The nature of a Cumulative Argument and the existence of God

A Cumulative Argument is an argument composed of several lines of evidence or facts in which each step points out to the same conclusion (where each step, by itself, could be insufficient to prove the conclusion, but adds some support to it) and when you put all the steps together it makes the conclusion, at the end, more likely than the alternatives.

This kind of argument is used by lawyers, historians, scientists and philosophers to support a given case or proposition. This kind of arguments is used, for example, by philosophers of religion to support the existence of God, for example:

It is interesting that no everybody understands the nature of this kind of argument, or its specific application in a given case. The main reason is that people often don't realize the implications of the different alternative hypotheses under examination.

In order to use properly a cumulative argument approach, you need to understand exactly what are the implications (or predictions) entailed by the different hypotheses that you're evaluating. This is the only way to know that the facts or evidence available fit these predictions (and hence, support the one or many of the hypotheses in question) or, on the contrary, they contradict one or many of the hypotheses being tested.

When you consider the two competing worldviews widely accepted by most scholars as the two more likely and living alternatives (theism and naturalism, most scholars preferring the latter), you have to know exactly which facts or evidence would you expect to find in the world if each of these alternatives were correct.

1)The theistic hypothesis: Essential to this hypothesis is the existence of a all-powerful spiritual person called God. This hypothesis entails at least:

-The ground of reality is a PERSON (God), not some impersonal reality (matter, particles, forces, quantum fluctuations, etc.). This implies that the fabric of reality essentially includes, in addition to brute/mechanical matter, person-relative phenomena and properties (consciousness, free will, moral values and obligations, rationality, intelligence, etc.). Creation is person-relative in the sense that has features which essentially fit or are related to persons proper.

Whatever evidence is available supporting the existence of these person-relative properties or entities is, therefore, evidence for theism. (So, you get arguments for God's existence based on morality, consciousness, rationality, free will, etc.).

-That person is the creator of everything which exists (apart of himself). As consequence, this creator is the creator of the universe too. This implies the temporal beginning of the universe.

Hence, whatever evidence is available supporting the temporal beginning of the universe is evidence for theism.

2)The naturalistic hypothesis: Essential to this hypothesis is the existence of brute matter or a purely mechanical (impersonal) physical world. This entails:

-Persons are not essential in this worldview, they're mere accidents of the evolution of matter. They could or couldn't exist, and the fact that persons exist is, at most, a cosmic accident.

Naturalist Richard Carrier informs us: "In our worldview, we are just another tiny byproduct of nature, special in no sense to anyone but among ourselves, subject to a plethora of ramdom accidents and forces, and there is no perfect or supreme being at all, least of all us" (Sense and Goodness without God, p. 259)

-If (for accident), persons happen to exist, they're purely material or physical and as consequence absolutely under the control of impersonal forces and physical laws which control matter in general.

Naturalist Richard Dawkins informs us: "As scientists, we believe that human brains, though they may not work in the same way as man-made computers, are as surely governed by the laws of physics. When a computer malfunctions, we do not punish it. We track down the problem and fix it, usually by replacing a damaged component, either in hardware or software... But doesn't a truly scientific, mechanistic view of the nervous system make nonsense of the very idea of responsibility, whether diminished or not? Any crime, however heinous, is in principle to be blamed on antecedent conditions acting through the accused's physiology, heredity and environment. Don't judicial hearings to decide questions of blame or diminished responsibility make as little sense for a faulty man as for a Fawlty car?"

-The inmediate consequence of the above naturalistic implications is the impossibility of free will and hence of moral responsability. In fact, morality itself (including moral values and obligations), not being part of the physical world, cannot exist. At most, could exist people with BELIEFS about morality (beliefs about abortion, beliefs about rape, beliefs about homicide, etc. which when are shared by a community or society at large cause the illusion of objectivity), but not morality in any objective sense.

-The universe has to be eternal, or if began to exist, uncaused from "nothing".

