How I would Rebut Craig's Opening Statement in a Debate

Craig makes a lot of points that are worth tackling.

This is a response to his opening statement here.

To begin with a brief overview of issues with the arguments presented they each have a few problems.

1 They rely on speculative metaphysical claims that we can’t be very confident in. 

2 They just point us to a being who made the universe—they don’t prove it’s moral.  It good be evil, or more likely apathetic.  Some trickster deity would explain hiddenness, evil, and all of the arguments for God   

3 None of them show the metaphysical grounding of things has to be conscious—it could be a non-conscious entity

4 The history of science shows that we can usually find some satisfactory explanation for things—even if we don’t know what the explanation is

5 All of them rely on a series of controversial speculative premises that would require a book length to address—most aren’t believed across the board my philosophers, so we shouldn’t hold them particularly confidently

But now let’s address them specifically.

Kalam

The kalam has 3 stages.  All of them fail. 

First, they say everything which begins to exist needs a cause.  This is not justified

A We have no reason to think its true, especially if causality is just a relationship between spatiotemporal events

B We know from induction that all causes are physical, so reality itself can’t have a cause

C Things don’t need a cause to exist.  Things within space and time may need a cause to begin to exist, but that doesn’t apply to the universe itself—that would be the fallacy of composition

D If time emerges out of something else, as Kuhn argues, then things don’t need to begin to exist to have a cause, time itself existed from something prior to time.  It could have emerged from a more fundamental law or metaphysical principle.

E Craig thinks that there can be timeless things without causes like Gods and moral and mathematical truths.  All the inductive arguments against uncaused things can also be used against uncaused timeless things.  If God can be uncaused and eternal, why not Beethoven.  It also seem to have similar intuitive metaphysical support

Second, they say the universe began to exist.  This is not justified.

A There are many models of infinite cosmology.  The scientific arguments don’t justify it—the Borde Guth and Vilenkin theorem which is cited has been proclaimed by Guth not to justify it—Guth thinks the universe is probably infinite.  An infinite past can exist—theists think that an infinite future will exist, so why not an infinite past.  All of the paradoxes to an infinite past apply just as much to an infinite future.  Additionally, the paradoxes all expose certain impossibilities about an infinite, but they don’t disprove generally an infinite past.  There are infinite points in a line and many other infinites. 

B Craig has admitted that this premise relies on the A theory of time—which says that there is an objective present, rather than time being a four dimensional block, with all moments as simultaneously existent as all points in space are.  If this is true then things don’t need to begin to exist anymore than my arm needs a single point from which it begins to exist.  Thus, if the B theory is true then the kalam fails, as its most prominent advocate admits.  However, the B theory of time probably is true, Zimmerman says it’s the majority view in philosophy of time, Esfeld says it’s being confirmed by physics. 

C Pointing to the big bang doesn’t prove the universe began to exist. The big bang is the earliest point in time which we can model—we just don’t know what went on before it. However, no competent physicist will tell you that there must have been nothing before then.

Craig then erroneously asserts that it corresponds to the story of creation wherein God created the heavens and the earth. This is a truly bizarre claim. Genesis tells of God creating the heavens and the earth in the beginning, before stars. Stars came first. Also, light came before stars in the genesis account.

It also tells of a totally incorrect cosmology involving a great ocean in the sky. ““Then God said, ‘Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.’ Thus God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. So the evening and the morning were the second day” (Genesis 1:6-8).” This was a common view at the time that’s been totally debunked. God also made earth, sea, and vegetation before stars. This is not a correct account of cosmology.

He quotes Hoyle talking about things popping into being, totally ignoring that Hoyle was an atheist. He was quoting him out of context.

Third, they say that if the universe had a cause it must be God.  This is false. 

A God can’t ground time because choices must be temporal.  Absent time God can’t choose to bring the universe into being.  Making a choice requires thinking—there must have been a time before and after deciding on the choice.  These disprove the abstract object, mind, and physical thing dichotomy—laws of physics can be timeless, spaceless, and immaterial. 

B The universe could have emerged from something physical, pure information, or some basic laws of physics—laws which are timeless and spaceless but which ground time and space.  Or it could be something very different. 

C There’s no reason it needs to make a choice.  Time emerged from things which existed in their absence—especially if we believe in the B theory of time. 

Fine Tuning

In terms of the fine-tuning argument. 

