John Loftus And Dinesh D’sousa Debate Review
I wanted to give myself a day to collect my thoughts and reflect on the debate. It seems that the general feeling is that it did not go as well as we hoped. I do know that John is a very smart man and his book Why I Became an Atheist: A Former Preacher Rejects Christianity is well written and an enjoyable read. I also look forward to his next book out in a few months The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails and already have a copy on order.
I’m not sure if he had an off day or if his style is better suited to the written form. Maybe it’s just that Dinesh is really good at what he does. A few commenters have left their review of the debate on an earlier post about the debate. If you want to add to that analysis please use that post to add your comments. What I would like to do with this post is seek out new ideas. Tell us what you think might have worked better. A different idea a different subject? How would you have attacked Dinesh’s use of the ontological argument (aka the First cause argument)? What would you have said when he said all Atheist are whiners? How would you address the question of why do we care? Why don’t we just live our lives and leave the xtans alone?
Let’s keep it positive and upbeat. Maybe we can all learn from each other.
The other idea that has been floated….. Should we as a community practice debating? Should we have our own mock debates, pick arguments, argue both sides to learn how to do it. Would you like to do something like this? How would it work?
Please leave some comments.
Thanks
Hey Phil,
It was good to see you last night and meet some of the other heathens in town. I don’t get out much lately so it was nice.
About the debate, I think I mentioned my disappointment after it was over. I have come to the conclusion after thinking about it last night that Loftus just wasn’t as good of a debater as D’sousa. Hopefully this is a lesson for him as well as the rest of us.
I am still on the fence as far as how effective debating really is. I personally love debating and take much pleasure in seeing a good one. I am just unsure how much it serves to make people think critically. I think what it tends to do is get people to shore up their arguments for the side that they are personally attached to.
I had a discussion with a guy named Jeremy last night at Murphy’s and it really started me thinking about something that has been troubling me off and on for awhile now.
I really think it is time for Freethinkers to rethink our strategies. Maybe that is something we could cover in another blog. I don’t want to hijack this one.
Wes
I think we need to take this setback as a learning opportunity. Now that we have seen how things can go wrong, let’s try to make them go right.
I actually quite liked the format of the debate; I thought it allowed for all the sorts of things that normally happen in such a situation. Loftus simply failed to utilize it well, in my opinion.
While I totally understand all the arguments as to why such debates are a waste of time, in that they will never resolve anything and seldom persuade people, pragmatically speaking, they are going to happen. And they do generate public interest. We need that. We just need to be damn sure that we come off looking more competent than we did last night.
That is why I suggested that local atheist/freethinker groups might want to take up debate training for their interested members. It would also make a good way for such groups to interact; we could meet to debate each other (a coin toss, perhaps, might decide who has to argue the theists’s case). If done in the right spirit, this could actually be a lot of fun.
One thing that I’m sure of after last night is that if you want people to listen to your opinion, you should avoid calling them brainwashed. Although I believe this to be true, the fact is that people shut off their minds when they hear stuff like that. Just like when I got pissed when Dinesh called us whiners. It’s just a bad idea.
I did not see the debate on Tuesday night (I was at another meeting at that exact time), so I will not comment on it.
I believe the objective for atheists should be to have believers “see the light” of reason and logical scientific thought and to stop the division caused by religious intolerance. Debate unfortunately, tends to lead to division. Instead of people “talking with” each other, they “argue at” each other.
We (as atheists) need to create an environment where people with differing views (atheists and believers) can come together and discuss their commonalities not their differences. And this does not mean that we should be weak or meek. When people come to the conclusion that the other person is pretty much like them (with maybe just one or two differences), that person is no longer a threat. And when that person is no longer a threat, then and only then can we “talk with” each other. It is only then that ideas like atheism are no longer radical or scary to believers.
How to do that exactly… I’m not sure. Let me think on it awhile. Anyone have any ideas?