The evidence for the beginning of the universe has to be explained away or seen as skepticism on behalf of (non-proven) theories which preserve the eternity of the universe. (Note that naturalists are eager to embrace theories like Darwinian evolution in the name of "respect for science", but they become surprisingly skeptics about mainstream scientific theories about the beginning of the universe... a curious and selective way of being "scientifc").

If all of these fail, the naturalist will say that the universe began "from nothing" (and when pressed to articulate exactly his idiosyncratic position, he'll confess that by "nothing" he actually meant "something fundamental" like the quantum vacuum, the law of gravity, entropy, a hot and dense primitive state, etc. all of which are PART of the universe and certainly not "nothing". The verbal sleight of hand won't change the facts.).

And, when they're monumentally ignorant of philosophy and intellectually mediocre (and think their readers are at the same level of mediocrity and ignorance), they will say things like "Nothing is unstable" (abscribing the property of "unstability" to nothing, which implies that nothing is somehting after all... namely, something with the property of being unstable. Feel free to laugh harder).

In conclusion:

If you find evidence for:

-The beginning of the universe

-The existence of (not purely automata) persons

-The existence of consciousness

-The existence of objective moral values

-The existence of free will and rationality

-The existence of some objective purpose or meaning in the fabric of reality

You will know that you have evidence that not fit well with the naturalistic worldview, but fits perfectly (because they're entailed by) the theistic worldview. Hence, these facts (if they exist)
are evidence for theism and against naturalism.

And when you put together some of these facts, you'll get a powerful cumulative case for theism.

The atheist sophistry of Lawrence M. Krauss, his book A Universe from Nothing and the Magic of David Copperfield

It's fashionable among atheists to claim that the universe "came from nothing". This claim is often made when they're pushed against the corner by the cosmological evidence for the beginning of the universe.

I have no problem with atheists who, wholly based on faith and wishful thinking, actually think (and want to believe) that the universe came literally from nothing, in order to avoid theism. I fully respect the atheist right to hold to this belief (even thought I think it's irrational).

My problem is with atheists who, in order to defend their faith, intentionally mislead the public, conflating "nothing" (=non-existence = total absence of reality) with "something fundamental" (=natural laws, law of entropy, quantum vacuum, law of gravity, etc.). In this group, belong atheistic physicists Victor Stenger, Stephen Hawking and Lawrence Krauss and bunch of hard-core internet atheistic irrationalists.

Consider for example online atheist genius and intellectual superstar John Loftus:

Rational, sane and honest people, regardless of whether they're atheists, theists, pantheists or agnostic, have the moral responsability to expose this kind of charlatanism, sophistry and misdirection and give it a proper butt-kicking debunking.

In his lastest book "A Universe from Nothing", atheist physicist known worldwide as "Mr. 2+2=5 atheist genius" (see the reason of his nickname here) tries to defend the view that the universe came to being from "nothing". But when you read the book, you realize that by "nothing" Krauss is not referring to "non-being" or to "total absence of reality", but to something fundamental from which the universe began. In other words, Krauss' actual position is that the universe come from something (not from nothing).

Let's read Krauss's own words because they're a masterpiece of atheistic irrationality, first-rate illogical thinking and cognitive malfunctioning: "For surely "nothing" is every bit as physical as "something" , specially if it is to be defined as the "absence of something" . It then behooves us to understand precisely the physical nature of both of these quantities". (p. xiv)

Some comments:

1-If "nothing" is as physical as something, then the statement "The universe came from nothing" is misleading, because far from coming from literally nothing, it came from something physical.

2-If nothing is as physical as something, then what the hell is the ontological difference between nothing and something?

3-Krauss misrepresents the concept of "nothing", defining it as "the absence of something", when the proper concept is "the total absence of EVERYTHING". It is in this sense that something cannot come from nothing.

4-But even in Krauss' idiosyncratic definition of nothing as "absence of something", it is hard to see how something could come from that absense: things come from other things, not from the missing parts of that thing. It is the thing itself, its properties and potentialities, which explains the coming to being of other things.

Consider an infectious disease. It is the existence of microbes (and their active pathogenic properties) which explain such disease, not the absence of such microbies. So, it cannot be claimed that infectious diseases come from nothing even in Krauss' misdefinition, they come from something (=microbes). The absence of microbes actually imply the absence of infectious diseases, not the positive presence of them.

