Oppy vs WLC is the debate we REALLY need

thank God this moderator was chill and actually let them talk.

Krauss is a mean dude, he's scrappy. Not too rhetorically skilled, but obviously he argues well thanks to the elite physics background.

Krauss: I know there is no God, and any belief in God is unreasonable! Craig: It is more likely that there is a God than otherwise. Krauss: How can you say, "I know! I know!" about anything? Uncertainty is wondrous, and I am so clever and wise for celebrating this and being open-minded.

I must say, out of the 3 debates, this one was my favorite... specifically because of the moderator. It was very satisfying to get to listen to these two debate without the moderator regularly deciding to interject their own opinions, or arbitrarily deciding when the discussion had gone on long enough. While I normally despise the presence of a moderator, this gentleman should be given a huge hand of applause, and I hope to see other moderators in the future follow his example.

Graham Oppy did a great job as a moderator. He is *infinitely* more qualified to debate Craig, and I'm sure he was champing at the bit, but he really did a great job. He let the debators express themselves, only chiming in when necessary (such as to keep one particularly obnoxious person from *constantly* interrupting his opponent). Kudos to Oppy, and here's hoping other moderators can learn from his example.

I saw this years ago, before I knew about Graham Oppy and only recently realized he was the moderator. Can’t think of another time I’d prefer the moderator to the debater representing my side.

Kudos to this moderator for letting the fascinating discussions occur and injecting himself only to ensure the participants didn't talk too much over each other. Great job!

"There is no such thing as an objective moral ought!... but it's immoral what religion is doing!"

Krauss "I love not understanding, thats what is great about science.." That doesn't mean you should assume those who try to understand are inevitably wrong Krauss...

I don't think Krauss kicked Craig's ass. If you observe their exchanges, I think we can all agree that Craig was being extremely courteous towards Krauss by letting him interrupt him incessantly. Craig also gives Krauss the benefit of the doubt in setting definitions(definition of science), and he doesn't force Krauss to respond to his arguments (eg. fine tuning argument). Craig is simply soft spoken, but I picked up the logic of what he's saying. In fact, I admire Craig for being gracious in his patience towards Krauss, who clearly wants all the talk time to himself.

much thanks to the City Bible Forum for putting these talks on

Great discussion. Two freakishly smart guys going at it. Neutral moderator. Really enjoyed this! Thanks for posting.

"to claim we know the answer is to overstate the argument"

never read youtube comments, it just shows how confused people are

Why couldn't the discussion have just been between Oppy and Craig? That would have been awesome.

Krauss loves to interrupt.

Krauss is very intelligent and a formidable opponent for Dr. Craig. However, he has zero class and is extremely arrogant. He NEVER lets Dr. Craig finish his statements w/o interrupting multiple times. Even if you disagree, you should have enough class to show proper debate edicate.

I'm an atheist, but Krauss would endear himself to the other side more and perhaps be taken more seriously if he brushed up on his mannerisms. I have a good idea what the more militant atheists would say to that... so spare it.

Was hoping for Dr. Krauss to say 'Inconceivable' just once!

This is definitely the best of the three dialogues. Very well executed by both speakers and moderator.

Krauss sure got nervous when they started looking at Vilenkin's email. Busted.

Krauss refuted the cosmological argument by reference to quantum gravity and a possibly past (Dr Craig's words) eternal multiverse And refuted fine tuning by showing that laws and constants can't be considered independently (more so forces and constants) and the probabilities associated with varying one constant at a time is not the same as varying multiple so the hypothetical is moot.

I have watched many debates and this guy is by far the best moderator. This kind of back and forth dialogue is rarely seen b/c for some stupid reason moderators feel the need to censure....

All of you who think WLC is dishonest really need to actually hear WLC's side of the story. It pretty much shows that Krauss was being dishonest in this debate when he misrepresented Vilenkin's work. Vilenkin even confirmed in an email to Dr. Craig that Dr. Craig had represented his work "very accurately".