1 The claim that atheism can’t explain fine tuning is just nonsense. If we live in a multiverse—which is the most popular view in physics because it explains other phenomena, have a universe that repeats with different laws of physics, have a sufficiently large universe, have some law that requires complex structures emerging, have an evolving universe produced by black holes creating new universes, or dozens of other options, these would also explain fine tuning.  These all establish mechanisms for lots of iterations of the universe—some of which will be finely tuned for life.  If physicists already believe in a multiverse, it makes no sense to add God to the picture. 

2 We can’t know the universe is finely tuned—other life could arise under different laws of physics.  We have quite literally no idea under what conditions life can arise.  We don’t know what 95% of the universe is made of—dark energy and dark matter—so it’s very premature to say life can’t arise under different conditions.  Adams in a 2019 literature review argues that a wide range of possible laws of physics could result in life—the universe just isn’t finely tuned.  In fact, Adams argues that there are lots of other parameter values for the laws of physics that would result in way more life.  To quote the Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy “If Adams is right, our universe may just be garden-variety habitable rather than maximally life-supporting.”  Stenger wrote a computer program that allows anyone to simulate different values of physics and concluded that randomly plucking universe parameters from thin air can still produce universes quite capable of harbouring life.

Additionally, there could be totally different laws regarding consciousness, leading to electrons, planets, or any other structure being conscious, meaning that there’s no reason to think that only this configuration of entities could result in conscious beings,

3 The universe could be finely tuned by an apathetic deity, a trickster being, a cohort of fairies, or even an evil deity. 

4 God is a very complex system that would thus require find tuning.   I see no reason to think that a universe existing with a complex assembly of laws resulting in life would be any less likely than a finely tuned God with infinite knowledge, power, and goodness just existing.  Indeed, if disembodied minds like God can just exist that means that fine tuning needs no explanation because there could just be lots of disembodied minds that exist. 

5 Theism can’t explain why the universe is not finely tuned enough—most of it is inhospitable.  This would be like saying that a house was designed just for me when I can’t fit in anywhere but a tiny closet—the rest of the house only designed for mice to fit. 

6 Why does God need to make a finely tuned universe? 

7 If God exists the odds that the universe would be finely tuned in exactly the way that it is are very low—theism isn’t a good explanation because it can’t explain why God chose to make the universe with the laws of physics that it has. However, multiverse theories guarantee a universe like ours.    

8 To quote Carrier “The only way we could exist without a God is by an extremely improbable chemical accident, and the only way an extremely improbable chemical accident is likely to occur is in a universe that’s vastly old and vastly large; so atheism predicts a vastly old and large universe; theism does not”

9 To quote Carrier again “Similarly, existence without God requires an extremely long process of evolution by natural selection, beginning from a single molecule, through hundreds of millions of years of single cells, through hundreds of millions of years of cooperating cells, to hundreds of millions of years of multicellular organisms; so atheism predicts essentially that; theism does not.”

10 How do we decide the relative probabilities of each possible value for the laws of physics?  These numbers are just made up! We don’t know what makes particular laws of physics have values that are more or less likely than other ones.  We’ve already seen examples of constants that have been claimed to require fine tuning—like early entropy.  As Stenger argues—some key areas of physics – such as the equality of the charges on the electron and proton – are set by conservation laws determined by symmetries in the universe, and so couldn’t be any different.  It’s incredibly premature to say that our laws of physics are finely tuned when we don’t have a grand model that even lets us know what the fundamental laws are or how they’re determined. 

11 This is a shoddy inference and cherry picks one variable: life.  However, one could just as easily do it for anything else in the universe.  Most possible worlds probably wouldn’t have planets, astatine, squid, bad theist arguments, dark matter, or John Loftus.  However, it would not be reasonable to assume that there was fine tuning specifically for planets, astatine, squid, bad theist arguments, dark matter, or John Loftus. 

Craig hasn’t argued this here, but he often argues this, so I thought it would be worth addressing. He sometimes argues against a multiverse theory on the grounds that most life would live in a tiny universe—quoting Penrose.

This runs into several issues.

1 Penrose is but one physicist. The view he espouses here is not the consensus view—Craig presents no evidence that it’s even a majority view. Many others like Caroll seem to disagree with this.

