Price vs. Knight in Minneapolis, MN

 

This is debate focusing on the resurrection of Jesus, between Dr. Robert Price and Rev. Dwight Knight.  There is plenty of back-and-forth here, since the format of the debate included cross-ex following each opening statement, kudos to the organizers for that. Also, Robert Price goes into Lewis Black style rant mode a couple times, which is fun to watch.

The general theme running throughout this debate is that one side uncritically accepts pretty much everything in the gospels while the other hypercritically rejects them at every major point. Not a whole load of common ground worth fighting over between these guys, so it turns into a series of projectile artillery volleys.  Nonetheless, there are good arguments pressed on both sides and plenty of direct attempts to refute opponent's premises.  Good stuff!

• Unbeliever rating: 4.5 stars
  
  
• Believer rating: 3.5 stars 
  
  
• Overall rating: 4.0 stars
  

Poling vs. Herrick in Seattle, WA

This debate, I’m sorry to say, is not quite worth the 15Mb that it takes up on my mostly blank 250Gb HDD.  It centers almost completely upon the cosmological argument framed in terms of necessary being as opposed to contingent being, and even so fails to elucidate whether this distinction is coherent and may be validly applied to the cosmos as a whole.  Moreover, both debaters misconstrue the nature of the Big Bang, and fail to relate their arguments to developments in modern cosmology.  The best that can be said about this exchange is that it overloads your rebuttal buffer, like listening to political talk radio.

 

[22-05-2007]