Again, Krauss' fallacy is to use the language of nothing to refer to SOMETHING (in this sense, he's acting like the Jesus Seminar scholars who use the language of Christianity but change the meaning of that language in order to defend atheistic or religious pluralistic positions ).

Philosopher Edward Feser comments on the charlatanism, dishonesty, stupidity and intellectual mediocrity of atheists like Krauss: "You might as well say: “Let me explain how this whole house is held up by nothing. Consider the floor, which is what I really mean by ‘nothing.’ Now, the rest of the house is held up by the floor. Thus, I’ve explained how the whole house is held up by nothing!” Well, no you haven’t. You’ve “explained” at most how part of the house is held up by another part, but you’ve left unexplained how the floor itself is held up, and thus (since the floor is itself part of the house) you haven’t really explained at all how the house as a whole is held up, either by “nothing” or by anything else. Furthermore, you’ve made what is really just sheer muddleheadedness sound profound by using “nothing” in an eccentric way.

The “scientific” “explanations” of the origin of the universe from “nothing” one keeps hearing in recent years are really no less stupid than this “explanation” of the house. They aren’t serious physics, they aren’t serious philosophy, they aren’t serious anything except seriously bad arguments, textbook instances of the fallacy of equivocation."

It is not surpirsing that Richard Dawkins wrote the afterword of Krauss' book, after all, Dawkins is more or less in the same level of intellectual mediocrity, stupidity and unsophistication than Krauss, specially when addressing philosophical questions like "Why is there something rather than nothing" (which is the subtitle of Krauss' book):

Astronomer Sir Martin Rees, in a kudos of the book, realizes the fallacy and in order to avoid being part of such a misdirection, comments: "In this clear and crisply written book, Lawrence Krauss outlines the compelling evidence that our complex cosmos has evolved from a hot, dense state and how this progress has emboldened theorists to develop fascinating speculations about how things really began."

But a "hot, dense state" is not nothing. It is SOMETHING. However, Krauss and a whole army of atheists are intellectually unable to understand it. This is one of the most compelling evidences for my claim that these people are irrational and stupid.

Consider Sam Harris' self-defeating kudos of Krauss book "As it turns out, everything has a lot to do with nothing—and nothing to do with God"

But if everything has a lot to do with nothing and nothing to do with God, then everything has a lot to do with God!

The only way to understand Harris in a no self-defeating way, is to argue that the first "nothing" is not the same than the second "nothing", where the latter cannot be read as "something to do with God", but as "without connection whatsoever with God". But this is to concede that Krauss' use of "nothing" is misleading, provided it refers to something (e.g. an original hot, dense state or to any other kind of basic physical something).

As consequence, I think Sam Harris is being intentionally dishonest in his support of Krauss' book, since he understand the difference between something and nothing.

People like Dawkins, Harris, Krauss and others are simply cranks, intentionally dishonest and misleading sophists who are misleading a public composed mostly of atheists and haters of religion, who are equally unable of rational thinking like them.

As atheist philosopher Daniel Came from Oxford University comments, new atheists like Krauss "seek to replace one form of irrationality with another"

They deserve butt-kicking debunking.

Finally, it has been said that "something coming from nothing" is worst than magic, because at least in magic you have a magician who's doing the trick. But something coming from nothing (in the literal and proper sense of nothing) cannot be explained in any possible way, because the entity responsible of the coming to being doesn't exist either.

Enjoy the following tricks by David Copperfield, in which perhaps you cannot identify exactly how the trick is done, but at least you fully know that Copperfield (and his team) are, somehow, the cause of the amazing effects that you're watching (you won't buy into the idea that such effects "come from nothing", will you? Well, perhaps you will provide you're an atheist...):

Comments by Laurence M. Krauss (now worldwide known as Mr. 2+2=5 atheist genius) about his recent debate with William Lane Craig

In the 19th century, the smart and brilliant atheist philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer reflected about the nature of debates/controversies and concluded:

As a sharpening of wits, controversy is often, indeed, of mutual advantage, in order to correct one's thoughts and awaken new views. But in learning and in mental power both disputants must be tolerably equal: If one of them lacks learning, he will fail to understand the other, as he is not on the same level with his antagonist. If he lacks mental power, he will be embittered, and led into dishonest tricks, and end by being rude.