2 Penrose is an agnostic. He believes in a recurring universe to account for fine tuning. He has said "I'm not a believer myself. I don't believe in established religions of any kind." He has literally debated Craig about fine tuning. Using him to disprove fine tuning is quite disingenuous.

3 Anthropics is somewhat confusing but whatever way you configure it, Craig’s view runs afoul of it. If you think that we can include the universe as background information, then it’s not something that has to be accounted for. If we didn’t exist because there was no fine tuning, no one would be complaining. However, if it’s data to be explained, then regardless of what the probability is of each universe having fine tuning of the type of our universe, a multiverse is a better explanation.

Additionally, if there are lots of different ways of generating a universe, each individual universe will have lots of very rare features. If one had infinite children, it would be no surprise for a person to find themselves as one of the infinite children, despite their unique features

4 If Craig is going to use the low portion of life supporting universes that are of our size as evidence against the multiverse, then one can raise similar (And in fact identical in some cases) objections to theism. Here are several.

A Why would God make the universe the size that it is. God could make universes of any sizes. The odds he’d choose this size in particular are incredibly low.

B Why would God make the particular laws of physics that he does. This seems unlikely.

C Why would God make the particular number of arrangements of particles be what he does. We have no reason a priori to expect there to be fundamental building blocks, made up of electrons, quarks, and neutrons. This seems improbable.

D Why would God make quantum mechanics the way that he does?

E Why would God make the number of elements that he does.

5 There are lots of models where this is not a problem. Caroll, argues against the improbability of the starting entropy being what it was. Penrose admits in his book that his view is not shared across the board. This is just Craig cherry-picking random physicists who agree with him on specific points.

6 Why the hell would God ruin our fun and prohibit perpetual motion machines. On many multi verse models a world without perpetual motion machines is certain. On the God hypothesis it’s unlikely. Disorderly universes might be ruled out by the starting conditions that generate multiverses. They also might be less likely to support life.

Moral Argument

1 There are quite literally hundreds of ways that people have provided atheistic arguments for morality.  Those who study metaethics like Cuneo agree that God can’t ground morality—and he’s a theist.  For this argument to be justified one would have to undertake the monumental project of tearing down all of the hundreds of other arguments for morality

2 God cannot solve the problem of morality, if morality would be subjective absent a god then god could not make it objective.  If morality is simply a description of preferences, then god cannot make objective morality any more than he could make objective beauty, or objective tastiness.  

3 All this would prove is that morality is subjective, it would not prove that there’s a god

4 This runs into Euthephro’s dilemma is it good because god decreed it or did god decree it because it’s good.  If the former is true, then good is just whatever god decrees and there’s no reason good is binding, if satan were ultimate he could decree that things were good.  However, if god decrees it because it’s good then it proves that good exists outside of god.  Some try to avoid this problem by saying that gods nature is good, so it’s not true either because of or in spite of divine decree.  However, this just raises the deeper question of whether it’s good because it corresponds to his nature or whether it corresponds to his nature because it’s good.  Thus, it doesn’t avoid the problem because if gods nature were evil than evil would be justified. 

5 Either God has reasons for elements of his character or he doesn’t.  If he does then that would ground morality and if he doesn’t then it’s arbitrary and lacks reason giving force

6 There already has to be objective morality for there to be an objectively moral being.  Thus, this is like arguing that we should believe that Millard Filmore was a good president because it accounts for goodness.  Thus, God need morality, morality doesn’t need God. 

7 Morality is necessary existence that can’t cause things or be caused.  Thus, God can’t cause morality to exist

8 This seems to obviously misidentify what morality is. Morality has to have reason giving force. However, it’s not clear how theistic morality does. God’s character being anti child murder misidentifies why child murder is bad. If God disappeared the badness of child murder would not disappear. The theist has to say that the badness of brutally torturing children has nothing to do with harm to children and everything to do with God’s character being disapproving. This is not a plausible account of moral ontology.

9 If God grounds morality then morality can just be grounded in what God would decree if he existed.

10 Morality has to either be true in all possible worlds or true in none.  God can’t affect things that are true in all possible worlds any more than he can ground mathematics or logic

11 In order for God’s commands to give us morality, we have to already have a moral obligation to obey God’s commands, which means God needs morality to exist.  This argument came from none other than Mackie, the guy Craig quoted to prove atheists can’t have objective morality. He doesn’t think theists can either.

