Category Debates

David Marshall gets owned in debate so the church refuses to post video…

A moment of Schadenfreude: David Marshall recently debated Phil Zuckerman on the issue “What provides a better foundation for civil society: Christianity or Secular Humanism?” and Marshall apparently got creamed. The debate was recorded and the church that organized it planned to upload it. But after their guy lost, they changed their mind on that. Zuckerman asked them when they will finally keep their word and upload the video material of the debate, this is the reply he got:

Apologist Knechtle owned in debate with Beahan

SO this is a few years old now, but this debate is great. Jeremy Beahan, presenter on Reasonable Doubts podcast and radio show, calmly deconstructs every argument this rather smarmy apologist gives. I enjoyed listening to this one, and I hope to hear Beahan do more debates. Good stuff.

William Lane Craig – “Consequentialism is a terrible ethic” – could he be more incoherent?

Craig has been involved in a series of discussions in Australia with Laurence Krauss regarding philosophy and science. Unfortunately, Krauss is no great philosopher which is what most of this discussion revolved around. However, both Craig and the annoying moderator claimed the “consequentialism is a terrible ethic” and that utilitarianism and consequentialism had been “renounced” by the Abrahamic faiths.

The Nativity – a talk, and a debate with apologist Randal Rauser

On Thursday night I gave another talk on the Nativity to the Portsmouth Skeptics in the Pub. The talk was a great success. I was able to establish the case in some good detail as I set out in my last book The Nativity: A Critical Examination. There was a good turnout for the relaunching of PSITP and it was a nice touch that I gave the lats talk to PSITP 1.0 and the first to PSITP 2.0! However, there was a Winchester Skeptics in the Pub event on the same night which was a shame and attracted away a few key members.

Stephen Law vs William Lane Craig Part 3

So, on to the rebuttals. Craig pointed out in several of his rebuttals that Law has not, and did not seem to want to, critique the cosmological argument. Craig does have some beef here as Law seemed to want to debate Craig’s version of God rather than the more fundamental argument over A God’s existence. Thus in true debate point-scoring, Law would take a hit here. However, as Law plainly stated, and I think this was a wise move, this would have broadened the scope too far and wasn’t important for discussing the moral character of Craig’s version of God (thus allowing Law to wedge in his evil God thesis).

What was one of my favourite moments, and it met with a good round of applause from the secularists in the audience (a clear minority), was when Law, whilst talking about his non-answering of Craig’s first (cosmological) argument, declared himself not to be an expert, and to say something like, “I don’t know, I mean I don’t know the answer to the question why the universe exist.”