Krauss doesn't believe because God doesn't fit into his idea of god this is the case for most who deny

He is flawed from the beginning. The way he "interpreted" the question would mean that ancient civilizations were justified in believing gods caused lightning, moved mountains, and pushed the sun around. Just because there are no good explanations yet doesn't mean you can just insert god into the equation when you feel like it. And in this case there already are theories.

Yes Lawrence I agree, our behaviour is deterministic in the sense that our subconscious makes all our decisions while we have the experience of making a conscious choice! It makes you wonder who we really are!

Two brilliant debaters. Dr Craig was the victor in my opinion.

Its been said that the supreme characteristic of a man who is secure in his beliefs can listen to others and the mark of an intelligent man is that he can explain complex ideas very simply. How can Krauss claim to be both but can do neither?

One thing this debate shows is that the debate can be greatly enhanced by the knowledge and experience of the moderator. During this debate I also saw Krauss become a little more humble and nuanced than usual.

Very good debate.

It is very difficult to debate theists. You can try to reason with them, but it always comes back to magic with them. They don't need reason or knowledge or rational explanations, and they don't want them.

I just got here and I'm going to give the decision to Krause up front without watching the vid...just being me.

@43:20... does anyone know what video and if was posted???

Hey, cindyisa10: Part of the NDE or OBE experience are often accompanied by or translated into the cultural or religious beliefs of the person. I'm wondering what Bruce Greyson's cultural or religious beliefs are. Obviously, he is a dualist because he bases his hypotheses on that. However, in the spirit of healthy skepticism, does he have any religious beliefs himself, for example, Christianity, New Age, or otherwise what mechanism does he attribute the 'soul'?

Lawrence "I wrote a paper" Krauss FTW

29:00. Krauss, 'The resurrection evidence would not pass muster in a court of law...' Professor Simon Greenleaf, of Harvard Law School . "According to the laws of legal evidence used in courts of law, there is more evidence for the historical fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ than for just about any other event in history.”..

The thing is with the fine tuned argument is that it assumes that only life in the form we find on earth is the only kind of life that could exist. The "life permitting range" applies to our form of life, if the value changed then for all we know another form of life could arise

lol, Krauss @ 11:17. I shook my head at the same point, right after his 2nd premise.

Evolution explains biology exactly the way you'd expect it to be. We are not fine-tuned animals. It is absolutely more reasonable to believe that Earth is not a system unto itself, and that evolution being just a procedure of physical laws applied to biology, we should NOT suspect that the Universe is fine-tuned but that, like with evolution, we exist in the Universe in our appropriate niche, we are poorly adapted to go outside of that niche, and the survival of our Solar System despite cosmic catastrophes makes it lucky and why the present only seems providential and is not for a fact.

"Religion is a phase a species goes through when it evolves enough intelligence to ask profound questions but not enough to answer them." - Bill Flavell

Awareness is known by awareness alone.

Wishing everyone a very Merry Winter Solstice Celebration

Everything that begins to exist has a cause. The universe exists. Therefore the universe has a cause. Therefore the cause of the universe is Elmo.

Painful reminder that titles and qualifications mean nothing. Krauss may be one of the best theoretical physicists on earth (by what standards remains to be seen), but throughout the debate, he is little more than a stubborn child, who refuses to believe that anyone else could be right and believes his way of seeing the world is the only right one. Guess modern atheist scientists are not so rational after all. Krauss is the perfect example that illustrates knowledge without wisdom is not really anything.

1:46:24 where did that small black label come from ? Is Hitch around ....??

Laurence won’t shut his mouth. He has a bad habit of interrupting, and its frustrating to even listen to this because he doesn’t even let Craig finish a sentence before he belligerently interrupts time and time again. The moderator needs to moderate. This is why formal debate is necessary, because Laurence won’t shut his cake hole because all he wants to hear is himself.

Craig telling Prof. Krauss "I hope you keep your mind open for evidences" 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

The more I watch it seems that Krauss is a very angry man because he doesn't believe in God.

Great moderator.

+AndySiner Because Craig's arguments and counterarguments are generally very good. He's highly established as a philosopher and even has a great understanding of science. Where exactly was *your* refutation of his arguments; I must've missed it...

