Ha ha...didn't you know that's why they nicknamed it the "interwebs"....

+1

Hitchens is a donk at debating with theists. He's usually drunk as mentioned before and doesn't go about it in a civil way like Harris.

That statement is obviously wrong. Unless you mean defending Chrisianity vs other religions where some God is assumed to exist.

In the D'Souza debates it usually revolves around something like "Is Christianity destroying the world" or something like that.

Not about which religion is the right religion, or trying to prove a theistic God over a deistic one.

So I believe that is what she was conveying. Which she is correct as with the history of Christianity you are dealing with historical facts not metaphysics and the such.

Any non-theist who ever allowed a debate to revolve around whether Christianity is destroying the world or not deserves to lose every debate they step into.

Anyway, Sklansky's saying that in order to defend Christianity you must defend the idea of God in addition to other claims, and it's thusly impossible that defending Christianity could be easier.

I understand that, and I agree with him and you. But that is not the way that Splendour meant it, and least I think not, because that is not what the debates that we were discussing revolved around.

Yes that's what I meant.


But I'm developing a dislike for Apologetics. I think it does more good for believers than unbelievers.

The simple fact is that God doesn't need any defending. He can defend himself. He never said "defend me". He said "fear me".

As God tells Job he never needed anybody for anything. He did it all.

All the arguing does is try to obscure his divine nature and change people's focus from the Gospel message.

The message is Christ came to save the world not condemn it. Today is the Lord's Day and Apologetics mainly delays people from making a decision that has eternal consequences. Can anybody name the day he will die?

There was one debate Hitchens had not too long ago I almost cried for him he was so pathetic. I'm sure he must have been drunk to even consider debating Craig. Dawkins is much smarter -he just runs away as fast as he can.

Where do you guys see these debates at? I have never seen one but would love to see Craig debate. Any links?

search youtube or google video for "dawkins" "harris" "hitchens" and you will find videos of these debates...most of them are cut into ten minute pieces so just find a clip that says 1/10 or wahtever and go nuts...

here is one i found by putting "sam harris" in youtubes search
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jkBCEN1Igg

its the first video in a set for the harris vs rabbi wolpe debate...the rest of hte videos are in the related videos panel on youtube...

Transripts:

http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/...e=debates_main

Audio - video:

http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/...isuals#debates

I like the Antony debate - there's also a discussion of it by Craig recently here:

http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/...asting_main#rf

Click on: A Debate on the Moral Argument

I watch this just for intellectual masturbation every few months because it's such a smackdown.

I just read the transcript of the Craig vs. Ehrman debate on the historicity of the resurrection. It's a good read if anyone is interested.

I've skimmed through this. Just for the record I'm not sure Craig is correct in his use of Bayes' - what he calls the probability calculus. I would appreciate any input on this and whether it makes any difference in how you think about his argument. He's stated elsewhere that he doesn't like using probability arguments but does so mostly to counter similar arguments from the opposition.

the Craig vs. Ehrman debate is also on youtube. You can view is here CLICK HERE

It is a very interesting debate. Ehrman is very educated in the subject matter so it is a very close debate.

I don't like Ehrman's debating style. He's basically appealing to skepticism as the bedrock of his argument. I don't know why he would do this since 99% of those who are skeptical are already atheist or agnostic. He should have concentrated more on the reliability of the Gospels. While it's true that the Gospels can be disbelieved merely on skeptical grounds, they are also riddled with inconsistencies. It's very telling that Craig twice dodged a question about whether he thinks the Gospels might contain errors, until he is forced to answer by a member of the audience repeating the question directly, whereupon he answers:

This is really bull**** of the highest order. How can his attitude towards whether he thinks the Bible is inerrant be irrelevant when all of his arguments about the historicity of the resurrection rely on the Bible? Ehrman observes:

Spot on. Craig doesn't reply, because he can't. And later, Ehrman again:

In my opinion this is no more "clearly a legendary account" than the canonical Gospels. Why is a walking, talking cross any less believable than a resurrected dead man?

Also, most of the arguments Craig makes about whether the Gospels are reliable sources are appeals to authority. He's like "Professor X concluded the Gospels are historically accurate" or "Dr Y computed a 97% chance of the resurrection having occurred". If there are reasons why we should treat the Gospels as anything other than anonymous religious tracts written by true believers decades after the event, let's hear them. There are no such reasons.

I'm glad you spotted this. I thought it was the worst part of the debate for Craig, mostly because most people will not be able to see the liberties he is taking so I thought it was kind of dishonest.

For one thing his notation is kind of weird. The letter B should be removed from the formula altogether, it's already implied that the probability of resurrection or its compliment are based on background information. What he fails to mention is that, as a historian, one must place the probability of resurrection as extremely low. Because we have no cases of a person coming back to life and then never dying (even if I grant you the Jesus resurrection it doesn't matter much), the "P(R/B)" term in his formula would have to be at best something like 1 in 10,000,000,000.

