Sam Harris and William Lane Craig at Notre Dame

I do like that kinda stuff, but usually, I can barely stand to listen to William Lane Craig, he always makes me cringe. He just throws out so much BS that it's impossible to refute everything in a debate.
Especially his love for the cosmological argument for god is tedious. He always throws out quotes by physicists that he carefully mined and took out of context that would each probably take an entire hour to explain to the audience and to show how WLC is misusing it.

I always thought that he should debate a proper physicist once so that he'd finally get his a$$ handed to him and he recently did debate Lawrence Krauss, you can listen to it here:
http://apologetics315.blogspot.com/2011/03/william-lane-craig-vs-lawrence-krauss.html

Unfortunately the topic was once again too broad so that Krauss couldn't tear down the wall of BS that WLC built around his argument.
I mean WLC is obviously a very effective debater, no question about it, but if you have an understanding for what he's actually talking about, then you realize that it's nothing but hot air.

I really felt sorry for Krauss, who as a scientist has the natural disadvantage of not being used to employ language in a way that's full of absolute statements and absolute self-assurendness. All of WLC's logical statements were fallacious, but Krauss had no chance of dealing with all of them as he basically had to give a mini lecture on physics before being able to tackle any specific point. Anyway, better than the debate itself was Krauss' blogpost on it a couple of days later:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/04/lawrence_krauss_vs_william_lan.php


Contrary to that, the debate between WLC and Sam Harris was much better, mainly because the topic was very narrow, so that WLC couldn't constantly throw more BS at Harris, plus it didn't give WLC any room to once again milk his fallacious cosmological argument.

first of all, Harris employs absurd examples, things that don't actually exist in the real world, as the foundation of most of his arguments.

"imagine a world where the reality is the greatest amount of suffering possible for everyone...would that be bad?"

well it would be bad if and only if every inhabitant did not deserve the greatest possible amount of suffering based upon their actions. later Harris, in his rebuttal, asks whether being placed in the Christian hell would be bad. he assumes that it would be bad, but he misuses the term. it would be unpleasant, but it might be a completely just and reasonable outcome, given the possibility that other factors are true.

Harris snipes at religion at every turn. he also snipes at people whose view disagrees with his. his presentation is more humorous than WLC, but he clearly didn't win the debate, based on debate format standards.

Really? do you even know what the debate was about and what Sam Harris actually believes? Sam Harris´view on morality is a very radical view coming from an atheist and 99% of atheist would disagree with him. Having read his latest book explaining his position, I am not at all suprised of the piss poor job he did defending his view and why he relied on snarky comments to get through this one. I am not a fan of Craig, but Harris seems to be a less attractive version of Sarah Palin, I guess she also made people ¨think¨.

That´s the problem, his philosophy is NOT grounded in your reality as an atheist. Harris is not just trying to give his own moral philosophy, he is justifying an OBJECTIVE moral construct. He grounds his moral framework by saying that the good is determined by what increases human well being and the bad is determined by what increases human suffering. This is completely fine if this was his own subjective belief, but he actually believes that it is objective.

Now for his moral framework to be objective, it must be grounded on something outside of our minds. You are telling me that in your atheist reality, you can show that in this random universe without purpose there exists a moral framework that is objectively true? You can also show me, based on evidence, what SHOULD be meant by well being (personal vs. collective, mental vs. physical, short term vs. long term), or why we SHOULDN´T apply the same standard to animals that we do to humans, etc. This CANNOT be justified based on a naturalist reality, and the crime is that Harris completely fails at even trying. I recommend you to read his book The Moral Landscape, your logical side will be aching but you will have a better understanding about this so called philosopher.

The irony is that in your reality, you cannot justify Craig´s objective morality any more than you can justify Harris´. You cannot bridge Hume´s Is-Ought gap, in other words, you cannot derive what ought to be the case simply from what is the case. I am not surprised if you didn´t pick up on his major premise, because he did a painfully horrible job in this debate. Aside from the whole atheist/theist debate, if we focus on logic and reason, I don´t see how someone can seriously say that Harris was more logical during this debate.

I will focus on two parts of your last post, if you want to cover the other later, bring them up again.

