Alex Rosenberg, author of An Atheist's Guide to Reality, is going to debate William Lane Craig on February 1st, 2013 at Purdue University on the topic Is faith in God Reasonable?

It is a very good news to know that atheist philosopher of science and biology Alex Rosenberg is going to debate with William Lane Craig about God's existence (or more exactly, about whether faith in God is reasonable). The debate will be at Purdue University, on February 1st, 2013.

As I've mentioned in a previous post, in my opinion Alex Rosenberg is one of the few metaphysical naturalists who completely understand the implications and consequences of the naturalistic worldview. He has the courage and intellectual honesty of coming to grips with the true logical implications of the basic premises of naturalism (e.g. the causal closure of the physical world, determinism, physicalism; materialism, reductionism, blind evolution, etc.)

Almost all naturalists accept the same premises than Rosenberg. But, due to intellectual incapacity or dishonesty, some of them fight hard to avoid the implications of such premises. For example, they accept materialistic physicalism as a complete worldview, but try to affirm objective moral values (which are NOT physical objects). They accept determinism, but want also to affirm moral responsability (which is impossible, if free will doesn't exist, an essential implication of determinism). They accept the causal closure of the physical world, but try to affirm abstract objects (e.g. mathematical entities) which, being immaterial, cannot be in touch with our physical world nor, a fortiori, with our sensory systems (how are naturalists who accept Platonism going to explain how the hell the human mind, which is physical, has contact and hence knowledge of such immaterial mathematical, abstract objects?).

Rosenberg clearly understand that all of such naturalistic approaches are sophistical, fallacious and unjustifiable under the premises of naturalism. As consequence, he defends the actual, true consequences of naturalism: 

Objective moral values? Such things cannot exist in a purely physical world. According to physics, matter has not moral properties.

Moral responsability? Sheer illusion.

Spirts? Impossible, since the mind is a function (and only a function) of a material brain. 

Purposes in life? Impossible, every apparence of purpose and design in the universe is just that: an apparence that has to be explained away by the mechanical, non-purposive, blind laws of physics, biology, neuroscience.

Free will? Impossible in an universe which is ruled by deterministic laws.

God? Impossible, in a world which is purely physical.

I repeat, Rosenberg correctly realizes that naturalism implies to all of these question.

I ignore which will be the approach of Rosenberg in his debate with Craig, but I suggest him to defend in detail these key propositions of his book:

1-Physics fixes all the facts

2-Natural selection is a consequence of physics, and the only possible alternative if physics is correct.

Based on the above two propositions, all of the Rosenberg's arguments about morality, consciousness, free will, etc. follows deductively.

Obviously, Craig is going to challenge both of these propositions (specially the first one).

So an interesting debate will be in place.

I inform my readers that I'll be in Purdue University that day for watching that debate in situ. (I will watch carefully the atheists among the audience and try to interact with some of them. This will be a nice opportunity to watch directly and face-to-face Jime's Iron Law in functioning!)

It promises to be fun!