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 

 

Hitchens vs. D'Souza in Boulder, CO

Links to debate: video, mp3

D’Souza cedes ground early on by narrowing the playing field to arguments “rooted in reason, and skepticism, and history, and philosophy, in other words, Christopher Hitchens and I are debating…on the same ground.” It wasn’t a particularly good idea for him to play to his opponent’s strengths up front. A professional debater such as William Lane Craig would never make such a mistake against such a learned opponent.

As he did in against Barker, D’Souza leads with a list of secular virtues:

• Individuality
  
• Dignity of women
  
• Abolition of slavery
  
• Compassion as a social virtue
  

Once again, his opponent does take the trouble to point out that these virtues have been retarded by religious faith at least at much as they’ve been advanced thereby. One need only look at the official position of the Church of England on (1) the individualist manifestoes of the Enlightenment era, (2) the suffragette movement, (3) the abolition of slavery in England, and (4) radical life-saving advances in medicine. In each case, England’s faith-based bastion of transcendental moral virtue lagged behind the English-speaking culture at large, which definitely undercuts D’Souza’s claim that it was the Christian faith which drove things forward.

Hitchens’ main argument (like Hitchens himself) was interesting if a bit sarcastic, “Life was nasty, brutish, and short. For the first 98,000 years of [human history] heaven watches with indifference. Who cares? Doesn’t look terrific, but they’re inching along, I guess. Let’s see how it goes. Two thousand years ago, it is decided, actually now we have to intervene - but only in illiterate parts of the Middle East. To reveal Our Face to the species and tell them how to behave - that should do it.” Hitchens claims that if you can believe this, you can believe pretty much anything about theology and ethics.

Eventually, they got around to cross-examining each other to great effect. While Hitch gets in more barbs, D'Souza manages to seem composed and even a bit amused.

Crossley vs Bird on the radio (UK)

[17-Jan-2009] [24-Jan-2009]

The title of these episodes is How Did Christianity Begin and the two guests in the studion co-wrote a book of the same title: http://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Did-Christianity-Begin-Non-believer/dp/0281058504

Undoubtedly, this collaboration helped them to discern precisely where they disagree about how we should best understand the gospels. They debate back and forth quite a bit, mostly about how these documents were developed over time, and to what extent they should be considered undiluted eyewitness reports rather than the result of decades of mythical accretions upon orally transmitted traditions about Jesus. They went into special detail on the Christology of Paul and John, as well as the gospel resurrection stories, such as the zombie apocalypse of Matthew 27.

Interestingly, these two Bible scholars are not at the extremes (Gospel inerrantist, Jesus myther) but much more toward in the middle, but still on opposite sides of a chasm that can only be crossed with a leap of faith.

Overall I'd say that these two episodes, taken together, are one of the best radio debates on whether the Christian gospels should be believed and why. Definitely worth your time if you find this subject of interest.

Kane vs. Hippler in St. Paul, MN

This debate centered on the question of whether Christian or Humanist ethics provide a better account of obligatory moral claims.  Both debaters ultimately fail to make an affirmative case, however, both of them do a fairly good job of tearing down the other’s case.  The conclusion must be that if there is such a thing as obligatory moral claims, you shouldn’t try to get at them from the worldviews presented herein this discussion.  That said, it was a fairly worthwhile and enjoyable debate, with plenty of genuine back and forth.

Unbeliever rating: 3.5 stars

Believer rating: 3.5 stars

Overall rating: 3.5 stars

 

 

 

Ehrman vs. Swinburne (radio)

I would never say that there exists a particularly rational counterargument to the evidential argument from evil, but Swinburne's attempts here are as good as they come.  This radio segment is worthwhile if only because you don't often hear sophisticated argument about the problem of evil on the radio.

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