The problem is that the subject cannot be exclusively tackled by science. Lets take a more precise moral question, Abortion. Science cannot tell you when it is immoral to abort a fetus any more than it can tell you when you are acting immorally in Harris proposed framework. What science can do is tell you when the fetus develops certain characteristics just like it can tell you when certain actions will deliver certain outcomes. Up until now, we cannot derive from this information how we OUGHT to behave, science has only told us how things DO behave. In order to get a moral framework, we have to bridge the IS-OUGHT gap and there is no way to do this through science! If we said, it is immoral to abort a fetus when it feels pain or it is immoral to behave in such a way that increases suffering, then now we have a foundation to apply our scientific principles. The problem is that since this is not a scientific question, it is impossible to show that this foundation of how we OUGHT to behave is better grounded in reality than any other foundation.

This foundation is just as valid as saying, human life starts when a baby learns to talk or we should act in a way that increases our own personal happiness. Harris does not show why his foundation is truly moral, he just claims that it is so and this is understandable because using science, you cannot derive a moral truth (an OUGHT) from reality.

My definition of objective is the same as yours or Harris'. Morality cannot possibly be treated as a natural phenomenon because we cannot derive how we SHOULD behave from nature and science. The most important part of Harris' morality, the one that tells us what is moral and immoral, cannot be proven scientifically, therefore, it is ridiculous to claim that the entirety of his moral framework can.

I kind of disagree with Sam on this one (maybe I just do not fully understand him), I think Morality is Relative and is always changing, he bases his morality on what is the worst thing you can imagine (everyone suffers) and he goes from there. I can see that; but the everything else is a decision we make as people and civilization on what should be moral and what should not be moral.

Abortion Moral or not?

Gay Marriage, Moral or not?

Stoning gay people, Moral or not?

This changes over time, so does our Morality.

Eating animals, is that moral? will it always be moral?

Maybe I just do not understand Morality.

Suicide Bombings Moral or not? It will vary on the circumstances in my opinion.

Sam Harris argues that we can observe the facts. We can observe whether an acton causes or reduces suffering.

Harris argues that the step from "female circumcision causes suffering" (which is an objective fact) to "female circumcision is immoral" is just as trivial and straight forward as the step from "high radiation causes cancer" (again an objective fact) to "high radiation is unhealthy".

You should listen to Harris again, he has certainly convinced me. Sure, morality changes, but that doesn't mean it's not objective, it just means that we used to be further off the mark than we're now, just like Newton's theory of gravity was further off the mark than Einstein's theory. That doesn't mean however that the force of gravity is subjective, does it?

I don´t know how this adds anything significant to what Ombak already said.

Your second example about the radiation takes a statement about what is the case and it leads to another statement about what is the case, this is perfectly coherent with science. The first example about circumcision takes a statement about what is the case and transforms it into what ought to be the case, this cannot be derived by science. They are completely different and I think its fallacious for the same reasons that i mentioned in my last reply to Ombak.

No, its not subjective, because Newton was wrong and Einstein is right based on the scientific knowledge we have. The truth about gravity is independent of Newton´s or Einstein´s mind. We can make observations and point to why this is the case. You make it seem that in morality, like in gravity, there is some ultimate truth that we are getting closer to discover. In gravity, this is absolutely the case and we can make scientific observations based on evidence about what gravity actually IS. In morality, this cannot be the case since there is no way to make observations and gather evidence about what morality SHOULD be. Once again, I do not doubt that you can scientifically quantify that certain actions lead to different levels of suffering (an IS statement) what you cant do is show scientifically that one SHOULD decrease suffering. This is a subjective claim that cannot be proven scientifically and thus, Harris' moral framework cannot be objective since its foundation is subjective in nature.

This is the equivalent of saying "Morality is determined by what increases my net worth and immoral actions are those that decrease my net worth." Taking this statement, and given any action A or B, we can certainly quantify which action will increase my net worth and therefore, decide on the moral course of action. Taking the above statement as our foundation, we can definitely build a moral landscape based on a scientific analysis to determine what would be the moral course of action in any situation. The problem is that my moral framework cannot be objective since its foundation is subjective in nature. I can't prove scientifically why the statement in bold is true, because science cannot derive an OUGHT statement from nature. This is the same case with Harris' foundation. While Newton and Einstein were moving toward an objective reality, Harris' morality is based on a subjective foundation that cannot be proven scientifically so there is no RIGHT answer to this question, just subjectively different answers.

No, it's not about what ought to be at all. The first example is also about two statements that are the case.
Female circumcision is the case => an immoral act is the case.

That you ought not to mutilate a girls genitalia is no different than that you ought not to eat a pound of plutonium, it's an additional step.

See above.

Well, morality means what it means because that's how we have defined it. I don't see the problem there at all.
Health means what it means because that's how we have defined it.
Gravity means what it means because that's how we have defined it.

