Sample clip of my debate with an
atheist on the issue of morality.
Find the whole debate at this link

William Lane Craig – South Africa Debates, part 1: vs. Yusuf Islam on “Identifying Jesus: Is He Man or both God and Man?”

William Lane Craig recently engaged in two notable debates in South Africa: Capetown and Pretoria. He states that, “Professional recordings of all the debates and conference talks were made and will be disseminated throughout South Africa”; hopefully they will find their way into cyberspace.

As for the Islam vs. Christianity debate:

…about a thousand people crowded the auditorium that night. The debate was anything but dull!
What Ismail (who is a lawyer by profession) may lack in substance he makes up in a robustious delivery, with lots of grandstanding and theatrics. By the time we reached the rebuttals, he had pretty much exhausted what substance he had, and so he began to throw out lots of red meat to his partisans in the crowd, offering the usual Muslim talking points like the inauthenticity of 1 John 5.7, at which they began to shout Islamic slogans.
In my rebuttal I rebuked them, saying that they ought to be ashamed of themselves for cheering for such irrelevant and fallacious arguments. I hammered home my positive case for Jesus' deity, which Ismail could not answer, and in my closing speech gave a strong evangelistic appeal to the Muslims in the crowd. It was a great evening and a strong witness for Christ.1

William Lane Craig, Yusuf Ismail, South Africa, Debates, true freethinker.jpg

Moreover,

In preparation for the debate I discovered that Ismail will use any argument he can find against Christianity, even if it also implies the falsity of Islam. For example, he uses all the drivel popular on the internet about Jesus' being a mythological figure drawn from pagan religions of antiquity.
Never mind that the Qur'an itself teaches that that Jesus was the greatest of all the prophets who had ever lived, that he was miraculously conceived and born of the Virgin Mary, that he himself performed miracles, and that he was indeed the Messiah!
In order to pre-empt any such appeal to pagan mythology to dismiss the deity of Jesus, I explained in my opening speech that contemporary studies of the historical Jesus have come to recognize that pagan mythology is simply the wrong interpretive context for understanding Jesus…

when you do read the original myths, you find that they're not really parallel to the Gospels at all and that all the supposed parallels are concocted and spurious….based upon pseudo-scholarship which is more than 100 years out of date…

With nothing much of relevance to say, Ismail then turned to doling out the red meat!2

Of interest may be the Avatar based metaphor that William Lane Craig employed:

I explained the doctrine of Christ's being one person who has two natures and used the movie Avatar to illustrate the doctrine. ("Avatar" is another word for incarnation.) The movie tells the story of Jake Sully, a disabled marine who becomes an avatar among a race of extra-terrestrials called the Na'vi. He becomes physically incarnated among them as one of them.
At the same time he doesn't cease to be human. So Jake has both a human nature and a Na'vi nature. In the movie these two natures have strikingly different powers. If you were to ask, "Can Jake Sully run?" the answer would have to be, "Yes and no: yes, in his Na'vi nature but no, in his human nature."
I told the audience that if you can make sense of Avatar, you can make sense of Christ's incarnation. For in a similar way, Christ has both a divine nature and a human nature. These natures have different powers. In his human nature Christ experienced all the limitations intrinsic to human nature. But in his divine nature he had supernatural powers. Just as Jake Sully in his Na'vi nature became the Savior of the Na'vi people, so Christ in his human nature becomes the Savior of mankind.

1. William Lane Craig, “Reasonable Faith Newsletter - May 2010,” Reasonable Faith, copyright 2007 Reasonable Faith. All rights reserved worldwide
2. William Lane Craig, “Debate with Yusuf Ismail,” Reasonable Faith, additional from the June '10 ReasonableFaith.org Newsletter, copyright 2007 Reasonable Faith. All rights reserved worldwide

This essay is copyrighted by Mariano Grinbank of the website "True Free Thinker" at www.truefreethinker.com.

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CHRISTIAN JR4 's presumptions and fallacious reasoning

Saviour (not verified) — Wed, 06/30/2010 - 4:57pm

You are a presumptious fool. I am NOT a Muslim fo your information. Just because someone disagrees with you, does not mean they are NOt christian. your arrogace knows no bounds. CRAIG was a MAJOR disappointment for all of us. McDowell might have done a better job

Saviour the Muslim!!

Anonymous — Mon, 09/06/2010 - 3:22pm

You are so obviously a Muslim. You couldn't make it any more clearer even if you tried. Do you really expect people to believe you are not a Muslim when you go around glorifying in Craig's supposed "defeat" and happily proclaiming Ismail won, as if your life depended on it. Yeah man, I guess you're just one of those Christians who take a virtual orgasmic pleasure in a Christian losing a debate you just have to tell the world about it. GET REAL!! You're not fooling anyone.