The only safe rule, therefore, is that which Aristotle mentions in the last chapter of his Topica: not to dispute with the first person you meet, but only with those of your acquaintance of whom you know that they possess sufficient intelligence and self-respect not to advance absurdities; to appeal to reason and not to authority, and to listen to reason and yield to it; and, finally, to cherish truth, to be willing to accept reason even from an opponent, and to be just enough to bear being proved to be in the wrong, should truth lie with him. From this it follows that scarcely one man in a hundred is worth your disputing with him. You may let the remainder say what they please, for every one is at liberty to be a fool - desipere est jus gentium. Remember what Voltaire says: La paix vaut encore mieux que la verite. Remember also an Arabian proverb which tells us that on the tree of silence there hangs its fruit, which is peace

Any objective observer (atheist, agnostic or theist alike) and rational person would see easily and conclude that, in his recent debate with William Lane Craig, Lawrence Krauss' performance was extraordinaruly bad. He simply didn't understand the arguments at all, and his replies were clear evidence of intellectual unsophistication. It's one of the worst debates by any atheist believer that I've ever seen. It was one-way victory for Craig.

I've commented (and demostrated) previously that hard-core materialistic-naturalistic atheists are, as a rule, irrational. As direct consequence of this is that they're not sensible to the use of reason and logic (except when reason and logic support their prejudices and opinions). Another consequence is that, in general, they cannot change of opinion, specially they cannot accept when they're wrong on important matters regarding religion or God (except when the change of opinion supports their atheistic position), even in the face of strong evidence (this is why it's impossible to debate them on rational grounds). Another consequence is that they became sophistical and intentionally dishonest when you refute them (as atheist Schopenhauer commented, this is evidence of intellectual inferiority and a mean and unethical personality).

This post will show, with specific evidence, Krauss' irrationality.

In a comment published in the infamous PZ Myers' blog, Krauss shared his "comments" about the recent debate with Craig.

Let's to examine it in detail:

1-Note first Krauss's condecending and rhetorical opening remarks "It sometimes surprises me, although it shouldn't, how religious devotees feel the need to regularly reinforce their own convictions in groups of like-minded individuals. I suppose this is the purpose of regular Sunday church services, for example, to reinforce the community of belief in between the rest of the week when the real world may show no evidence of God, goodness, fairness, or purpose"

I'll not comment on this, since I'm not interested in rhetorical fallacies, but in specific arguments and evidence.

2-Fully cognizant that he lost the debate in the eyes of the audience (and of each sane atheist or theist person who watched it), but ethically unable to recognize it openly, Krauss says: "I believe that if I erred at all, it was in an effort to consider the sensibilities of the 1200 smiling young faces in the audience, who earnestly came out, mostly to hear Craig, and to whom I decided to show undue respect. "

Undue respect? Is Krauss suggesting that the many young people who were in the debate didn't deserve respect? Why exactly? Because they're religious and not atheist? This is a sectarian mindset (typical of atheistic dogmatists and fanatics). This is evidence of intolerance. This is evidence of an elitistic and arrogant mentality. This is also evidence of the moral poverty of hard-core atheists like Krauss, who only seem to "respect" persons who think like himself.

Just imagine the consequence of Krauss' "undue respect" position towards theists, if he were a politician ruling a country. Since most people are theists, you can only imagine how Krauss' intolerance would manifest towards them.

3-Krauss continues: "As I stressed at the time, I did not come to debate the existence of God, but rather to debate about evidence for the existence of God. I also wanted to demonstrate the need for nuance, to explain how these issues are far more complex than Craig, in his simplistic view of the world, makes them out to be. For this reason, as I figured I would change few minds I decided also to try and illustrate for these young minds the nature of science, with the hope that what they saw might cause them to think. Unfortunately any effort I made to show nuance and actually explain facts was systematically distorted in Craig's continual effort to demonstrate how high school syllogisms apparently demonstrated definitive evidence for God."

