Boxing Pythagoras

Philosophy from the mind of a fighter

Archive for the tag “apologetics”

11 Aug 2016
32 Comments

A Variation on the Grim Reaper Paradox

In one of my earlier posts, I addressed the Grim Reaper paradox and offered my input on a possible resolution of the thought experiment’s curious implications. However, some of my readers may have been dissatisfied with my answer, thinking that it sidestepped around the issue rather than addressing the conundrum directly. A few people asked me why I thought that obscure philosophy on the nature of Time might have any relevance to the question, in the first place. To that end, I have decided to offer a bit more clarification and to attempt to illustrate why I think the Grim Reaper paradox is inherently flawed.

Consider this slightly modified version of the thought experiment…

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Posted in Mathematics, Philosophy and tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,
10 Feb 2016
4 Comments

WLC dodges his own question

Recently, I have taken to addressing William Lane Craig’s Excursus on Natural Theology podcasts. These are lessons directed at the layperson with the goal of demonstrating the rationality of theism from simple arguments. As you may infer from my previous articles, I do not think that the Excursus has come even close to meeting that goal.

Today, we will be discussing Part 17 of the Excursus. If you read my article on Part 16, you might remember that I was actually quite excited for this, due to Dr. Craig’s promise to discuss the plausibility of Design as an explanation of the universe’s fine-tuning. As I mentioned, whenever I have discussed the idea of Intelligent Design with an apologist, I have brought up this very subject. Unfortunately, I’ve only ever been met with answers about the purported improbability of chance or necessity. I’ve never been proffered any answers with positive evidence for the idea of Design, nor even with a proposed mechanism by which the Fine-Tuning of the universe could be Designed.

Early on in the discussion, Dr. Craig makes a statement with which I wholeheartedly agree:

But we cannot infer immediately to design because sometimes it can be justified to believe in an improbable explanation. You would be justified in believing in some improbable explanation just in case there were no better explanation available of the phenomenon in question…

The question we are facing now with regard to the fine-tuning of the universe is: is design a better explanation than chance or physical necessity?

Yes, this most certainly is the question! So, how does Dr. Craig answer this question? Does he define what, exactly, he means by the term “design?” Does he offer some method for differentiating something which is “designed” from something which is not “designed?” Does he then apply this standard to the question of Fine-Tuning in order to show that the constants and quantities of the universe more keenly fit into the “designed” category than the “not designed” category?

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Posted in Philosophy and tagged , , , ,
29 Jan 2016
2 Comments

WLC doesn’t understand cosmology

Over the past few months, I have been listening to Dr. William Lane Craig’s Excursus on Natural Theology, which is a course designed to introduce an audience to reasons for accepting the positions of theism. From time to time, I find that Dr. Craig says something so egregiously wrong that I feel I should address it, here, at Boxing Pythagoras. In two previous articles, I have discussed Dr. Craig’s misconceptions in regards to the mathematical concept of infinity, from parts 9 and 10 of his Excursus. Today, I want to focus on Part 16 of the Excursus in which Dr. Craig talks about the Fine-Tuning problem of cosmology.

Unfortunately for our esteemed theologian, his understanding of cosmology seems to be just as poor as his understanding of mathematics.

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Posted in Philosophy, Science and tagged , , , , ,
30 Oct 2015
8 Comments

Commentary on my Catholic Answers call

On Monday night, I called into the Catholic Answers radio program to give the reason why I am an atheist. My stated reason was that I have not been offered any convincing reasons to believe that deity exists, and the discussion quickly turned to the subject of the Cosmological family of arguments. Unfortunately, a live call-in program does not offer the best forum for back-and-forth discussion, so I wanted to take some time to respond to a number of the things which Trent Horn said, in our dialogue.

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Posted in Philosophy and tagged , , , , ,
30 Oct 2015
6 Comments

My brief call to the Catholic Answers radio show

This past Monday night, the Catholic Answers Live radio show on EWTN hosted an episode in which they asked, “Why are you an Atheist?” They restricted callers to atheists or agnostics, and asked those respondents to tell the hosts, Patrick Coffin and Trent Horn, why they are either atheist or agnostic. Anyone who made it on the air would be sent a free copy of Trent Horn’s book, Answering Atheism. Curious to see how the apologists would respond to my position– and also, to be sure, looking to get a free book– I called in to the show to offer my position. The audio recording of Monday night’s discussion is available here, but for those of you who do not want to take the time to listen to the whole show, I’ve transcribed my discussion in this article.

I would like to say that it was an absolute pleasure to talk to Trent about this subject, and I found him to be utterly sincere, entirely respectful, and genuinely interested in having a dialogue. I can honestly say that, brief as it was, this was one of the most enjoyable conversations I’ve ever had with an apologist. I am very much looking forward to receiving Trent’s book, now, and I promise that I will review it here on Boxing Pythagoras.

Also, I would be remiss if I didn’t give a huge thank you to Elaine, the call screener for the show. She seemed an absolutely lovely woman, extremely kind and respectful. After my call dropped due entirely to problems on my end, she very graciously moved me back to the head of the line when I called back in.

The transcript follows, edited only slightly at the very beginning, due to my phone troubles.

