Monday, August 26, 2013

Kreeft shows he's antiquated




This video was brought to my attention in a roundabout way on Facebook and I just had to comment.

First, Dr. Kreeft likely is forced to make these one-sided videos now because as a debater on such issues he was consistently and soundly defeated. It's hard to believe he still clings to Aquinas-ism since it's such a poor argument for the existence of god and the main reason why he was always destroyed in debates. And as a quick aside, he lists Boston U. (a Catholic school, by the way) as his school, but his videos are from Prager University, which isn't even an accredited school that can offer degrees; it's an online site that compiles five-minute videos to teach students, a Readers Digest of "education" if you will. So his credibility continues to sink further into obscurity.

But let's get to how foolish this video really is. Aquinas' proofs are outdated and vacuous. His first three, which all state exactly the same thing, are the weak foundation upon which Kreeft's entire argument rests. These three "proofs" basically use an infinite regress, which means asking a question that begs another question ad infinitum until Christians are forced to use their one escape/answer, which is to say it must be god. It's called the God of the Gaps argument, and it gets weaker every time science proves something else god didn't make. But there's a major flaw from this saint: Aquinas' "proof" assumes god is immune to this regress. Why do believers get to say, without proof, their god doesn't need a prime mover? And the irony isn't lost on me that Aquinas' proofs prove nothing.

It's much simpler to explain the universe's origins with the Big Bang (or an as yet unknown cause) than it is to explain an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent being who was always there with no causality (something Kreeft himself says must exist). However improbable Kreeft may think the odds are that the universe exists out of nothing, the odds are INFINITELY greater and more improbable that a divine being had no creator of his own, has existed for all time and created everything out of nothing as well. Ever heard of Occam's Razor? When there are two competing hypotheses, the one that has the fewest assumptions is generally right. In other words, the simple explanation wins. A perfect god is anything but simple.

Aquinas' other "proofs" are just as refutable and antiquated, but since Kreeft only chose the "prime mover" example, there's no need to get into the others.

Kreeft's use of Newton to help his cause was quite pathetic. First, yes, Newton claimed to be religious. So was just about everybody until the nineteenth century. Why? Because that's when social pressure (and fear of being called a heretic and facing death as a consequence) to be religious had finally subsided, and there was more scientific support for abandoning belief in a deity. 

I would venture to guess that if Newton were alive today, with all of the discoveries and scientific evidence we have now, he would be at the very least agnostic. Think about all that has been discovered or invented since he died: Einstein's Theory of Relativity, Darwin's Theory of Evolution, splitting of the atom, nuclear power, airplanes, quantum mechanics, space travel, Hubble's telescope, modern medicine, etc. To hold him up as a proof of god is a poor choice. And how desperate is it to use one person's beliefs to defend such a weak argument? For every Newton there are dozens of clergy who lose faith and become agnostics or atheists. That's no way to defend a point of view or argument. 

As for saying believing in god is rational, and atheism requires faith, well that is pure ignorance and is very irresponsible on his part. Atheism requires nothing; it is merely a stance on one point: the lack of evidence for any god or supernatural occurrence. It's not even close to being a religion. Using faith and atheism together like that is akin to saying something like, "What is the color of arrogance?" It's a non-sequitur; they don't even belong together. 

Faith, as it pertains to religion, is a belief in something you can't prove ... the very definition of the Christian god. Rationality, on the other hand, is having sound judgement and reason: two things a religious person can't have when it pertains to their god and religion. It's also the reason why debating people like Kreeft is futile, because they're too far gone in their indoctrination and delusions to hear the truth. Or as Friedrich Nietzsche said, "Faith: not wanting to know what is true."

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