12 God is presumably not the objective standard for Glubglosh—which is gibberish.  Yet if one thinks that morality wouldn't exist without God, then saying God is good is like saying God is the standard for Glubglosh.  God needs objective morality to exist.

Craig is fond of quoting people to show this. Let me quote Swinburne who is a theist and one of the most brilliant living theists. He wrote “I shall argue that the
existence and actions of God make no difference to the fact that
there are moral truths;”

Historical Argument

1 All evidence for the resurrection is copies of translations of anonymous hearsay from thousands of years ago while overwhelming evidence proves that eyewitness testimony is unreliable from third parties who were writing at least 3 decades later.  Magic is less likely than flawed thinkers thinking in a way that’s flawed.  

2 We should expect the best evidence possible for the resurrection, if you were a god you would do your best to convince people of the resurrection

3 The evidence may have been altered and in fact there is good evidence that it was altered.  Bart Ehrman this in a recent debate. We know that Gospel tales grew more wild over time—most gospels that were written are not believed by Christians, like the Gospel of Peter or Judas. The trend is as more time passes tales grow wilder—that explains the fantastical tales told and why John is so much more fantastical than the earlier gospels.

4 The similarities between the books can be explained by them being written in reference to each other or one being written after the other

5 The gospels all disagree. Paul Carlson points out that Matthew 1:2-17 and Luke 3:23-38 give contradictory genealogies for Joseph and can’t agree on who the father of Joseph is.  Only Matthew and Luke mention the virgin birth, which should have been mentioned by Mark and John to convince the world of Jesus's divinity.  Mark 3:20-21 says Jesus' family tried to take custody of him while Mark 6:4-6 claimed that Jesus complained that he received no honor among his own relatives and his own household.  Matthew 2:1 says Jesus was born during the reign of herod, the great while Luke 2:2 says Jesus was born while Quirinius was governor of Syria, which is contradictory because these events were ten years apart.  Furthermore, matthew says that herod had all male children two years and under put to death, yet historians are convinced that this never occurred.  

6 The gospels are absurd Matthew 4:8 says "the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;"  This is obviously bs, there is no mountain which makes the world visible because the world isn’t flat. 

In Matthew 21:18-21 jesus is hungry and sees a fig tree, but it doesn’t have figs.  He got angry and cursed it and made it never bear fruit again.  It withered and died

In John 14:13-14. Jesus promises: “Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye ask any thing in my name, I will do it.”

However, anyone who’s prayed knows that they don’t always get what they prayed for.  

Jesus condemns handwashing in Matthew as pompous and pretentious

7 As Richard Carrier argues

A There are parallel false historical claims like the life of Saint Genevieve who had people attest to her divinity

B Gospels were written by religious people who were biased and intended to combat agnosticism

C The gospels are hagiographies—sacred accounts of historical figures which are notoriously unreliable

D No non Christian mentioned the resurrection for decades

E We have not even a single established historian mentioning the event until the 3rd and 4th centuries, and then only by Christian historians.  People who do mention is aren’t historians but are religious zealots. 

F This was an age where magic was commonly believed—people banged on pots during eclipses. 

G Accounts of people dying for beliefs were written later and said Christians were executed—not that recanting would have saved them.  Also admits they were executed for other reasons. 

H Original Christians didn’t believe in a physical resurrection but rather believed in Jesus appearing in visions and dreams

I Visions of god were common in that time

J Paul didn’t report bodily resurrection

K Ending of mark was ended later—original ending was ambiguous and resurrection was added to the end of it later

L Empty tomb for Mark was metaphorical and empty tomb stories were common in fables

M Matthew’s later account was when the story had grown and was not likely telling of a vast dramatic earthquake

N Luke later changed the story and made it more concrete. 

O John comes later when the tale had grown even more

P Plutarch wrote in the second century that resurrection tales were common

These undercut the case dramatically

8 As Fodor argues this can be explained by

A Reburial

1 Jewish laws requires bodies be taken down before evening

2 The gospels say the burial was rushed

3 Criminals were buried in a different location to ordinary jews

4 Jewish and roman authorities wanted to keep public order and so wanted the burial to be private

B Individual hallucinations

Several women followers saw hallucinations

1 They’re common 37% of people say that they experience auditory hallucinations

2 They’re common in religious settings

3 Bereavement hallucinations about one third heard and talked to the deceased

C biases and memory distortion

1 76% of people report seeing non existent film footage

2 “Numerous historical cases are known, including the Westall UFO encounter of 1966, when a flying saucer was seen over a school by a large group of hundreds of people, the many Maritain appearances to often thousands of people (such as Our Lady of Zeitoun in Cairo), reports of seeing angels in the trenches (the Angels of Mons), and mass hysteria such as genital shrinking epidemics in Africa and reports of German air raids in Canada during the First World War.