Of course we can only talk about something on the basis of a common definition.

Are you seriously arguing that the definition of a word hinges on the existence of god?

A person who lives in a society where it is acceptable to mutilate a girl's genitalia, does not eat plutonium because it might kill him, in his mind, the only reason he should not mutilate a girl's genitalia is because someone (or a group of people) have a subjective belief that he should not do it, which he obviously doesn't share. How is this not completely different?

No, morality is not defined as that which enhances our well-being. The definition of the word morality alludes to certain conduct that is right and wrong. Harris doesn't want to change the definition of morality, he simply argues that the right behavior is the one that promotes our well-being.

You also keep saying that Harris is just trying to show what morality is, not what morality should be or how people should behave and you couldn't be more wrong. This is an excerpt from Harris' moral landscape describing his disagreement with the scientific community about morality,

"While psychologists and neuroscientists now routinely study human happiness, positive emotions and moral reasoning, they rarely draw conclusions about how human beings OUGHT to think or behave in light of their findings."

Harris did not write about moral history and then took a general consensus about what people think is moral. If he did this, then I would have no problem at all. He is saying that he is in an epistemic position to determine how humans ought to behave but those scientists are right, you cannot scientifically derive an ought from nature.

I gave this example before, but if i defined that the right behavior (the moral action) is the one that increases my net worth, why would i be wrong and Harris be right? If Harris' moral framework can be derived scientifically, then one should be able to demonstrate why my version of morality is scientifically fallacious, especially if Harris' moral framework is supported by science.

"I don't want to die" and "I don't want others to suffer" are both subjective.

Well, that is how morality is defined.
It appears to me that you're argument really is about the definition of morality: "Why should morality be defined like this and not any other way?"
Quite frankly, that's a stupid question, it's defined that way because we needed a word to have that meaning in order to have meaningful discussions.

You're playing a semantics game and a terrible one at that. You try to un-define the word, to take out any concrete meaning.
Sorry, but that's not how things work.

He's basically saying: "If you want to be moral, this is how you should behave."
So where's the problem with that?

That's simple: You've changed the definition of the word you're working with.

It's no different than this:
Look at my new coffee table:

From studying this specimen, I conclude that coffee tables like to fetch sticks, chew on bones, hump random legs, love to be petted, can learn commands in human language, chase cats and have to go for a walk at least three times a day unless you want them to use your house as toilet.

Wait a minute you might say, coffee tables usually don't have any of these properties, you're talking about a dog. But I can just reply the way you did: That's how I define coffee table, prove me wrong!


It's a nonsensical argument quite frankly...

That is a shitty coffee table, I would not pay more than $5 bucks for it on Ebay, I mean where would I put my coffee?

This is indeed a despicable article and just goes to show how immoral religion is.

There are lots of problematic passages like this:

This kind of reasoning makes this whole divine command thing very prone to abuse. And given the standards of evidence people like WLC use, he has absolutely no way of telling whether a command really is divine.

Wow, so much for morality. Where's the morality in letting Israel suffer and giving the Canaanites hope? Especially given that god apparently knew how it would all play out. Is this a sick game of his?

Yeah, I can't think of anything better than killing all Canaanite children in order to make that kind of illustration...how in the world is anybody supposed to take this guy seriously?

Then comes the most dangerous bit of his article:

That kind of theology is what drives parents to kill their young children in order to save them. I remember hearing two of these stories recently, where a mother killed her children in order to assure that they go into heaven. Nicely done WLC.

But there's more:

Well done, this is how smoothly you can turn killers into victims.
But there's one bit that doesn't make sense, why couldn't the children do the killing and still inherit eternal life? I mean WLC did point out that it was the moral thing to do, because god said so...

Again, this doesn't make sense. If god wanted to set a precedent, then why did he send Israeli soldiers to do the job? Wouldn't it have been a much stronger sign to do it himself? Turn every Canaanite into a stone pillar or something?
Military action can hardly serve as any sort of divine sign. After all, it was the Israelites who were conquered by the Babylonians later on, so according to that logic, this was a sign by the gods of Babylon that they are not to be trifled with.
But of course there's always a cop out...in that case it was also YHWH saying something, namely that the Jews weren't pious enough...but then maybe the Canaanite god was the real deal, only that they were not pious enough...

See kids, this is how you can tell the good guys from the bad guys: The bad guys try to convert everybody. How terrible is that? The good guys on the other hand just slaughter every man, woman and child as well as the cattle. Now that is godly behavior...

congrats on leaving out the parts that put into perspective what God is actually like.