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...