One thing we certainly should not be doing is wondering if we should practice debating *after* a debate. I can just imagine some evangelical reading that with glee. “Nah, don’t practice debating. This works much better for our debates.” This isn’t even atheism specific. If one has a point of view they feel is important to sell to the public, they need to know their product. They need to know their competition. They need to be able to come back at those claims by Verizon that our map looks horrible with facts and figures pointing out why you still have the better service.
Heck, it’d be nice if we ensure anyone we set up to promote our side of a debate to the public has at least understood some speech 101 fundamentals like “consider your audience.” Mock debates with ourselves is all fine and good, but there’s a lot of basic groundwork to cover first that could easily be tackled with youtube. It’s not like theist arguments are ever all that original. There was little in this yahoo’s bag of tricks that hasn’t been argued a million times before. Knowing the counter arguments to quickly and concisely expose the fallacies they rest upon is obviously important to anyone presenting our side.
But all of this is neither here nor there if we don’t wisely choose our battles. The debate is certainly an important tool in promoting a point of view, but as anyone who has ever watched a presidential debate knows, it is often “won” or “lost” not by academic methods weighing the value and validity of the arguments, but by the reaction of a layman audience. We all know theists use these to gain credibility among their peers, used as propaganda tools in non-adversarial environments afterward, and touted as evidence in and of themselves that their point of view has academic or scientific value in spite of [Stein-ism]what all those “Ivory tower” elitists who are oppressing them say [/Stein-ism].
While some high profile debates within academia may be necessary for an effective marketing of ideas in the marketplace of ideas, it might be more useful to stop handing the theists credibility victories. Think of it as denying North Korea a propaganda victory by allowing them to negotiate as equals only to use it as a pulpit for their propaganda on the international stage and to gain credibility with other despots. Perhaps we should “bring the fight to them” and have these debates more exclusively where they congregate instead of constantly handing them PR victories while doing nothing for ourselves except perhaps stroking our egos.
Should the person doing it be prepared and have plenty of practice? In a word: “Duh!”
anonymous: I can see where your argument is absolutely valid when it comes to the question of whether or not to engage ID debates in an academic setting. When it comes to less insipid issues, though, formal debates serve as a means (possibly the only really effective means) of reaching out to an audience that is otherwise too busy to pick up the necessary books and research on their own. Unlike political speeches, a good debate on a topic like the existence of God or the value of the Church absolutely does tackle something head on and provide solid, concrete arguments that have weight behind them. It’s useful for people who don’t spend a great amount of time studying up on this sort of thing and refining their own position to hear what each side has to say, and people do leave those debates with new information that may inspire them to read more. I say, keep having them. And keep refusing to acknowledge the ID theorists attempting to promote a 6,000-year-old Earth.
@Paul: Interfaith discussions are tricky. Anyone who has been through a deconversion knows that it can be a physically painful experience. The harder you believe, the harder you fall. That being said, I’m against actually bringing up the topic of *why* I’m an atheist with anyone who doesn’t express curiosity first. Even then, I proceed with extreme caution. Being a friend who does friendly things and doesn’t eat babies is as good a first step towards kicking down the barriers as any. Sometimes, it’s enough all by itself.
@Janet: I’m game. I spent a fair amount of time doing online debates with believers (both as a believer in fellowship and as an atheist attempting to clarify why I no longer believed), and I don’t mind playing devil’s advocate. Sounds like a lot of nerdy fun, actually… a bit awkward at first, but with enough beer, it’ll all work out.
@Phil: Constructive criticism, can do.
“A different idea a different subject?” –No, the topic was fine. The Rational Response Squad basically did the same one on national television with Kirk Cameron and his handler, and it went much more smoothly for our side.
“How would you have attacked Dinesh’s use of the ontological argument (aka the First cause argument)?”– Well, first I would differentiate between the two, because they aren’t the same thing.