3 Studies have found that people incorporate testimony of others even false testimony into their memory of events

D Socialization and marginalization of doubt.  This is well-known.  Jehova’s witnesses serve as a parallel case

This better fits the data

1 It doesn’t require invoking god who probably doesn’t exist

2 It explains why Jesus appeared to certain disciples rather than to other people 

3 It explains the empty tomb—why would god resurrect Jesus bodily rather than giving him a new body.  Jesus could have appeared even if he wasn’t resurrected (as some Gnostics believe)

He might have been resurrected without appearing to anyone (per the old copies of Mark)

He might have appeared to anyone else, like the Mesoamericans as the Mormons believe

In order to have the explanatory scope to account for all the facts, therefore, the resurrection hypothesis requires three key assumptions:

4 It doesn’t rely on the assumption that God had a desire or reason to raise Jesus from the dead which is a priori implausible

5 It avoids the assumption that god sent down his son to be sacrificed

6 It avoids trinitarian confusion

7 It explains the data of there being significant historical dispute about whether the evidence is decisive.  If this were Jesus’ single proof of revelation evidence it would be sufficiently decisive and convince qualified historians across the board.

Doctor Craig claims that the early rise of Christianity can’t be explained absent positing Jesus really did miracles. This is clearly false. We know how rapidly myths are able to spread include those around Roswell, our Lady of Zeitoun, Muhammed, Joseph Smith, or Rastafarianism which spread rapidly despite the figure they worshipped explicitly saying over and over again that he did not want to be regarded as a prophet.

On the empty tomb, to quote Carrier “In fact, our conclusion must be even stronger than this: for when we look at all faith literature together, most of it by far was fabricated to a great extent, and most was fabricated in its entirety. This leaves us with a very high prior probability that Christian literature will be the same. And we can confirm this to be the case. If we exclude devotional and analytical literature (e.g. apologies, commentaries, instructionals, hymnals) and only focus on purported “primary source documents” relating to earliest Christianity, we find that most Christian faith literature in its first three centuries is fabricated—indeed, most by far (the quantity of agreed Christian fabrication, including hundreds of “Epistles” and dozens of “Gospels” and half a dozen “Acts” is staggering: see Element 44 in Chapter 5 of Historicity). So we need good reason to trust any particular example is not more of the same. And yet there simply is no evidence any part of Mark’s empty tomb story preceded his publication of it a lifetime after the religion began, in a foreign land and language, vetted by no one so far as we can honestly tell. It beggars belief any rational person would think otherwise.

And yet it’s worse than that even. We actually have evidence that Mark fabricated the story; not just a complete lack of evidence that he didn’t. Finding a tomb empty is conspicuously absent from Paul’s account of how the resurrection came to be believed (1 Corinthians 15:1-8). And of course Mark himself gives us a clue that he is fabricating when he conveniently lets slip that no one witness to it ever reported it—evidently, “until now” (see Mark 16:1-8). Always grounds for suspicion. But Matthew’s stated excuse for introducing guards into the story of the empty tomb narrative reveals a rhetoric that apparently only appeared after the publication of Mark’s account of an empty tomb, and this exposes the whole tale as an invention. For Mark shows no awareness of the problem Matthew was trying to solve (and with yet further fabrication—in his case borrowing ideas for this from the book of Daniel, as I show in Empty Tomb and, more briefly, Proving History; likewise, Matthew adds earthquakes to align the tale with the prophecy of Zechariah 14:5, and so on; Luke and John embellish the narrative yet further, though dropping nearly everything Matthew added: Historicity, p. 500-04; Empty Tomb, pp. 165-67).

