Why must Christian apologists tell lies?

[greneknight]

Where have you seen that???

Quite a few of the more intellectual and learned atheists acknowledge that Dr. Craig wins most of his debates. This isn't an idle claim. Here is a link to an honest reviewer's assessment of Dr. Craig's arguments at Common Sense Atheism.

http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=392

My personal opinion is that Dr. Craig wins a lot more debates than he would if his opponents stayed professional and didn't get distracted trying to mock and attack Christians and their beliefs. Intolerance, sour attitudes, mocking, and ugly zingers impress those who aren't thinking but don't win debates in the eyes of neutral parties. Having well presented arguments, remaining positive, and being likable goes much further.

I totally agree with Atom. I've seen many of Craig's debates. His arguments for God are always the standard set of arguments which I don't find convincing. And when he argues on the resurrection, he always wants to "establish" his 5 "facts" which he claims are accepted by most New Testament scholars. Some atheists who have debated him tend to talk about things which have no relation to Craig's points and when Craig closes his debate, he simply says his opponent has not answered the points he raised. In the debate with Hitchens, Hitchens talked about the harm that the church had caused in Africa and elsewhere. But that is not relevant to the debate.

In his debate with Ehrman, Ehrman cleverly pointed out that most New Testament scholars were believing Christians so using them to establish his "facts" is not correct. The Muslim Ally did a better job than most chaps. I felt he demolished Craig's "facts" and I could see what a good actor Craig was. When he came back, he looked confident and said what Ally said was agreeable to him because Ally had not countered his 5 facts when Ally already did.

Some other atheists I have seen were terrible debaters. They talked about believing in the "talking snake" and at first, I didn't know what they meant until I realised they were talking about the story of the serpent and Adam and Eve. But that was irrelevant to the debate.

In Ally's debate, Craig made it clear the debate was not about the "alleged contradictions or errors" of the Bible. He does that all the time. I think Craig doesn't like people to highlight errors in the Bible. He probably knows they can't be properly harmonised or defended. But Ally showed why the New Testament was not reliable and he explained the relevance - Craig used the New Testament to establish his "fact" of resurrection.

Ally did a very good job. Far better than some atheists who can only speak of the talking snake which is silly because most Christians in Europe don't believe that story as true. It's just the fundamentalists in the US.

Many Christians are triumphant that Dawkins refuses to argue with Craig and Craig taunts Dawkins for refusing. I think Dawkins should be able to beat Craig flat. Dawkins is the sort who will do his homework so all he needs to do is to look at all Craig's debates and study all his arguments. They are all flawed. It's a matter of sitting down and understanding the flaws and formulating a succinct argument against each of his.