At around 1:15:20 Krauss absolutely demolishes Craig's belief in the resurrection.

"Why is there something rather than nothing?" -- An impossible question to answer honestly. "Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven... and it makes me wonder..."~Robert Plant "Absence of Evidence Is Not Evidence of Absence."~Carl Sagan *Atheism is no less faith based than any religion.* Certainty is a harsh mistress... \\][//

All that back and forth, or well more forth on Krauss's side.. About Astronomy/physics etc was fascinating, however incredibly dense. Craig, is surprisingly well versed it seems, even being able to discuss it coherently with a revered astrophysicist. Just wish someone could unpack what they talked about, but that probably requires a lot of esoteric background knowledge to even begin scratching the surface.

We can debate until we get purple but we are just at the beginning of science. I don´t know from whom this Quote is but I like it very much: "The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you."

52:18 What Krauss left out was Vilenkin saying "They had to assume though that the minimum of entropy was reached at the bounce and offered no mechanism to enforce this condition. It seems to me that it is essentially equivalent to a beginning."

I feel for Dr. Craig. Having to sit on stage for three days, trying to speak but at least 70% of the time, being unable to because you're constantly being interrupted is horrible. There is no conversation to be had with Dr. Krauss. And because that is the case, one finds he's far more close minded than he makes others out to be, sadly.

1:02:22 Dr. Krauss admits that the universe appears fine-tuned but doesn't want use that word because people may think it points to Intelligent Design. Seriously? This is what some atheist scientists do. They tweak their arguments to explain away God, rather than accepting facts where they are. Dr. Craig's deduction is correct that the universe has an eternal, transcendent, intelligent, and personal creator. As science elicits the facts, word games will not help anyone hide from Jesus. It is a fruitless endeavor to try to escape from the reality of this life, and that reality is God exists and will judge us all. Follow Acts 2: 38-39 to be saved. Peace to you.

Furthermore, it does not matter whether or not a tenable multi-verse hypothesis is given, because it too would suffer the same fate as the one in your imagined reality. It too would necessitate a finite beginning. No events can occur otherwise.

Krauss says he needs scientific proof for everything. God is all around us and he doesn't see it.

The people commenting here are really amazing to me. They actually think Krauss had a single good point in this entire discussion or that he refuted *any* of Craig's arguments.... I'd like to know when this happened. I've watched this discussion twice. What I heard was childish yelling of "How do you know!?" and "we just don't know!", when Craig wasn't claiming to *know* any of these things with certainty any more than Krauss was claiming certainty on his points. Then there was that utterly idiotic question of "why didn't God give calculus to Moses".... I can't believe anyone thinks Krauss did well here. Could someone please point out to me a single good point or cogent refutation that Krauss made in this entire discussion? In *any* of the three discussions, for that matter? Please??

Winning a debate has nothing to do with the truth. Sometimes you are indeed correct and that's fine but if you are wrong, you will actually leave the room soaking in your own ignorance. Because there is a big difference between "being right" and not knowing your wrong. That's the beauty of realizing you made a mistake. It is the moment that an opportunity to grow presents itself.

because I cannot describe something but because I know it acts upon me and without it nothing would exist is why I don't worry too much as to what it is, it just is, it's existence is already established through experience alone, totally independent form empirical evidence until it is proven, which in this case always was truth from the start.

1. What's wrong with Dr. Craig's hands? Is he deformed in some way? 2. If you watched all of this 3-part dialogue, you can tell that Prof. Krauss gradually gained more respect for Dr. Craig as a human being. At the conclusion of the 1st discussion, Krauss was reluctant to even shake WLC's hand. It wouldn't surprise me if these 2 developed a relationship - from a business sense at the very least. 3. The 3rd moderator was by far the best of the 3.

Krauss: "Honesty, Full Disclosure!" Also Krauss: "I don't wanna show the full Vilenkin email because then you'll know I'm lying."

If all physical reality began to exist, there could be no physical cause. There must be a timeless, spaceless, immaterial agency.

