Hitchens vs Prager vs DSouza (2008)

A Catholic, A Jew, and an Atheist walk into an auditorium... (video, audio)

Hitchens makes his usual spiel, which I consider more rhetorical than logical and more entertaining than persuasive. His opening statement sort of toys around the edges of Drange's arguments from unbelief and suffering, without actually stating the premises or making the arguments themselves.

D'Souza also gives us a variation on his usual spiel, including his personal background and an argument from cosmological fine-tuning to (presumably) deism.

Prager makes the argument that we can use "common sense" to understand cosmology, and that the atheist must explain how we went from nothing to Bach. He seems to believe that theism is a sort of default position, and anything less than an exhaustive scientific explanation of life, the universe, and everything should allow for reversion to his favored hypothesis -- a magical mind mediating by mysterious means.

None of the opening statements were particularly perspicacious or insightful, however, around 24 minutes in the various speakers start going back and forth and things really get going. At this point, the event rapidly turns into something I've only ever seen or heard on the internet, that is, an enthusiatic, energetic and enjoyable three-way exchange.

Shook vs. Craig in Vancouver, BC

Craig leads with his usual five arguments, after getting a bit of a dig in at Shook’s website. 

Shook leads with an unusual deductive argument which might be formalized along these lines:

1. Only those propositions for which there is good evidence are probably true.
2. There is not any good evidence for the claims of supernaturalism.
3. Therefore, supernaturalism is probably false, and naturalism probably true.

This is not a particularly good argument, but it is an argument nonetheless.  Craig claims that Shook made no argument whatsoever, but Shook clearly elucidated both premises during the course of his opening statement.  It is not to Shook’s credit that he failed to make more varied and affirmative arguments for naturalism, but taking this approach did free up some time to go after the arguments for theism.

On rebuttal, Craig actually sounds a little bit shook up - I’ve never before heard him interlarding his speech with disfluencies in the manner of mere mortal men.  He argues that even if there are no good arguments for God, that we still might reasonably believe in God, and then goes on to call this problem a “huge lacuna” in the debate.  I must agree, but surely such a gap would favor agnosticism rather than theism (Craig rightly points this out on cross).  Craig goes on to say that a “changeless self-conscious being” is a totally coherent concept, despite the fact that our inevitably subjective understanding of the phenomenon of consciousness is inherently and invariably temporal.  As Indigo Montoya once said, “You keep using that word.  I don’t think it means what you think it means.”

During his rebuttal period, Shook goes directly after Craig’s five arguments, which puts him ahead of almost all the freethinking debaters I’ve heard.  He fails to refute the bizarrely self-contradictory idea of an objective morality (existing solely in the mind of god) but he does have a go at Craig argument from objective morality.  More generally, Shook’s counterarguments are not quite as strong as they could have been, but kudos to him for having a go.  Interestingly, Shook uses something very much like the analogy to planetary (as opposed to universal) fine-tuning which I wrote about on my other blog so mega-kudos for that. J

Although Shook ought to have made a few positive arguments for naturalism (as Austin Dacey does) both debaters did a fairly fine job of casting reasonable doubt on their opponent’s arguments, and thus we have witnessed yet another AGNOSTIC WIN!

Overall rating: 4.5

[2008-07-01]

Cooke vs. Craig in Auckland, NZ

Craig gives his usual five arguments.  Cooke gives an interesting opening statement with a couple of potentially persuasive arguments, including a variation on the graveyard of dead gods which we have often heard from Hitchens.  On rebuttal, Cooke seems to have rather little interest in picking apart Craig’s arguments, which is a bit of a shame since they both agreed to have a debate.  Craig, as per usual, relentlessly pounds on his opponent for failing to effectively counter his apologetics, and in this case the accusation starts to really stick after a while.

Cooke started out strong in his opening but after that he falls flat out pretty quick.  It would seem that he brought a pillow to a fistfight.  Better luck next time!

Reinhardt vs. Anthony in Norman, OK

This event wasn't really a debate, because Unitarian Universalists are generally more interested in dialogue than in debate.  The theme was originally intended to be a discussion of values which people of very different faiths (or no faith) might have in common.  

It was a pretty fun time, and I did not get the sense that either speaker managed to converge on the possibility of a set of common values.  Perhaps we should have another go at it sometime.  

Avalos vs. Weikart from Des Moines, IA

This radio debate stands out in a few ways from those that I’m used to hearing.  It centers upon a highly unusual question, that is, whether Darwinian or Christian ideology more influence on the ideology of Nazism.  Moreover, the debate mostly cenetered around questions of history and personal ideology rather than scientific or philosophical arguments.  

Weikart leads with a number of points at which scientific or pseudo-scientific theories were incorporated into the Nazi theories about race.  He fails to address the obvious problem of the is/ought gap between scientific truths and moral imperatives and in this failure he falls (ironically enough) into more-or-less the same fallacious thinking that embraced by those he reviles: inferring that the scientific truths of Darwinism somehow imply the moral imperatives of “Social Darwinism” or enforced eugenics.  This problem is never resolved in this debate, nor even much addressed so far as I could tell.

Avalos comes out swinging a giant brickbat, composed  of Christian writings which resembled the Nazi agenda so strongly as to be downright disturbing in their prescience.  Here is the complete passage as quoted from an earlier English translation than that generally used today.  After quoting Luther at some length, Avalos challenges Weikart to find anything remotely resembling an SS to-do list from the writings of Charles Darwin.

They go back and forth for awhile, each pointing out particular way in which the other guy’s ideological forebears influenced Nazi ideology and propaganda.  Neither debater clearly gains the advantage, but it struck me that Weikart always had to make a couple of weak inferences to get From Darwin to Hitler while Avalos drew a fairly bold and straight line from Lutheran dogma to 20^th century German anti-Semitism.  

All told, it was not a bad listen, and doubly so considering it originated in terrestrial radio.

[2008-05-19]

Manning vs. Cook on the radio

This quasi-debate was really a sort of two-on-one radio interview of non-theist Robert Manning by two incredibly overconfident theistics, including Pastor Gene Cook.  This one starts out slow and slowly becomes ironical, then ludicrous, then hilarious.  I’ve listened to it 2½ times now, going on three.

The credulity gap here is about as wide as you can get, with one side certain of nothing beyond cogito ergo sum and the other side claiming apodictic certainty of the finer points of their refined reformed theology.  It would appear that presuppositionalism and hyperskepticism are more like oil and water than, say, vinegar and baking soda. 

Turning presuppositionalism around, Manning the überskeptic hypothesizes about a deity which Pastor Cook can’t quite grok, because this hypothetical being does not reveal its true nature for a full 7,000 years rather than a mere 6,000 years after creating the planet.   I know, right?  The mind reels.

Money quote – “God is god and you’re a little piece of horse dung!” 

(You'll never guess who said that :-)

Singer vs. D'Souza in Los Angeles, CA

In this debate, both Peter Singer and Dinesh D'Souza lead with the argument that the other guy's ideology suffers from a problem of evil.  D'Souza argues that the godless communist regimes were quite horrifically murderous, while Singer's argument is basically that a Heavenly Father would never allow such atrocities to happen.  Neither of these interlocutors manages to quite directly rebut the arguments of the other, possibly because they were still making new arguments during their rebuttal segments.  Singer does manage a stinging reply noting that theistic ethics justified genocide and rape in the Old Testament, issues which D'Souza pretty much ignores.  They also go back and forth a bit on cosmology and fine-tuning, but not to any great effect from either side.

Overall rating: 3.5 stars