Such patronizing, condecending and smarther-than-you kind of reply reveals Krauss' defensiveness and desperation caused by his bad performance in the debate. His butt was clearly and badly kicked in that debate and he hasn't recovered yet.

Specially, note Krauss' solid ignorance and disregarding of logic ("high school sillogism") and straw man ("apparently demostrated the definitive existence of God"). Any person familiar with Craig's work, even the most idiot and stupid one, would know that Craig doesn't claim to "demostrate" God's existence (with high school sillogisms or whatever), but simply to give arguments that make the existence of God more plausible than his denial. (If Craig is correct or not here is not the issue; the issue is Krauss' unability to understand simple arguments, even the "high school syllogisms").

4-Krauss attempts to comment on the "distortions" regarding the debate (note again Krauss' straw man as a sign of desperation, stressed in blue): "Let me now comment, with the gloves off, on the disingenuous distortions, simplifications, and outright lies that I regard Craig as having spouted. I was very disappointed because I had heard that Craig was more of a philosopher than a proselytizer, but that was not evident the other evening."

Compare Krauss' reference to Craig as a "proselytizer", with one of Schopenhauer's points mentioned above: "If he lacks mental power, he will be embittered, and led into dishonest tricks, and end by being rude"

5-Krauss begins with an ad hominem attack against Craig: "Craig began with an attempt to demonstrate his scientific and mathematical credentials by writing a rather meaningless equation on this first slide, which he then argued would be the basis for his 'evidence'. The equation, in words said that if the probability, given the data, gave one a greater than 50% likelihood for God's existence, then this was evidence. He even presented this as a pseudo- Bayesian Argument."

The first sentence (Craig began with an attempt to demostrate his scientific and mathematical credentials) is demostrably false. Craig wasn't attempting to demostrate anyone's credentials (the debate is not about Craig nor Krauss' credentials, not about their professional qualifications, but about the evidence for God).

As proof of this, watch the opening speech by Craig (see video below). I ask all the sincere and mentally sane readers of my blog to say where exactly is Craig attempting to demostrate anyone's "credentials".

Krauss is so monumentally ignorant of logic and argumentation that he's unable to understand what arguments attempt to prove. He interprets a Bayesian-argument for God's existence as an argument attempting to prove the mathematical and scientific credentials of the claimant.

This is so ignorant as to claiming that Krauss' argument that 2+2=5 is true is an argument for Krauss' mathematical competence (note that such argument could tell us something about Krauss' competence, but the argument is not attempting to show anyone's competence).

However, Krauss reveals his incomptence when he misrepresent Craig's argument based on a Bayesian structure. Krauss says "The equation, in words said that if the probability, given the data, gave one a greater than 50% likelihood for God's existence, then this was evidence" (emphasis in blue added).

My God... such an assertion by Krauss made me to loss any kind of intellectual respect for Krauss, not due his simplistic and false atheism, but to his competence in mathematics and scientific reasoning.

Please, read carefully Krauss' above statement (specially the sentence stressed in blue).

Now, in order to see Krauss' silly straw man (based on his monumental ignorance, since I can't believe he's being intentionally stupid or retarded), look carefully at the structure of Craig's actual argument:

Note that Craig is saying, explicitly, that there is evidence for God IF the existence of certain phenomena (e.g. the beginning of the universe, the fine tuning of the universe, etc.) make the existence of God more probable than in case that such phenomena don't exist. It has nothing to do with the evidence making God 50% more probable than not.

In Craig's words (in second 27 of the above video): "To say there is evidence for some hypothesis is just to say that that hypothesis is more probable given certain facts that wouldn't been without them".