Even if the temporal framework is jettisoned-this has problems of its own-then one event-or state in this case-must still be causally prior to another in order for a hypothetical universe to occur. You cannot simply imagine a universe into existence. It must adhere to the laws of physics and of reason.

About 16 minutes in WLC claims that a naturalistic view has no grounds for moral objection to slaughtering children, yet in other talks he argues that his theistic perspective can regard it as acceptable. Makes one cringe.

Dr. Krauss talks about how he hates lies and distortions. I don’t know if his own distortions and misrepresentations about Christianity, the Old Testament, were due to his own lack of research, prejudice or if he intended to mislead. When I watched the debates I was then surprised by the number of times he interrupts and then distorts what Dr. Craig was saying. Dr. Craig showed a great deal of patience and restraint in each of these conversations. Some of the distortions I noted: Dionysus and other ancient gods had virgin birth and resurrection myths. This is more of a distortion of history. Many religions changed key stories about their deities through the centuries and from region to region. To show that this is even an argument worth presenting Dr. Krauss would have to show that those portions of ancient myths preceded the biblical accounts. He would also have to show that they were either commonplace before the emergence of Christianity or that there was at least some historical connection. As it is he doesn’t even show that the similarities are close enough to cause any problems. Another distortion is that Dr. Krauss said that on Dr. Craig’s podcasts he says that animals don’t feel pain. I have listened to those podcasts and Dr. Craig presents a commentary on research that gives evidence that animals don’t experience the first person awareness that they are experiencing pain. This is far different than saying that they don’t feel pain. Dr. Krauss also tries to mix an atheistic worldview and a Christian worldview. Note how irrationally hostile Dr. Krauss gets about things he believes are fictional. Under atheism all instances in the bible that talk about God doing or saying something are fictional. Therefore under atheism there shouldn’t be a moral issue of one fictional character (God) harming another fictional character (Canaanites or the people who suffer in hell). It only becomes an issue of morality if the events are true and they are only true under a Jewish or Christian worldview. Both Judaism and Christianity affirm the context that God is the giver and sustainer of life; therefore He has the authority to establish morality and impose judgment on those who violate that morality. Under Christianity God judges people according to what they have done. If a child who hasn’t done anything bad worth judgment they then start a new life with God that is without pain or suffering. If the bible is true that the Canaanites participated in human sacrifice then wouldn’t the child be better off with God instead of with the Canaanites? It looked like Dr. Krauss was just trying to throw as much mud as possible to make some stick. On the other hand Dr. Craig showed the fruits of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control).

I enjoyed the the debate.

Just before 54:20 For those of you saying that Craig catches Krauss in a lie with the email and those ellipses please show me the specifics and times.

Lol I love how Lawrence Krauss is a badass and slumps in his chair like that, while the William Lane Craig sits up all proper. :)

If I had a dime for every time Krauss interrupted Craig

I fail to see the profundity behind WLC's mathematical argument. Mathematics are a human creation used to explain the world and the way certain things work. It would be like somebody saying "How is it that language explains things around us? How come the universe is capable of being understood and described through language, when we say that something is a tree or a rainbow?" Language didn't exist before we created it, and neither did mathematics, despite the fact that things which DID exist before either were created can be explained by both of them.

it is not the universe that adjusted to the single-celled organism. it is the single-celled organism that adjusted to the universe. that is why we exist today. not because the universe is "fine-tuned" to us.

55:00 Lawrence and his tactics exposed.

Hmmmm, 914 Likes, 44 Dislikes. 44 chistians watched this I guess.

what isn't understood though are the forces acting upon what triggers the forces that we understand which ultimately are in space (where there's a huge cloud of obscurity even in our modern understanding) that's where I was arguing from that point.. where you were merely arguing just from the standpoint of describing the characteristics and the effects of the causations, not the main triggers which I hope we may understand more of in the near future like what triggers lightning & so fourth

@relationship Depends on how you define “relationship”. I think I am part of and interacting with the universe.

The fine tuning might elude Mr. William Lane Craig, he is clearly not worthy of his title of Dr. What eludes Mr. Craig is the fact that life adapts, life is tuned to the universe, not the other way around.