For the record, I would urge

Saviour (not verified) — Sun, 06/27/2010 - 5:34am

For the record, I would urge you to view the entire debate, which i am informed that antwoord and ipci (Co-hosts) intend posting on youtube. I entirely disagree with Ismail's position, but I feel that Craig could have done a better job in debate. most of the christian attendants were disappointed by Craig who seemed to be ill-prepared particularly at the Question & answer session. Ismail talks in quick soundbytes and makes a better debater even though his facts may not be entirely correct. The above debate was one of Craig's worst performances........,.you have to see it to realise it! the audience were GOBSMACKED by his AVATAR analogy. that was the point when it started going downhill for DR CRAIG

Savior, the "unbiased" observer

Anonymous — Mon, 09/06/2010 - 3:40pm

I watched the debate and I nowhere near came to the conclusion that Craig was soundly defeated as you make it out to be. This just reinforces my belief all the more that you are a Muslim pretending not to be. His case for Jesus being both man and God was eminently more concise, methodological and academic in nature than Ismail's. Ismail came across as just a debater for show. He came to impress with cheap rhetoric and quick soundbites (or as Dr. Craig said, to hand out "red meat" to his audience). If that's the kind of debater that pleases you then I honestly feel sorry for you, since you are greatly missing the bigger picture. Putting aside the useless rhetoric, the only one who seemed to make a case at all for their respective tasks was Craig. Ismail went off on tangents. Seriously, savior, what exactly was it about Craig's case that was so "ill-prepared". Do you deny the avatar analogy? If it makes perfect logical sense, and if it's easy to understand, then WHY NOT use it? You probably didn't even comprehend what he said there at all. It's not surprising then that you would dismiss it. If I were to judge the debate on an academic merit alone, Craig would win hands down. If were to judge the debate on presentation skills, Craig would again win hands down for being more concise and articulate. Only if I were to judge the debate on rhetoric, I would probably give it to Ismail, but only by a small margin (as Craig had some great "moments" himself).

Re: Savior, the "unbiased" observer

Anonymous — Sun, 07/03/2011 - 4:37am

In the debate, Dr. Craig was laid low by Yusuf at every turn. Let he who has ears to hear with and eyes to see bear witness to the debate... and if I may add... a brain to think with judge.

Saviour's ridiculous comment

ChristianJR4 (not verified) — Thu, 06/24/2010 - 7:56pm

Judging by how Dr. Craig normally performs in his debates, he probably didn't lose, and if he did, he certainly wasn't defeated in the way the above comment makes it out to be. My guess would be that the commentator above is a Muslim. In my experience, I tend to find many Muslims totally incapable of rationally assessing the outcome of a debate objectively. Instead they just always assert that their side won. If Dr. Ismail were to come to this debate and say absolutely nothing at all you'd still probably here some Muslims claiming he won.

CRAIG LOST THIS DEBATE

Saviour (not verified) — Sat, 06/19/2010 - 4:44pm

I was present at the debate, and i must say i was deeply disappointed with Dr Craig's performance. He was outshone and outsmarted by Ismail in every respect. i do believe that the organisers will be posting the debate on youtube, for the world to see the outright DEFEAT of Dr Craig

Pretty good post. I just

rolex (not verified) — Wed, 06/16/2010 - 11:19pm

Pretty good post. I just stumbled upon your blog and wanted to say that I have really enjoyed reading your blog posts. Any way I'll be subscribing to your feed and I hope you post again soon.breitling

Welcome to IdolReplicas.com

rolex (not verified) — Wed, 06/16/2010 - 11:10pm

Welcome to IdolReplicas.com for breitling

jesus god or man?

Anonymous (not verified) — Thu, 06/10/2010 - 3:48pm

I don't think that many peple agree with brother craig. It seems like he has the perception that he won the debate but I think he should know better. He en almost all christian brothers lack true evidence to proof their point of view. Which makes them very weak in debates like this.

Are you kidding?

Anonymous — Sat, 10/30/2010 - 7:51pm

If anyone "lacks true evidence" its the Muslims. They believe an entirely different story of Jesus told by a man who was born 600 yrs after, who never even met him, nor knew his followers. If any one lacks evidence its surely the Muslims.

No, he's not kidding?

Anonymous — Sun, 07/03/2011 - 4:40am

Christians are only weak in debates, when debating Muslims and Jews.

Refuting Anonymous on "Are you kidding?"

Anonymous — Mon, 12/27/2010 - 9:09pm

You said:
"If anyone "lacks true evidence" its the Muslims. They believe an entirely different story of Jesus told by a man who was born 600 yrs after, who never even met him, nor knew his followers. If any one lacks evidence its surely the Muslims."