In a written comment after the debate, Craig pointed out: "as I explained, when one asks, “Is There Evidence for God?” all that means is “Is the probability of God’s existence greater given certain facts than it is just on one’s background information alone?” That question makes the debate a cakewalk for me (contrary to Krauss’s assertion that I was brave or foolhardy). In a court of law, of course there is evidence for the guilt of the accused, even if that evidence isn’t sufficient to convict. So here, to say there is evidence for God isn’t to say that that evidence is sufficient to show God exists. In order to determine that, one would need to discuss as well the probability of God’s existence on the background information alone. That’s why, as Krauss stated, this wasn’t a debate on the existence of God. It was merely on whether there is any evidence for God’s existence. For that reason, I actually toyed with idea of not presenting the deductive formulations of my arguments as usual, since that went far beyond the topic. After hearing the moderator’s statement, I was so glad that I had decided to present the arguments deductively as well as inductively, thereby proving more than the topic demanded." (emphasis in blue added).

Note that the debate was NOT about whether there is sufficient evidence for God's existence. It was about whether there is any evidence (sufficient or insufficient) at all for God. For this reason, Craig's opening statement in the debate clarified this point in the sense that his main position in that debate was not to argue that the evidence for the hypothesis "God exists" gave him "a greater than 50% likelihood" (as Krauss says). (Obviosly, as a theist, Craig believes that evidence for God makes the hypothesis "God exists" more than 50% probable; but the point is that it wasn't the topic of the debate with Krauss and hence wasn't the main point that Craig was doing. Even if atheism were true and the evidence for God were less of 50%, the fact that there is exist such minimal evidence for God would support Craig's initial point).

Even if the overall evidence for hypothesis H makes it less than 50% likelihood of being true (let's say just a 10%), such hypothesis H would have SOME evidence in its favor. And if there is SOME (even if minimal) evidence for an hypothesis H, then it implies that THERE IS evidence for such hypothesis (even if other kind of evidence against the hypothesis has a great weight and overall make the hypothesis probably false).

In other words, let's to suppose that we're discussing hypothesis H (e.g. telepathy exists). And let's suppose (conceding the skeptical position for the argument's sake) that the overall evidence (parapsychological experiments, data of neuroscience, magician's tricks etc.) for such hypothesis makes it probably false. Even in such case, there is at least SOME evidence in favor of hypothesis H. Summarizing:

-Evidence supporting hypothesis H (e.g. parapsychological experiments)

-Evidence against the hypothesis H (e.g. flawed parapsychological experiments, psychic frauds, magician's tricks which replicate such aparent phenomena, etc.)

Even conceding that the overall evidence favors the case against the hypothesis H, it's clear that there is exists some evidence for H. The mere existence of this positive evidence is perhaps insuffiient in order to establish the truth of H, but it's sufficient in order to establish the existence of some evidence, and therefore the claim "There is evidence for H" is true (which is everything that Craig needs for his argument). It has nothing to do with H's likelihood of being above or below 50% (the latter is a conclusion that we can get only after examining the overall evidence for and against H).

Even the most inept, stupid, irrational, retarded and intellectually impaired student in college would understand that.

However, a person like Krauss is intellectually unable to understand such ridiculously simple and basic argument.

It's dissapointing, and I think Craig should choose for his next debates atheistic opponents of a higher intellectual level and preparation. Otherwise, some people could think that Craig is choosing the most ignorant, stupid, inept and easy atheistic opponents in order to defend his case for theism.

By the way, if you want to watch a solid proof of the real nature and reach of Krauss' monumental intelligence and powerful intellect, just see his defense of the proposition that 2 plus 2 are 5 (before you watch the video, I suggest you to buy a pop corn, because you're going to ENJOY this short video):

I'm still having a lot of fun with this. After that debate, Krauss is now known as "Mr.2+2=5 atheist genius".

6-Intellectually unable to understand confirmation theory and probabilty, Krauss repeats the same straw man: "For the rest of the evening Craig simply proceeded to spout his claimed evidence, and then proceeded to state that each gave him a greater than 50% belief in God"

Again, Craig is not arguing that evidence give him a greater than 50% belief in God; he's just arguing that such evidence supports God's existence (because it was the topic at stake in that debate). Period.