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Posted in Philosophy and tagged , , , , ,
23 Oct 2015

WLC doesn’t understand infinity, Part 2

In my previous article, we began to take aim at William Lane Craig’s misconceptions regarding the nature of infinity. We continue on that theme, today, by taking a look at the further arguments which Dr. Craig makes in Part 10 of his Excursus on Natural Theology. While most of the objections which Dr. Craig espouses in this episode fall prey to the same mistakes which he was making last time, I still thought it might be instructive to respond to each one, in turn. Suffice to say, the arguments which Dr. Craig levies this time around are absolutely no better than the ones which he raised previously.

In fact, I’d argue that– for the most part– they are far worse.

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Posted in Mathematics, Philosophy and tagged , , , , | Leave a comment
16 Oct 2015
23 Comments

WLC doesn’t understand Infinity, Part 1

One of the topics which William Lane Craig often discusses is a question which has been argued in the Philosophy of Mathematics for at least 2300 years. Can an infinite number of things actually exist? Dr. Craig asserts that such actual infinites cannot exist. This is actually a topic which I have discussed before, on this blog, but Dr. Craig attempts to tackle the question quite differently than does Dr. Wildberger. Interestingly, Dr. Wildberger is a mathematician, and most of my objections to his argument pointed out his unfamiliarity with philosophy; while Dr. Craig, on the other hand, is a philosopher, and most of my objections to his argument will point out his unfamiliarity with mathematics.

Dr. Craig has discussed the topic of actual infinities in a number of different places, but I will be referring to his Excursus on Natural Theology, Part 9, for our discussion today. These are the same arguments which I have generally seen Dr. Craig present in his other work, but this happens to be the most recent exploration of the topic from WLC which is available to us.

Unfortunately, just as he has done many times before (see here and here, for example), William Lane Craig demonstrates that he has a rather poor grasp of the mathematics he’s attempting to discuss.

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Posted in Mathematics, Philosophy and tagged , , , , , ,
29 Sep 2015
4 Comments

WLC on the Speed of Light

I’ve been listening to a series from William Lane Craig’s Defenders podcast entitled “An Excursus on Natural Theology,” over at the Reasonable Faith website, of late. Needless to say, I have a lot I would like to say about almost the entirety of the series. However, today, I’m going to focus on a minor point which Dr. Craig makes in Part 6 of the series. Now, to be completely fair, this point is only tangential Dr. Craig’s overarching claims. By no means am I attempting to imply that the problems with this one issue somehow refute his whole Excursus– I’ll be dedicating a whole new series of posts to that, in the future. However, I chose to focus on this very minor point made by Dr. Craig for another reason entirely.

Once again, William Lane Craig has demonstrated himself to be rather ignorant in regards to the science which he attempts to discuss.

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Posted in Mathematics, Philosophy, Science and tagged , , , , , ,
14 Aug 2015
14 Comments

The Universe Has Always Existed

As will be patently obvious to anyone who has read much of my blog, I am incredibly fascinated by the question of Time and the description of the universe’s history. The topic is incredibly complex and wonderfully intricate. Unfortunately, these peculiarities can very often lead to very common misconceptions. One of the misconceptions which I encounter most often is the idea that there was once a state in which the universe did not exist.

This misconception has arisen because, over the past century, it has become increasingly plausible that the universe may not extend infinitely into the past. Thanks to Big Bang Cosmology, the previously prevailing view of Aristotle that the universe is static and eternal has been almost entirely abandoned. It is entirely possible– and perhaps even likely, given certain assumptions– that the universe has a finite history. That is to say, there was a first Moment of Time. Given this, people naturally wonder, “Well, what happened before that?” Unfortunately, these people don’t realize that the question which they are asking is entirely nonsensical.

Whether the universe is past-finite or past-infinite, it has always existed.

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Posted in Philosophy and tagged , , , ,
12 Dec 2014
3 Comments

A Nativity Story

The man stood, dumbfounded, attempting to comprehend the news he had just been given. The Messenger of God had just informed him that his wife– his Virgin– was now with child, and would present him with a son who would surpass all who had ever lived in beauty and wisdom. The boy to come would be a divine gift, the greatest beneficence that the human race would ever know. Though coming into this world by birth through woman, the infant boy had in fact pre-existed his human form, and was wholly divine in nature. The man rushed home to his wife to find that the Messenger of God had spoken true. She was, indeed, with child.

Thus, Pythagoras was born into this world.

What? You thought I was talking about somebody else? This account is from the Life of Pythagoras, written by the great Neoplatonist philosopher Iamblichus in the 3rd Century, CE. Now, I will completely admit that I paraphrased the story in order to obfuscate it, a bit. The “Messenger of God” that spoke to Mnesarchus (Pythagoras’ father) was the Oracle at Delphi. And the reason that I capitalized “Virgin” in my paraphrase was because that was the name of Mnesarchus’ wife, before he received this news from the Oracle– Parthenis, in Greek. As soon as he received the announcement from the Oracle, Mnesarchus changed his wife’s name to Pythais, in honor of Pythian Apollo (which, Iamblichus tells us, was also the source for Pythagoras’ name). Still, the paraphrase stands: a Messenger of God informed a man that his wife’s womb had been filled by deity, and that the child would be divine, the greatest gift the world could hope to receive.

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Posted in History, Philosophy and tagged , , , , ,

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