Response:
We have great evidence proving the Quran to be the word of God, and thus using this as evidence. Regarding historical evidence: it's very easy that we can apply the same standards to your Bible: How long was it when the Biblical Jesus and Paul came after Moses? 1000 years. Biblical Jesus contradicts the Jewish law several times even though he claimed he never came to abrogate it (Math 5:17-20), and Paul took a Jewish book and distorted the meaning through Greek glasses.There is definitely an entire different story regarding salvation, and other details found in the Torah. You Christians have tried to reconcile them by MISREADING a Jewish book through Greek glasses. Historically, Paul nor Jesus never met Moses either.

If anyone lacks evidence it is obviously the Christians, as:

1) you cannot even prove your Bible to be God's word (1 Corinthians 7:25) in the 1st place so we could accept it as true.

2) You have no idea what the original manuscripts of books written DECADES later Jesus, because you do not have the originals

3) You brush aside the evolution of the Gospels with Jesus' character, and indirectly assume it's just by chance.

4) and won't apply the same standards on your Bible you used. (1000 years gap between Moses with Jesus & Paul).

The historical evidence for the Quran superseeds the Bible mainly because of oral transmission. Then, the preservation of manuscripts (not as many as the Bible, but with QUALITY). For more, visit:

http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Text/Mss/
http://call-to-monotheism.com/response_to_david_wood_s___uthman__corrupt...
http://call-to-monotheism.com/qur_anic_variants

What evidence do these

Anonymous — Sun, 10/24/2010 - 12:55pm

What evidence do these brothers lack? A video recording from 30 AD? No-one has that. The evidence is the testimony of 500+ people who started a revolutionary new religion and died for it willingly.

Wow, that Avatar analogy is

bossmanham (not verified) — Tue, 06/08/2010 - 10:39am

Wow, that Avatar analogy is strikingly simple to understand. Kudos to Craig for thinking of it.

Avatar Analogy And More

Anonymous — Mon, 12/27/2010 - 8:49pm

It seems you haven't done critical thinking yourself and instead, just relied on Mr. Craig's word for it. Let me hand it over to a Christian to refute this wrong analogy:

"Now, the most glaring distinction between the Trinitarian Jesus Christ and Jake the Na'vi is ofcourse that Christ's human and divine natures are distinct, not mixed or fused together, but Jake's Avatar assumes a hybrid human/Navi nature, and good thing too , because otherwise he would VIOLATE THE LAW of non-contradiction, he would be a walking contradiction. So this is one difference." (Source: http://forums.carm.org/v/showthread.php?t=212247).

In other words, being both God and man simultaneously violates the law of non-contradiction, as both attributes are opposite of one another. This isn't the case with the analogy given, which shows the analogy is false. Since having contradictory attributes concurrently don't only go beyond logic but AGAINST it, that makes it a false belief, which means Jesus is not God.

Regarding ancient pagan beliefs: Yusuf Ismail never said the Bible definitely copied from ancient sources. No Muslim should say that about Bible, neither any Christian about Quran. But ask the question: out of the 2, which has a higher probability of being copied from ancient pagan sources?

Almost all consensus of scholars agree that the authors of the 4 Gospels and few other NT books are anonymous & written after the events they narrate. We don't know how truthful they were, how sincere they were, etc. We have very little knowledge about them. Scholars hold that it was most probable that deliberate & theological changes were made to manuscripts and the canonical Gospels (which Yusuf Ismail gave examples of in the debate).

In contrast, we have lots of authentic sources of Muhammad's life & his companions. We know he was extremely truthful before & after claiming Prophet. He used to look after valuables of his enemies before claiming prophethood, because people knew he could be trusted. He was even the title Al-amin by such people, and friends & foes alike knew he was sincere. Historical evidence does not show Muhammad's designated scribes changing the text for theological or deliberate reasons. Islamic historical methodology of determining the authenticity of our texts supersedes any methodology used on the face of the planet.

Read: http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Hadith/Ulum/

Knowing that various books of the Bible are anonymous, various theological changes exist in them, etc it is much more probable (out of the 2) that the Bible plagiarized from ancient sources. Also, since Jesus explicitly excluded himself of being God in a trinity (John 17:3), this increases the chances more that the Bible (i.e. trinity) was plagiarized from ancient sources like: Hindu trinity, Babylonian trinity, etc if you believe Jesus said the Father was the only true God as John 17:3 says.

But, that doesn't mean we are asserting the Bible definitely copied from ancient sources. It doesn't mean it falsifies Islam or Christianity. It simply means it is much more probable the Bible plagiarized than the Quran. Since people like William Craig haven't thought about this, Yusuf shouldn't have mentioned pagan beliefs in the debate.

http://islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Sources/