RE: Debating religion why being unisulting
March 30, 2012 at 6:19 am
(This post was last modified: March 30, 2012 at 6:28 am by Orion3T.)
As an aside, whenever anyone uses reference to the bible in their rebuttal they know they are losing ground. As someone pointed out, without first establishing the divinity of god AND that THEIR bible reflects his true nature, any biblical reference is a circular argument. This needs to be established from the outset, and if they don't accept that then there's absolutely no point debating them. Or you should instead simply debate with them why the bible cannot be used as evidence FOR god. Even if that's as far as you get, it's better than wasting time trying to reason only to have them quote scripture back at you: "Bible says you can't test god!!"
I suggest you watch the plentiful debates on God from YouTube and refine the rebuttals offered there?
I think if one can come up with good solid rebuttals for WLCs 'big 5' then you have very good grounds to at least convince some agnostic onlookers that you have the more reasonable claim. If you'd rather specialise (personally I'd be more competent on the science based claims than moral philosophy, as I'm a physicist) I can suggest a few in particular.
Note that you're never going to be able to give enough convincing evidence to 'convert' anyone in a short 1-2 hour debate - the issues are too scientifically complex and the theist can throw too many untenable but hard to debunk facts at you, which sound convincing and have very good rebuttals, but for which you just won't have time. A perfect example of that is Frank Turek's insistence on rattling off as many ridiculous claims as he can: "How do you explain the existence of maths?!?!?!". At least WLC does generally attempt to justify the claims he makes.
I think in this debate Dacey gives very good arguments for Atheism which Craig only superficially fobs off. His own rebuttals could have been better but that's the nature of trying to debunk ridiculous but complex and highly specific claims:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lb1jWqTVtEo
I suggest you watch the plentiful debates on God from YouTube and refine the rebuttals offered there?
I think if one can come up with good solid rebuttals for WLCs 'big 5' then you have very good grounds to at least convince some agnostic onlookers that you have the more reasonable claim. If you'd rather specialise (personally I'd be more competent on the science based claims than moral philosophy, as I'm a physicist) I can suggest a few in particular.
Note that you're never going to be able to give enough convincing evidence to 'convert' anyone in a short 1-2 hour debate - the issues are too scientifically complex and the theist can throw too many untenable but hard to debunk facts at you, which sound convincing and have very good rebuttals, but for which you just won't have time. A perfect example of that is Frank Turek's insistence on rattling off as many ridiculous claims as he can: "How do you explain the existence of maths?!?!?!". At least WLC does generally attempt to justify the claims he makes.
I think in this debate Dacey gives very good arguments for Atheism which Craig only superficially fobs off. His own rebuttals could have been better but that's the nature of trying to debunk ridiculous but complex and highly specific claims:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lb1jWqTVtEo
