Why Atheists Are Such Lousy Debaters

I watched the movie "The Great Debaters" last night, and it helped me to understand why atheists are such bad debaters. The movie portrays four students from a little black college in Texas, and shows how, under the tutelage of their pugnacious coach, they went on to defeat Almighty Harvard. Denzel Washington, who plays the coach, says early in the movie that debate is a kind of bloodsport. It's great virtue is that it puts rival ideas up against each other, as argued by people who passionately espouse those ideas, and then it lets the truth emerge through a kind of gladiatorial elimination.

For about three years, it appeared as though the leading atheists were formidable debaters. But the reason was that Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens were selecting weak opponents and then generally giving them a public whipping. In one staged encounter, hardly a debate, Richard Dawkins ambushed televangelist Ted Haggard for a film Dawkins was making. Not only did Dawkins control the format, he also controlled what was shown on film. No wonder Dawkins got the better of that encounter. Harris took on pastor Rick Warren in Newsweek, where Harris made outrageous allegations and Warren basically said that Christians are nice people because they help AIDS victims in Africa. Again, this was hardly a fair fight. Hitchens promoted his book God Is Not Great by traipsing through the South taking on local pastors. Now your typical pastor is not used to debating a versatile and suave character like Hitchens. A few months ago Hitchens embarrassed theologian Alister McGrath in Washington D.C. One problem is that Hitchens has the Richard Burton accent and McGrath sounds like he just came in from shooting birds in the Scottish highlands. Another problem is that McGrath couldn't handle Hitchens' vitriolic accusations and came off looking conciliatory and weak.

Unlike the characters in "The Great Debaters," I was never part of a debate team. I got my debate practice through confronting critics of my various books. Mostly I learned by taking on such seasoned debaters as presidential candidate Walter Mondale, the literary scholar Stanley Fish, and a whole series of civil rights activists from Cornel West to Jesse Jackson. Prior to my debate with Hitchens, he described me as "one of the most formidable debaters on any topic." Richard Dawkins seems to agree: the great Haggard-slayer has somehow gotten cold feet when it comes to debating me. I guess he's afraid that I'll make him look as ridiculous as Haggard.

Then there's Sam Harris, who tells me that debate is not a very useful medium to arrive at the truth. He didn't seem to think that previously, but now it seems that he too is afraid of looking like a public fool. Harris wants to engage in a written debate, and I've agreed, but it should be noted that written debates allow each side to consult experts and therefore they don't reflect the true spirit of debate, which is the clash of ideas embodied in the most articulate representatives of those ideas. I've suggested to Harris a couple of weeks ago that we do both a written and an oral debate, and I'm waiting to hear his response.

Why are the atheists faring so badly in these debates? I think the main reason is that they are so arrogant. Dawkins, Harris, Dennett and Hitchens really think that their position reflects pure reason and that my position reflects "blind faith." If this were really true they should win every single debate, for the same reason that a round-earth advocate should never lose to a flat-earth advocate. In reality there are good arguments on both sides, and I as a believer know this. I know it's hard to make the case for an invisible God and for an afterlife. In short, I know the strength of the argument on the other side. Leading atheists, however, simply do not expect to hear good counterarguments to their position. When they do, they have no idea how to answer them. So they either erupt into jejune name-calling (all to familiar to readers of this blog) or they slowly fall apart (witness what happened to Daniel Dennett).

In reality, I don't have to win debates against atheists; I merely have to draw. Just by coming out even, I defeat the atheist premise that atheism is the position based on reason and religion is the position based on unreason. Even a tie shows that both positions are reasonable. By defeating atheists in debate, however, I have totally exploded the atheist self-pretense. I have shown atheists to be the unreasonable ones, and this is why leading atheists like Dawkins and Harris are now going into hiding. But if these guys are scared to debate me, even in secular university settings where the audience is largely on their side, what does this say about them and about the soundness of their positions? Perhaps Dawkins and company should go and see "The Great Debaters." They might get some useful tips, and they might also get their nerve back.

"It’s just I can’t get over the change in the nature of God that theistic evolution entails. He’s less....Godlike. More a tinkerer than a titan."

The "tinkerer" God, is an idea held by certain TEs and rejected by others. Most of the ones I know don't believe in that idea. For instance, here are some comments made by George Murphy (a physicist and a Luthern cleric):

"MN says that science is to proceed "as if God were not given" - acsi deus non daretur. (This phrase of Thomas Torrance is slightly weaker than the more common etsi deus non daretur, "though God were not given.") The point is that science does not appeal to the concept of God to explain phenomena, even if the scientist may believe in God and think that God is involved in what happens in the world.

