Evidence for God from Science

Erhman is an interesting character. I've not read any of his books but I've read a good few articles/excerpts and talked at length with people who know his views rather well, he's on the list. His debate against William Lane Craig is worth a watch if you've got a spare few hours, Craig is struggling by the end imo which is something I've not often seen. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhT4IENSwac

On mulling it over I'm not necessarily looking for something which is against Christianity, or pro-atheism, but moreso novel points of view. I enjoyed Jung's interpretation of Christianity in his Answer to Job & Karen Armstrong's History of God not as they were robust philosophical treaties but as there were some interesting ideas brought up by intelligent, thoughtful people with more than a weak Sunday school theology.

1over137, I like this Fennman guy. I knew him as a scientist but his metaphysics seem far more palatable than those of Dawkins, Hawkings etc. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1RqTP5Unr4.

Proinsias wrote:Erhman is an interesting character. I've not read any of his books but I've read a good few articles/excerpts and talked at length with people who know his views rather well, he's on the list. His debate against William Lane Craig is worth a watch if you've got a spare few hours, Craig is struggling by the end imo which is something I've not often seen. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhT4IENSwac

I just happened to have read the transcript of the Craig/Ehrman debate a few days ago, and I thought it was one of his stranger ones. Ehrman didn't talk much about the New Testament (his field) considering and spent too much time (I thought) trying to make a case that historians can't accept miracles or that miracles are always too improbable to take seriously, even over obviously silly naturalistic suggestions. That really hurt his case because philosophy is Craig's specialty and not his, and Craig scored some big points on that front, like when Ehrman tried to distance himself from Hume but didn't get Hume's position on miracles right (though Craig's bringing in Swineberg's probability stuff was a fairly big blunder as well).

I agree that Craig did have some weak moments. Although Ehrman's attempts to get an answer out of him on his position on inerrancy were somewhat off topic, Craig's dodges were less than graceful and made him look pretty bad for a moment. Ehrman's claim that Craig's source hadn't even read the life of Apollonius (whether or not it was true) stuck fairly well too. It definitely was one of his more difficult debates, but he succeeded in establishing his four facts, and Ehrman never really tried very hard to knock any of them down, opting instead to maneuver around them with philosophical objections, which I think gives Craig a fair claim to victory. Still, it could have been a much better debate for both of them if they stayed on topic a little more. I'm not really a Craig fan, not being one who likes the debate format, but I thought this was an okay bout.

As for Ehrman as a source of arguments from the other side, his work on the orthodox corruption of scripture is very interesting, but considering its name, doesn't present too much of a case against orthodoxy. Sadly, I find that beyond his own work with textual criticism (which is often surprisingly benign given his popularity among skeptics, pre-Did Jesus Exist, of course), he doesn't really have much of anything to offer that one couldn't find in the work of dozens of other skeptics. Still worth a good long look though.