*_God is the best explanation of ...._* 1. The origin of the universe. 2. The applicability of mathematics to the physical world. 3. The fine tuning of the universe for intelligent life. 4. Objective moral values and duties in the world. 5. The historical facts concerning the resurrection of Jesus. 6. God can be personally known and experienced.

@Kv8jix- Yes, Bill Craig is excellent at formal debates - he knows exactly how to exploit the format and make himself look like the winner everytime, regardless of how bad his arguments actually are.

Krauss is a such a good seller. He uses mimics and funny movements than converts him great candidate for mime man, he entertains and also is very enfatic in his words and ilustration. He is pretty good seller

BEST debate with WLC ever. I had always assumed he was intellectually dishonest -- but Krauss' persuasion is compelling. I also found the method of this debate substantially better, with the one caveat that I'd prefer a judge were the moderator who'd chime in with rules of evidence and admissibility. Krauss uses new arguments from his typical retorts which shows he took seriously and prepared for it -- he's also obviously reading quite a bit of philosophy it'd appear. Do people think voting the video up or down is a vote to the content and not the relevance of the title to the production? What the hell are the thumbs down about?

"All mammals exhibit homosexual behavior. William Lane Craig is a mammal." LOL!!!

after you know the background history of the authors or from which village they were published from and the background information about those specific villages, their costumes and norms, (societies like the majority of the world where woman were inferior to a certain perspective), then comes the other issue to tackle which the Romans were the ones to canonize the first collection of the books with their own set of values to judge their choosing... so they pickout which books & manuscripts

finally a good moderator

I think Krauss is rude, he keeps interrupting Craig.

so, am, ok, am, so, am, the a, am, so, ok, a, am,

was the second debate ever released?

Mathematics was developed as a way of quantitatively describing real things, starting with counting livestock and other possessions, then going on to measure distance and area and volumes, then developing geometry to describe shapes, and eventually calculus. Thus it is not at all surprising that mathmatic models describe reality, mathematics was developed to do exactly that.

I think Krauss made only one mistake.... when he said WLC isn't a liar. I still think he is.

If any Christian (as Bill advocates for a single belief) say that Lawrence has lost this debate for Craig, I give up, because this case is already demonstration of a blind, deaf and dumb faith, in which the discussion becomes useless, because you already a priori ignores anything that does not come from Christianity. Craig showed nothing to justify a belief in a particular god or his existence, and Lawrence always tried to remember all the time to Bill the importance of intellectual honesty, that the Bill does not value much. And the name for it called ignorance.

I much prefer this form of debate.. It's much more interesting and they can freely say what they want to say without running out of time or having to listen to the other person for 2 minutes if they have gone off track from misunderstanding something or are about to say something that has already been addressed or predictable and can be replied to straight away without listening to them for ages.. and no one gets in the way with questions all the time and they can talk about what they want, much more interesting on both sides.. we all know how unhappy Bill Nye was about not being able to say why Ken Ham is wrong.

We don't know whether naturalism is true, however, it is what we perceive to be the case based on everything that we observe; however, it is not what we experience, since, we feel that we make our own choices at least most of us. If it happens to be the case that absolute determinism is true, it is clear that we have no choice other than to live as if we do have free will even if it is actually an illusion.

Could someone please get ten apples and an abacus and explain to Craig why math is not an abstract concept before he spews out this bullshit again?

This entire debate could be summarised by listening from 3:52 to about 4:06. If you listen closely, you can hear Krauss mutter "and me" under his breath while Oppy was Introducing Craig. Krauss is a childish attention seeker and this was evident from the get-go. Craig won hands down.

Natural forces aren't random, but do allow for the appearance of design... Which dismisses the idea of actual design for natural structures, since, we understand HOW physical forces cause the formations that we see. Do you understand this point?

"Is our universe a purposeless one?" - We call it home (which for most of us is a point of value)...:) - Here's a story for your review... There was once a deity who created a universe, but in the act of creation it died. Would you say that such a universe has purpose or not?