7-Remember that Krauss dismisses logic too, calling logically valid deductive arguments as "High school syllogisms". This is evidence of lack of logical training, which is unacceptable in a professional scientist.

Such monumental lack of logical training is evidenced by Krauss in his following own (caricature of) syllogisms:

In each and every case the actual syllogism that one ended up with was:

1. Craig either doesn't understand how something could happen, or instead believes that events happened that confirmed his pre-existing belief system.
2. In the absence of understanding physical causes or exploring alternatives, this implies evidence for the existence of God.
3. Therefore there is evidence that God exists.

My God... you don't need to be a philosopher to realize that the above argument is not a logically valid syllogism at all. Krauss' ignorance prevents him from making a logically valid argument at all. He doesn't know what the hell is a syllogism.

In fact, if you read carefully the argument, you'll see that no known logical rules of inference enables you to infer 3 from 1 and 2. Krauss' "syllogism" is actually a logically invalid (fallacious) argument.

If you don't have training in logic, try to ask any professional logician or philosopher about such argument. Ask him: "Professor X, do you think the above argument is, from a formal-logical point of view, a valid argument?" And watch his answer.

By the way, Krauss' imitation of a syllosgim has demostrably false premises. First, as you can watch in the debate, Craig is not claiming that the fact he doesn't understand X implies or supports the view that God exists. On the contrary, his arguments are based on our current understanding of certain evidence (e.g. the origin of the universe, the fine tuning of the universe, the existence of objetive moral values, etc.) in order to conclude that such evidence is evidence for God's existence.

Being absolutely ignorant of logic, Krauss says "This is what I framed as the "God of the Gaps" argument and I continue to view, upon reflection, most of the claims of Craig as falling in this well-known theological trap."

A God of the Gaps argument concludes the existence of God on the grounds that there are gaps in our knowledge. For example, "we have gaps in our knowledge about the cause of X, therefore God did it" or "God is the cause of X because we have gaps in our knowledge of X")" sort of reasoning.

The above "God of the gaps" argument is an argument that no philosophical theist has ever used or defended. Sophisticated theists argue from the EXISTENCE of certain facts to the conclusion that God exists. They are not arguing from the absence of evidence or the ignorance or the gaps in our knowledge about such facts, but from the current KNOWLEDGE of certain facts (e.g. existence and order of the universe, etc.) to conclude God's existence.

This is an obvious point that any sane, rational and intellectually honest person would realize after reading Craig's work or watching his debates, or after studying the works of sophisticated philosophical theists like Thomas Aquinas, Richard Swinburne, etc.

But Krauss (aka. Mr.2+2=5 atheist genius) cannot understand that. Clearly, the basic arguments for theism are far beyond Krauss' intellectual ability or intelligence to grasp and understand them accurately. (It's like trying to explain why 2+2=4 is true to a mouse or rat... they won't grasp it... and demostrably as we have seen here by Krauss' own admission, he either).

Honestly, I'm tired of discussing Krauss' fallacies, monumental ignorance, straw men, ad hominem and intellectual dishonesty. If I get the motivation to address his "refutations" of Craig's argument, I'll publish a post specifically about it. (I lost the motivation because Krauss' refutations are so misconceived and ignorant, that arguing against them is giving them an importance that they don't have)

I urge you to watch carefully the debate, and read Krauss' comments in the infamous Myers' blog. Compare, think for yourself and draw your conclusions.

For more of 15 years, I've read a lot of simplistic, ignorant, sophistical and philosophically unsophisticated atheists (recent examples are Richard Carrier, Lewis Wolpert, Richard Dawkins or Peter Atkins), but I think Lawrence Krauss is the NEW KING OF ATHEISTIC IRRATIONALISM.

I've always thought: if naturalistic-materialistic atheism is true, why the hell atheistic propagandists and ideologues use so extraordinarily and monumentally bad and ridiculous arguments (like Carrier's blue monkey flying out of my butt argument, Atkins' "nothing exists", Wolpert's "The universe was created by a computer", or Krauss' 2+2=5) for their position?

I think the answer is obvious, but you have to discover it by yourself...