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

[Mister Agenda]

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.

I agree, an atheist might find the proposititon 'there is a God' 20% (or 40% or 0.001% or whatever) likely to be true. And I agree that there either is or isn't a God. But my position isnt that there isn't a God, it's that I'm not convinced by the arguments presented that there is a God, and I find a God (or god) very unlikely. I find the usual version of the Abrahamic God I hear about here in South Carolina to be 0% likely because that God is supposed to have done things that didn't happen and is ascribed attributes that don't go together; that God is a married bachelor. On the other hand, the God of Deism is merely unlikely, the only thing going against that one is no good reason to think it's real, at least not yet.

One of the things I have trouble with about the Jesus story is the Sanhedrin absolutely had the authority to have a troublemaker stoned, they didn't need permission from the Romans. That verse in the Jesus Christ Superstar rock opera 'we have no law to put a man to death' simply wasn't true. The only reason anything Jesus said would have confounded the Pharisees is if they thought it was true; and if they thought it was true, they would have been too afraid to speak a word against God Incarnate. If I believed, I certainly wouldn't want to piss off God, according to his supposed biographers he takes that sort of thing poorly. But if they didn't believe, they could have just said 'seize him!'. If the story is based on actual events that went down as described, it's more likely that they were afraid of Jesus's fan base.

The thing is that Craig wants to debate Dawkins to enhance his prestige; but Dawkins has no such incentive. On matters of evolution, on which Dawkins is an expert, a grad student well-trained in the art of debate could do a better job of debating Craig on that point...but Craig doesn't want to diminish his prestige by arguing with a student. On matters other than biology and evolution, Dawkins is not an expert and would likely represent poorly in a debate on, for instance, theology with a PhD theologist and master debator. Again, debates, particularly on stage debates, don't prove anything but who is better at debating.

Side Note: I attended a debate in 2009 between Dan Barker and Kyle Butt on whether the God of the Bible exists. Butt never came close to the God of the Bible, got stuck on whether laptops on beaches are designed or not, but still got more votes that he won the debate. That's because he bussed in so many fundamentalist Christians that they nearly crowded out students from the auditorium...DID crowd out many of them who didn't arrive early. I felt a little guilty for not giving up my seat to one of them; but I was really interested in how it would go. Barker had a cold or something so he didn't do great either; but Butt didn't even argue for a God distinguishable from the God of Deism, and he was supposed to be arguing for the God of the Bible. I admit that experience helped form my opinion on the value of public debates regarding establishing truth.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnk4UCvY89U