Sizer-Watt vs. Grinbank in Ontario

This was a somewhat formal debate (and informal beard-off) between two young Canadian men, both familiar with the basics of philosophy and theology, but not experienced in the art of public communication.

Michael Sizer-Watt debated Mariano Grinbank not on whether any gods really exist, but on whether one can make more sense of morality by grounding it in the assumptions of either naturalism or theism. They both have a go at the question, but ultimately they both miss the mark because neither addresses the key question "Why be moral" within the framework of his own worldview. Had they done so, they might have realized that they are both talking about acting in the interest of fulfilling one's own values, but operating on very different assumptions about the nature of reality under which one might go about doing so.

Sizer-Watt starts off with a concession that it is harder to establish what is right and wrong in a naturalist paradigm than it is to simply say "Morality is doing what X says" where X is a deity or a set of deities to whom we defer. He wants to argue for an alternative theory of ethics. He then goes on to describe the results of contemporary research at the boundaries of ethics and neuroscience. This is truly fascinating stuff, but it doesn't really prove anything about the nature of morality withoout throwing in several unspoken premises, such as "If morality has characteristics X, Y, Z, then it is

Grinbank, for his part, defines morality in terms of obedience to God and goes on to argue that it can only exist if God is there to obey. Not very convincing to the truly fence-sitting agnostic.

My advice is to skip this one, unless you really dig old man beards on young men.

DiCarlo vs. Boot in Oshawa, ON

This debate is unique in any number of interesting ways. The skeptical speaker is avowedly agnostic on the question of deism, and he's not "down on religion" but thinks that religious belief does plenty of good. Moreover, the believing speaker is clearly well-versed in post-modern philosophical thought, which is something that I don't usually hear from priests or theologians.

Also, the extent of crowd participation and number of applause lines were exceptionally great in this debate. Lines like "it is impossible for all world religions to be right, but it is possible for all world religions to be wrong" and "I don't need a divine hand patting me on the back to do good" get big applause, and even this guy gets a big shout out from the peanut gallery.

As to the arguments themselves, I think it is accurate to say that each speaker talked past the other to some extent. The skeptic went after Biblical literalists, while the believer went after communists, existentialists, and nilihists. I suppose there are those who might suppose most believers and unbelievers fall easily into such categories, but surely this is not so.

• Unbeliever rating: 3.5 stars 
  
  
• Believer rating: 2.5 stars
  
  
• Overall rating: 3 stars
  

Brown vs. Craig in Toronto, ON

Craig leads with his usual arguments, each of which ought to be readily rebuttable: 

1. Cosmological argument from a cosmic first cause
   
2. Teleological argument from universal fine-tuning
   
3. Objective moral values cannot exist apart from God
   
4. Jesus lives!  (empty tomb / post-mortem appearances / Xn belief)
   
5. Altar call / subjective experiences

The first two arguments basically fall back on the following dichotomy, either the universe came to be the way it is because of (a) natural processes we do not fully understand or (b) some sort of immaterial non-spatiotemporal über-mind.  Craig puts forth nothing even resembling a valid argument which ought to lead a rational person to prefer the latter option over the former, but instead relies on a bit of hand-waving and an inherent human bias in favor of explanations rooted in agency rather than more difficult natural explanations (the details of which may or may not be forthcoming).  It blows my mind that Craig keeps getting away with this spouting this sort of question-begging poppycock from an academic pulpit, but there it is.

Craig’s third argument is just pointless, since “objective moral values” is a wholly nonsensical idea.  Values are by definition subjective, even if they happen to exist in the mind of a Cartesian evil demon or any other sort of bodiless spirit (only hardcore Platonists can even hope to contend otherwise).  Moreover, divine moral values are no good unless they are good values.  What good would it do the human race if the divine values permit slavery and genocide?

Craig’s fourth argument more-or-less assumes the reliability of the gospel narratives, an approach which only has persuasive force to someone who is already a Christian.  Few people believe that other people’s scriptures are anything other than myths, and this is just as it should be, since they usually contain all manner of fabulous stories which are completely unattested outside of their particular faith tradition.