Where Craig goes wrong is that he claims the other terms are enough to overcome the very small probability of a human resurrection. But what he fails to realize is that even if we say there is a 100% chance of the evidence turning out the way it did given resurrection, and only a 1 in a million chance the evidence would turn out the way it did given no resurrection, then no resurrection is STILL a huge favorite.

Reference his formula here for which numbers represent what:

P(R|E) = [(1/10,000,000,000)*(1)] / [(1/10,000,000,000)*1 + (~1)(1/1,000,000)] = ~0.00001

This is why Sklansky is always talking about Bayes' theorem. Because if someone looks at the evidence and concludes that it's a 1 in a million shot that the evidence could be the way it is if there was no resurrection, they will generally conclude the resurrection is a huge favorite. But they will be wrong.

No, it isn't. Craig speaks in other places about inerrancy and its place in Christian doctrine. He doesn't consider it an essential doctrine at all. Though he personally accepts inerrancy he's stated that he could give up the doctrine without changing his faith because it isn't a central part of Scripture. He's pointed out that Ehrman, who was once an enthusiastic Christian, most likely lost his faith primarily from holding an unScriptural view of this doctrine. He placed it at the center of his belief system, which isn't necessary either from Scripture or theological tradition, and when he could no longer accept inerrancy, his entire faith was destroyed. What Craig is doing here is avoiding a red herring, because as he states, if the Bible sources are treated as historical documents then inerrancy doesn't apply and the question is plausibility.

He already addressed the issue - Ehrman raises nothing new here.

I haven't read the debate so I don't know if Craig addressed this but he has in other places. The fundamental issue he would take here is Ehrman's use of the word non-canonical. Remember, Craig insists that the NT be evaluated as historical documents. To call them canonical and then attach some lesser validity because of that classification is to be non-historical. The canon wasn't labelled such until Nicene, about 325 A.D. - until then the documents were letters and manuscripts that circulated throughout the church, and were viewed as inspired, but they were also documents. If viewed as such then there are historical mentions of Christ's resurrection. Craig is simply asking they be treated as such and if they are in error, show the error.

Craig can tell you why if you read his material. The accounts of the resurrection can be dated back perhaps to as close as 5-10 years after his death. Even secular historians mostly agree that legends don't arise that close to actual events. The legendary accounts were all written no earlier than mid-2nd century, most of them later, and they have many earmarks of myth and legend. The Gospels and other NT documents were all written close to the events and can be classified as in the genre of ancient biography - they are written in the style of factual statements, they contain many historical accuracies, and they go counter to anything 1st century, mostly uneducated but pious Jews would have accepted without evidence.

Thanks for the reply. Someday I'm going to look at the technical stuff here and try to get a handle on it. I understand what you mean by this error, I used to make it myself and I see many people doing the same. I will point out that DS has said if the number is really, really huge it may be somewhat indicative of, for instance, design. I don't think Craig is being dishonest and I've only seen him use this once or twice - but I don't feel comfortable when he does use it. He himself has said he doesn't like probability arguments so I think he is only trying to respond - I have no doubt he could drop them completely without affecting his overall arguments.

The debate will be quite tedious. Interesting topics would be of this sort:
- Do humans 'deserve' punishment?
- What is the relation between the moral 'conscience' and social morality?
- Is there a non-trivial meaning of 'human consciousness'?
- Is religion contingent on language?
- What is 'truth'?

FWIW this part was Ehrman answering a specific question from the audience about non-canonical sources.

What number?

I don't think he's being intentionally dishonest, I just don't think he understands the implications of bringing this argument into it.

Basically any objective use of Bayes' theorem will come out with the not-resurrection side way ahead. This is because the probability of a resurrection has to be considered infinitesimally small. There are no known mechanism by which a resurrection is possible, and there are no confirmed cases of a resurrection occurring. I said one in ten billion, but in reality the number is much less than that. In other words you could have evidence 1,000 times stronger than what we currently have, and an objective historian still should not say the resurrection is probable.

What I'm trying to say is that Craig's argument would be much better off if he ignored probability altogether. I don't think he had a prayer (pun intended) in this debate because of what they were specifically debating. There may be good reasons to believe in the resurrection, but those reasons are certainly not based on an objective viewing of the historical evidence. At best the evidence can confirm a belief held by faith or personal revelation.

And I really should put scare-quotes around "debate." Hitchens is a humanist and Craig is...well, I don't really know what he is...but he certainly doesn't accept premises like:
- 'Evil' is unnecessary human suffering.
which will be central to Hitchens' polemics.