Dr. Bill Craig's Debates: Why do Atheists lose/run away from debating him?

[Nishant Xavier]

Hi Mister Agenda. Thanks for the pleasant response.

To briefly address your points.

1. Propositions or States of Mind: You say Atheism and Theism are not strictly propositions, since Atheists have different degrees of confidence or certainty about them. But, the Truth value of a proposition is one thing, the probability of it being true is surely another?

So, for instance, some Agnostic or Atheist may be 80% convinced there is no God, but leaves open as a possibility or a 20% probability that there might be. Would you disagree with characterizing it that way? You said, "most of us are content to state that we are not convinced there is a God; and are more or less confident in that depending on which God is being proposed." I think that's what you're saying, but correct me if I'm wrong.

Let's just call Atheism being True (A) and Theism being True (T) for simplicity instead of P and Q:

So. A: There is no God. T: There is a God. If A is false, T is true. If T is true, A is false.

Now, one Atheist might estimate a prior probability, P(A)=60%; P(T)=40%, or something like that. And if you know Bayes' Theorem, Posterior Probability means Probabilities get revised in light of new data or fresh evidence. So, for e.g. if one finds the Contingency Argument more probable than not, one would revise the probability of A downward in light of that. And so on with every fresh argument for either side. In this way, a proposition would become or more certain, when all reasonably possible arguments for both sides have been heard, and a decision can be made.

2. Christ and the Pharisees. Well, Christ was presenting an argument from the Old Testament (which the Jews accept) for the Divinity of the Messiah. He was saying, David himself calls the Messiah, Lord. The Messiah is therefore not just a human prince, as they thought, but rather the Lord God. Only God in fact could have been the Savior of humanity, and there are in many passages Isaiah (e.g. 9:6) where the Divinity of the Messiah is also prophesied as well as passages where it says that God is the only Savior (43:11). The Jews knew the Messiah would be the Savior; but they didn't realize He would be God Himself.

3. Email vs in person debates: Email or correspondence debates are fine, and I guess what we're having here would broadly come under that. I'm certainly not opposed to those. But imo, there is an advantage in live in-person debates, when the persons best qualified to represent side can cross-question each other. I think Atheists could follow the same pattern Dr. Craig does, if they think it's just because of pattern or oration or something that he does well. They could do the same, "Here are Five Good Arguments to think a God is improbable"; and then they could give the problem of evil, or whatever else they personally find convincing. And then calmly respond to the objections, whether it is free will, two world theodicy, and so on, from the theistic size.

Not only on public policy matters, but that's how academic debates, even on other subjects, generally proceed, right? So not sure why the invitation to debate these ideas fairly and freely should be controversial. If Dawkins thinks this or that statement of Craig's or Christ's the Bible's is allegedly so blatantly incorrect or wrong that everybody would recognize it, then he should have leapt at the opportunity to prove that before a large debate audience at Oxford imo.

God Bless.

Edit: some typos.