Brown wastes a fair bit of time talking about classical arguments for and against God, before getting around to the problem of evil and a few moral conundrums related to theistic morality.  On rebuttal, Craig manages to make mincemeat of these, since Brown failed to start in on a properly evidential argument (at least not until his closing statement). He also wastes a bit of time on the nature of faith, again, because he fails to make a positive argument in favor of metaphysical naturalism.  This is a serious shortcoming, since merely pointing out that faith is not an argument is not an argument in itself.  If there are some people in the audience who could be convinced by the sorts of the arguments presented in a debate, they are surely not fideists.  Finally, Brown grants the existence of objective moral truths, at which point he may well have delivered his flag to Craig’s camp.  Considering the inherent weakness of the arguments from objective morality, this should be considered a gratuitous bit of self-harm on Brown’s part.

On rebuttal and on cross, these guys mix it up and both demonstrate a high-level of familiarity with various subjects while managing to cast substantive doubt upon almost all of the affirmative arguments which were given during the opening statements.  Brown, to his credit, manages to point out a number of the major problems with Craig’s arguments, though he does so a bit confusingly at times.  Brown makes up a good deal of ground after the opening statements, but never quite catches up.  It seems to me that Brown could have had Craig pinned and writing if they had been given another hour for cross-ex.  Alas…

Altogether, this is one of the better debates because of its high level of substantive interchange.  Definitely worth a listen.

•           Unbeliever rating: 4.25 stars
  
•           Believer rating: 4.75 stars
  
•           Overall rating: 4.5 stars
  

Date: 27-Jan-2009

DiCarlo vs. Craig in Waterloo, ON

This debate stands out for a bizarre lack of debate, and this seems like the unfortunate result of a poorly framed topic question, “Does God matter?”  Essentially, Craig makes the argument that life is ultimately meaningless without God, while DiCarlo counters “Meh.”  The problem is that Craig assumes that only ultimate meaning is worthwhile, but DiCarlo claims to be perfectly content with proximate meaning.  Between these two competing sets of intuitive and subjective premises, there is no common ground over which to contend and perhaps stake a claim.

On the other hand, it was pretty cool to hear Craig deviate from his usual script for a change.

Overall rating: 2.5 stars 

 

De Sousa vs. Craig in Toronto, ON

In the rebuttal period, Craig easily dispatches De Sousa's arguments, mostly because the freethinker failed to frame any of them in any sort of rigorous way. De Sousa has a bit of a go at refuting Craig's usual five arguments, but he is far too long-winded to do so at all effectively. He does at one point make an interesting case regarding Craig's misuse of prior probabilities in the fine-tuning argument, but doesn't quite stick it.

The cross-ex was, as usual, more entertaining and enlightening than the openings and rebuttals, but even so De Sousa fails to acquit himself as should one armed with better facts and arguments. Alas!

• Unbeliever rating: 2.75
  
  
• Believer rating: 4.25
  
  
• Overall rating: 3.5

Shook vs Craig at UBC

University of British Columbia, 29 Jan 2008

Craig leads with his usual five arguments: cosomological, teleological, moral, historical Jesus, and personal experiences. If you've not seen it before, this debate provides a fairly representative sample.

Shook leads off with the old "atheists believe in only one less god than monotheists" trope, which I consider cute and witty but unpersuasive. He goes on to describe atheism and naturalism for a bit, and finally starts in on an argument, which is really more of an analysis and rebuttal of Craig's theological positions and arguments. What he ought to have done instead is put forth his own arguments for the truth of metaphysical naturalism, as we've seen from the likes of J.J. Lowder and Rick Carrier. To be fair, he alludes to possible arguments (e.g. incoherent properties) but an allusion does not an argument make.

Upon rebuttal, predictably enough, Craig spanks Shook like a naughty schoolboy for failing to make an affirmative argument for naturalism. He does this quite efficiently and effectively, leaving himself time to review, restate, and reinforce his own affirmative arguments. Not looking good for naturalism by this point in the debate. Craig admits that hypothetical oughts can be objective in the same sense as other truths about how to attains one's goals (e.g. if you want to stay healthy, don't eat poison) but goes on to once again confuse objective moral values with subjective divine preferences.

When it comes time for Shook to rebut, he gets scattershot and hits a few targets on accident, but for the most part fails to point out where Craig's carefully and clearly constructed arguments go awry.