It clearly hadn’t occurred to Mark when composing the empty tomb story that it would invite accusations the Christians stole the body—much less that any such accusations were already flying! Which should be evidence enough that Matthew invented that story, as otherwise surely that retort would have been a constant drum beat for decades already, powerfully motivating Mark to answer or resolve it—if his sources already hadn’t, and they most likely would have, and therefore so would he. If he was using sources at all. There can therefore have been no such accusation of theft by the time Mark wrote. The full weight of every probability is against it. Mark simply didn’t anticipate how his enemies would respond to his story. But this also means Mark must have invented the whole empty tomb story—precisely because no polemic against it had arisen by the time Mark published it. That a polemic against the tale only arose after Mark published it, evinces the fact that Mark is the first to have told it.”

The claim about the apostles having dispositions to the contrary is not backed up given that they were devoted followers of Jesus.

Additionally, the Gospels are incredibly unreliable. Jonathan gives numerous contradictions.

“• What were the last words of Jesus? Three gospels give three

different versions.

• Who buried Jesus? Matthew says that it was Joseph of

Arimathea. No, apparently it was the Jews and their rulers, all

strangers to Jesus (Acts).

• How many women came to the tomb Easter morning? Was it

one, as told in John? Two (Matthew)? Three (Mark)? Or more

(Luke)?

• Did an angel cause a great earthquake that rolled back the stone

in front of the tomb? Yes, according to Matthew. The other gospels

are silent on this extraordinary detail.

• Who did the women see at the tomb? One person (Matthew and

Mark) or two (Luke and John)?

• Was the tomb already open when they got there? Matthew says

no; the other three say yes.

• Did the women tell the disciples? Matthew and Luke make clear

that they did so immediately. But Mark says, “Trembling and

bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said

nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.” And that’s where the

book ends, which makes it a mystery how Mark thinks that the

resurrection story ever got out.

• Did Mary Magdalene cry at the tomb? That makes sense—the

tomb was empty and Jesus’s body was gone. At least, that’s the

story according to John. But wait a minute—in Matthew’s account,

the women were “filled with joy.”

• Did Mary Magdalene recognize Jesus? Of course! She’d known

him for years. At least, Matthew says that she did. But John and

Luke make clear that she didn’t.

• Could Jesus’s followers touch him? John says no; the other

gospels say yes.

• Where did Jesus tell the disciples to meet him? In Galilee

(Matthew and Mark) or Jerusalem (Luke and Acts [and John])?

• Who saw Jesus resurrected? Paul says that a group of over 500

people saw him (1 Cor. 15:6). Sounds like crucial evidence, but

why don’t any of the gospels record it?

• Should the gospel be preached to everyone? In Matthew 28:19,

Jesus says to “teach all nations.” But hold on—in the same book he

says, “Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the

Samaritans” (Matt. 10:5). Which is it?” 

Personal Experience

Doctor Craig’s next element of the case for God he says is not so much an argument for God. I’d have to agree with that—I too don’t find it to be much of an argument.

He says that one can experience God and doesn’t need an argument to believe in God—the same way that one doesn’t need an argument to trust their vision. However, this is an absurd comparison. Let’s look at some differences.

1. People don’t generally see wildly different things with vision. When they do, it’s reasonable not to blindly trust what you saw if there are equally smart people who disagree. However, people have wildly different and divergent religious experiences.

2. Vision can be demonstrated to be reliable and there’s a good evolutionary reason for this. Religious experience can’t.

3. Nearly everyone possesses vision—many don’t have religious experiences.

4. Vision is repeatable—religious experiences happen under very rare conditions.

5. We know with certainty that most religious experiences must be wrong, because they diverge. The same is not true of vision.

6. To quote Carrier once again, “We have evidence of divine communications going back tens of thousands of years (in shamanic cave art, the crafting of religious icons, ritual burials, and eventually shrines, temples, and actual writing, on stone and clay, then parchment, papyrus and paper). Theism without added excuses predicts that all communications from the divine would be consistently the same at all times in history and across all geographical regions, and presciently in line with the true facts of the world and human existence, right from the start. Atheism predicts, instead, that these communications will be pervasively inconsistent across time and space, and full of factual errors about the world and human existence, exactly matching the ignorance of the culture “experiencing the divine” at that time. And guess what? We observe exactly what atheism predicts; not at all what theism predicts. And again, adding excuses for that, only makes theism even more improbable.”

We can also give a very plausible naturalistic account of unreliable religious experience in a way we can’t for vision.