".. MN does not require that "God plays no part in the physical world." It does not rule out the possibility - which in fact is the traditional Christian view of providence - that God acts by means of natural processes which can be understood in terms of rational laws.

"The statement that "God plays no part in the physical world" does not go as far as metaphysical naturalism. It could be described as deistic methodological naturalism, or more precisely as methodological naturalism which allows deism.

"The simplest definition of MN is that science should not appeal to divine action to explain natural phenomena. Note that this does not imply the belief that science can (in principle) explain all natural phenomena." ~ George Murphy

And here's George Murphy in response to another scientist who doesn't like the term, "theistic evolution" because he doesn't think it's an accurate description:

"...Again I'm not going to spend a great deal of time on terminology. Like it or not, we're probably stuck with "theistic evolution," just the way we're stuck with "big bang." "Evolutionary creationism" is better but it isn't going to catch on.

"Sure, there's good TE & bad TE - just as there's good theology & bad theology, & good evolutionary theories & bad ones. Good versions of TE are ones that try to understand evolution in terms of good theology. & frankly I don't know why you feel yourself competent to say whether or not such versions are "bullet-proof" or not since you've admitted that you aren't qualified to debate theology.

"What I argue for is my own version of whatever you want to call it - it's part of what I call chiasmic cosmology."

"I feel that IDs are pretending that there are no theological issues involved when manifestly there are. Yes, I know that there are "non-theist IDs" & they are insignificant in the public debate, which is what I'm interested in. Please remember that I intend my work in science-theology dialogue to be in service of the church & the larger community in the real world.

".....(By "theology" there I mean something like "the teaching about God and divine things," logos about theos, & not "religious studies.") He is so intent on marking off & defending turf for human & social sciences - a concern with which I don't disagree in a fundamental way - that he fails to understand the role that both good & bad theology play in understanding MN & the ID debate.

The practical meaning of MN is that a scientist - whether "natural" or "human-social" - should not invoke God as an explanation for phenomena in his or her field of study. We are not really concerned about angelic agents or other "supernatural" entities in these discussions. Neither physicist nor a sociologist will be content with "God did it" as an scientific explanation - it's that simple. Of course either of those scientists may indeed believe that God is involved in the phenomena he/she studies. & they may go on to speak about how they think God is involved, but then they aren't doing physics or sociology anymore but theology. & it may be good or bad theology.

"Maybe it's the N in MN that sets Gregory off. I don't think there's a lot to be gained by trying to change established terminology, even when it may be confusing to beginners, but am open to suggestions.

MN in that sense is simply a working rule that virtually all scientists observe & have done so for centuries. I don't leave it at that but argue for that simple version of MN on the fundamental ground of the theology of the cross. (See, e.g., HERE .) Gregory doesn't want to talk about that - at least he never has in my memory when I've made the point before - because he wants to lump all "TEs" together in one inept group. In reality, the ineptitude is displayed by those who fail to take seriously the T of TE.

"Grgeory is partly right when he speaks about biological claims as a "token gesture" of ID - although the vast majority of ID arguments have focussed on biological issues. The real concern of most ID proponents is theological. The issues which ID raises are not in the realm of the human & social sciences as Gregory implies without exactly saying so (at least here). There are, of course, important psychological, sociological &c matters to be studied in connection with the ID movement but they are at a different level.

"The careful reader will have noted that I have not, as a physicist, proclaimed the superiority of the natural sciences over the human & social ones & that I have not tried to tell the latter how to do their jobs beyond the constraint of a clearly & simply defined version of MN. Sociologists are scientists & they don't have to mimic the methods of physicists in order to be described as such." ".. I agree that the exclusion of God as an element of scientific explanation seems more debatable for the human-social sciences than for the natural ones. But consider some of the problems that would be raised if we didn't observe this limitation. Christians, Muslims, Hindus & others will have quite different views about how "God" is involved in one or another social process - e.g., what happened in 7th century Arabia or 16th century Germany. Even among Christians, the views of RCs & Lutherans, e.g., about the latter instance will differ.

This is of course not to deny that God is involved in what individual humans or societies - or for that matter supernovae & nucleic acids - do. But God - if we have any kind of mature understanding of God - is not one entity alongside others that are active in the world. Science has made progress by restricting its attention to those entities that are within the world - or, in theological terms, that are creatures. If & when we want to talk about the creator's involvement in anything that happens we ought to recognize that we are talking about theology - theology informed by physics, psychology &c but not simply another science alongside those disciplines." ~ Shalom, A HREF="http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/">George Murphy

Don't forget that there is a big difference between "intelligent design" and the "ID Movement".

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.