Dinesh used the ontological argument (to death) when talking about the gap between the ideal reality and the world as we see it. I would have addressed it by saying that simply because we can imagine that the world could be perfect doesn’t mean that there is any reason to believe that we human beings are so far detached from the rest of the animal kingdom that we are capable of creating a Star Trek world in which resources are limitless and poverty and hunger are unknown. I would point to the brutality of nature, and affirm our existence as animals– ones with rational thought, but profoundly fallible animals in the end, capable of inflicting extreme cruelty on one another in the name of securing our place in the world. The First Cause argument (which is distinct and separate from the ontological argument) is fairly simple to blow away. The infinite tower of tortoises brought up in the Q&A was pretty much the way to do it. You talk about all of the possible first causes that could be inserted, and nail the person you’re debating down to acknowledging the fact that the belief in a specific First Cause over any other proposed First Cause is purely an accident of geography and history. It’s arbitrary. It could just as well have sprung from the brain of Saturn when Jupiter hacked him open to free his brothers and sisters.
“What would you have said when he said all Atheist are whiners? How would you address the question of why do we care? Why don’t we just live our lives and leave the xtans alone?” — I would have pointed to the studies done by the University of Minnesota and explained the position that there is a very real and negative consequence of the belief that all good things spring from faith in God. Namely, people assume that rejection of God is rejection of morality and human decency. I would say that I don’t have a problem with people believing that their own ability to be the best they can be is a gift from God, but I do notice that there seem to be many people who want me to understand that my conception of myself is fundamentally flawed simply because I don’t see the world the way they do. I would point out that this is no longer acceptable in interfaith discussion, but that atheists aren’t generally granted that same respect for our right to view the world differently; in short, that it is possible to be good without God, and as long as there are people claiming that it isn’t, there is a need for atheists to stand forward and assert our right to be treated as fully human and decent people. In the world we live in today, it’s unlikely that a Muslim or a Jew could ever be President of the United States. But it’s much less likely that an atheist could ever be President. For as long as those restrictions apply, there is, essentially a voter instilled faith test in our Democracy, which is forbidden by the Constitution. When social conditions change to the point that this is no longer the case, I’ll stop “whining”.
And, perhaps, go to bed…
I think these debates should be viewed differently, perhaps as a form of entertainment rather than as a chance to make our (atheist) point heard, understood, and possibly accepted.
Christians argue from the beginning point of unreasonableness. They did not become convinced that their god is real by “evidence”. Their decision to accept Jesus was an emotional decision. So most of them will not be persuaded by reasonable arguments but only by emotional arguments. Let’s face it, atheist arguments are high in reason and low in emotion.
In the battle between reason and emotion, emotion usually wins, makes more money, receives more attention, and has the ability to morph, with or without its hosts consent.
The atheist who argues that the Christian has no good reason to believe as he/she does will loose every time (in the mind of the Christian).
The atheist who simply points out why he/she has yet to find a good reason to believe as the Christian does will loose every time (in the mind of the Christian).
I think it does a disservice to future debates if atheists use the same criteria as the Christians to determine who won the debate.
…and besides, D’sousa is a smarmy self righteous ass.
This link has great detailed advice on debating techniques. I think this guy was a debate coach for a while and knows the game pretty well: http://en.wordpress.com/tag/advice-for-debating/
I think they’re should be a repository, somewhere, of debate responses (short, pithy, accurate to the argument, provocative) for all of the standard opponent’s arguments. As an atheist, I admire the person who came up with this rebuttal to the argument for the Empty Tomb: “The Empty tomb is like my saying I have an invisible unicorn inside my fist. I can open up my hand and say, See, it’s invisible.” I think most people understand how that analogy is similar to the Empty Tomb, and how the comparison is not favorable.
To enter a debate against a familiar opponent and not have a handy toolkit of these types of tested responses seems ridiculously reckless.
Tony, if that’s what you wanted then you should’ve suggested that Hitchens debate Dinesh. And to be quite frank, I do not see how the kind of responses you suggested are helpful at all. What do you want? A bunch of meaningless rhetoric being floated back and forth with no substance? There are many thoughtful people who can see through that kind of rhetoric. Those were the people I was aiming at.
I wonder if you would mind a friendly christian making a comment? I think one reason why you are struggling to work out better tactics here is because you (collectively) are working under two assumptions that I would question. Here they are ….
