Talk:William Lane Craig

The Criticism Section additions

Ok, looking through these additions that were made by the IP that wrote the criticism section I'm starting to be concerned that none of these sources are actually real.

Setting aside the concerns above where none of the links (except one) worked, looking through the other sources, I can't find a single one that actually supports the claim made. The section seems to be a personal criticism of Craig's work with some made up sources thrown in as a guise of reliability.

For example, the comment about the Guardian's Sarah Posner seems to be a made up article. When you search Guardian for William Lane Craig you only get Mr. Dawkins' interview. When you look through Ms. Posner's published pieces, none of them are the article referenced [https://www.theguardian.com/profile/sarah-posner]

Similarly, the New Republic only has a single article on Craig, and it isn't by the author noted in the reference and isn't critical of Craig.

The Stanford Plato links were my first tip off, those are not written in the critical style the IP implies. And their philosopher Bios are almost completely limited to those who are already dead. There is no page for Craig, so this source seems to have been made up of whole cloth.

I'm going to pull the IP's addition off as we discuss since this is a BLP we will need to be careful. Squatch347 (talk) 14:33, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

Content Removal

Wanted to start a discussion on some of the changes that have happened over the last couple of weeks now that we got that other issue out of the way. I think most of them are probably good prune/cleanup tasks, but I’d like to get consensus on a few alterations so we don’t lose relevant content. The first is this diff [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=William_Lane_Craig&diff=next&oldid=1137335704&diffmode=source]. Most of it seems fine, the stuff of Roe v. Wade does seem pretty irrelevant. I’d like to add the reference to Naturalism and Reformed Epistimology. These are both professional positions related to his work and ones that generate some discussion in the wide internet about him. I don’t think they stand as just his personal opinion, but are relevant to his position within philosophy and theology. Thoughts? ~~~~ Squatch347 (talk) 15:35, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

The Cause

I found out about William Craig's book, The Quest of the historical Adam. Well, if you examine the origin of this story from the Old Testament, and that the Adam & Eve in the Garden of Eden story is simply based upon and is a rebooted form of the Enki & Ninhursag in the Garden of Dilmun story, synthesised to fit-in with Jewish Theology. The Book of Genesis obviously wasn't written from the time of the events it describes, and there are scholars who date the book of Genesis to the Hellenistic period (3rd century BC). Therefore, William Lane Craig should practice what he preaches and study the cause of the story of Adam & Eve. Octavius88 (talk) 10:06, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

See WP:NOTFORUM. Theroadislong (talk) 10:17, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

Best Schools Removal

@Theroadislong, I noticed your removal of this section. I'd like to chat about why you feel it isn't a reliable source. It's notability isn't relevant as notability doesn't apply to the body of the article if I recall correctly and this would clearly be a notable reference as it discusses his reception within academic circles given the methodology.

This is a primary source in the weakest possible manner in that it is an inference made by "The Best Schools" and "Academic Influence" based on impact factor, SEM data, and other citation like material. Per WP:Primary, this source should be fine if we aren't doing any interpretation or inference from it, and I think the quoted section clearly isn't doing that. Nor does this inclusion raise any obvious flags to me based on WP:BLPPRIMARY; it isn't a self-published or blog site nor does it seem to be salacious or unreputable in any way. It seems to meet the standards of WP:PRIMARYCARE in that a general lay person could access the source and validate the statement made here.

I'm not really sure pushing this to a secondary source such as [17] and [18] really get us anything much better.

Squatch347 (talk) 14:10, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

It's more the fact that it's a non notable event/award whatever. Theroadislong (talk) 14:12, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

In what sense? It is an evaluation of professional engagement with his published work based on his Impact Factor, SEM data, etc. Professional engagement would seem to be a pretty notable reference. Squatch347 (talk) 14:13, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Why are you removing the criticism from Dawkins (a notable public figure) while adding these low quality rankings that I've never seen in any other academic biography? It looks like you're trying to write a hagiography, not a neutral encyclopaedia article. Hemiauchenia (talk) 15:01, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. Theroadislong (talk) 15:15, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Hi Hemiauchenia, I think we should take a look through the archives on this page related to the Dawkins dispute. There is a broad consensus that the dispute between the two should not be included as neither is a relevant figure in the others' field. I'm happy to reopen that discussion, but then we also need to include the context that prompted Dawkins to make such a statement. At that point the addition becomes a bit large for the relative size of the incident. I'm not sure it is worth it to have 10% of the article devoted to a single debate that didn't actually happen. Squatch347 (talk) 15:10, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

The non debate with Dawkins is largely what bought Craig to prominence, certainly in the UK. Theroadislong (talk) 15:15, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Ok, would we need a source for that to highlight its importance? I think it might depend somewhat on the circle of interest we are talking about as he was certainly pretty widely known in the US and Canada long before.

I'm definitely open to adding it if we want to, but it will probably be a lot. There are plenty of sources in the archives related to the debate and the criticisms that came out of it. Squatch347 (talk) 15:18, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Which begs the question, why did you remove it then? Theroadislong (talk) 16:11, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

As I noted, there is a long and broad consensus to not include that topic on the page. If we are changing that consensus, that's fine, but when I removed it all I had was an editor adding a topic that dozens had argued (I think including yourself at one point) shouldn't be covered. Squatch347 (talk) 16:14, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

If we would like to include that text, here is my recommendation (Squatch347 (talk) 16:37, 15 January 2024 (UTC)):

Following a 2011 invitation by Oxford University invitation to Richard Dawkins and William Lane Craig to debate the existence of God, Dawkins declined, accusing Craig of being a "deplorable apologist for genocide", referring to Craig's comments on the Old Testament account of the slaughter of the Canaanites, and claimed that "none of the professors of philosophy whom I consulted had heard his name’’.

In response, Dr Daniel Came, a philosopher and atheist at Oxford University who had helped organize the event accused Dawkins of cowardice and hypocrisy, noting his willingness to debate television and radio presenters. Came elaborated: ‘’Dawkins's refusal to debate is cynical and anti-intellectualist...Using William Lane Craig's remarks as an excuse not to engage in reasoned debate is typical of New Atheist polemic.’’ Dr Tim Stanley, a historian at Oxford University, has argued that Dawkins misrepresents Craig’s views of the Cannanite massacre and has stated that "Dawkins has gotten away with his illiterate, angry schtick for so many years because his opponents have been so woolly."

References

Undefined sfn references

I have fixed some of the long-standing no-target errors in the article, but several remain. They are {{sfn|Copan|Craig|2017|p=4}}, {{sfn|Helm|2002}}, {{sfn|Hasker|2003}}, {{sfn|Swinburne|2002}}, {{sfn|Helm|2010}}, and {{sfn|Deng|2018}} . You cant just put an sfn into the text and expect a source to appear magically. DuncanHill (talk) 15:56, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Man, those probably have been there for a bit. I recognize most of the references, I'll try to wrangle them up this week. Squatch347 (talk) 13:04, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Copan/Craig fixed. Hasker and Helm fixed. Deng fixed. I've also updated other references, we should be good now. Squatch347 (talk) 13:41, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

@Squatch347: Thank you - there is one still unfixed, "Helm 2010". You've changed it from an undefined sfn to an undefined refname here. DuncanHill (talk) 18:29, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

@DuncanHill:, great catch. When I was doing the research I found the original reference on Helm was actually his 2002 article, not a 2010 article so I updated the source, but forgot when I replaced the Ref Names. Updated. Squatch347 (talk) 19:00, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

@Squatch347: Many thanks. DuncanHill (talk) 19:02, 22 April 2024 (UTC)