craig also argues (at around 1:25:14 onward) that it’s possible that only in a world “suffused with natural and moral evil that the optimal number of people would come to know God freely, find salvation and eternal life.” I’ve addressed William Lane Craig’s “suffused with suffering” claim before, and I think Rosenberg should have given a response something along what I wrote there.