1. Anonymous said: “Knowing the counter arguments to quickly and concisely expose the fallacies they rest upon is obviously important to anyone presenting our side.” If you make the assumption that every argument for God’s existence is 100% fallacy, obvious, provable, then I think you’ll never argue effectively. I am a thoughtful christian, not delusional, I have read widely, and I believe some arguments have great force. There are many very competent christian philosophers out there. If you instead accepted that there are good arguments on both sides, and your task (and mine) is to argue for the balance between the competing arguments, you’ll be on a more realistic basis. (BTW, I would say the same to christians who think, similar to you, that their opponents’ arguments are all crap.)
2. bob said: “Christians argue from the beginning point of unreasonableness. They did not become convinced that their god is real by “evidence”. Their decision to accept Jesus was an emotional decision. So most of them will not be persuaded by reasonable arguments but only by emotional arguments. Let’s face it, atheist arguments are high in reason and low in emotion.” If you base all your arguments on the view that atheists are long on reason and christians long on emotion (or faith), you’re going to working from another misunderstanding. There are all different kinds of people, and I would guess most, both believer and unbeliever, are more emotion-based than rational, but others (again, both believer and unbeliever) are more rational. There may be a greater percentage of emotional people on the christian side (or there may not, I don’t know) but it isn’t a black and white matter.
You may not agree, and I won’t argue (why should I help you present your views better?), but that’s what I think. Best wishes.
To enter a debate against a familiar opponent and not have a handy toolkit of these types of tested responses seems ridiculously reckless.
How bout some good tools for the tool kit. no one believes that there was ever a unicorn that entered your fist to begin with, but the historical consensus amongst real scholars is that there was a Jesus and that He died and there are historical reasons to believe that there was a tomb at which he was placed which was later empty.
Phil, as far as alternate topics go, I would love to see a debate on this one: “Faith: good or evil?”
That seems to me the heart of the matter.
1) Practice debates are good.
2) Avoid calling people crazy. There are people who just accepted what they were told by their parent’s and there are those who seriously think about it. The former is rarely a worthy debate opponent, and if from where I grew up, is likely to support their point with a gun, and the later has hopefully done some serious reading and digging instead of just deciding how they “feel” about it.
3) On whiney atheists. I never had a problem with Christians until many decided they had a political right to force it on everyone else, and that saying “because the bible tells me so” makes for a good excuse for everything including killing people. So the Christians expect us to just “suck it up” and follow their rules anyway? That’s a lot of what I hear happening. If they want religious representation in our political system, then they have to allow ALL religious representation. What do they think they are going to do when the pagans, satanists, scientologists, whatever religion has voodoo, and all the other ones I know nothing about show up? Just representing all the Christian religions does not count as equal representation.
Well, for starters, nobody asked me. I do admire many of Hitchen’s well-turned phrases, but he, like all debate stylists, is a double edged sword. Actually, I’d love to build a debater made up of Hitchen’s provocative rhetoric, Coyne’s knowledge of biology, Stenger’s knowledge of physics, Dawkins ability to communicate complex scientific ideas, Dennett’s background in philosophy, and your understanding of theology and the Christian mind. For that I’d leave work early and buy double popcorn.
Well, I respectfully, disagree, John. I am a fan of yours – I read your book, and I frequent your blog. I haven’t heard your debate with Dinesh, and I didn’t mean to demean your achievements in any way.
The point I was trying to make is that I hear reliably often the complaint that practiced Christian apologists resort to predictable sophistry in these debates, and it seems reasonable that the atheist community interested in debating them build an arsenal of retorts. (Example, from Dawkins latest book: Creationist: “I find it impossible to believe that something as sophisticated as a human could have evolved from a tiny, single cell organism in just hundreds of millions of years.” Debater: “Why not, you did it yourself in nine months.” Of course there are problems with the retort, but they can be repaired in explication. But without that one-liner, that headline, the long answer seems weaker than the amount of evidence behind it. It’s a debate, after all; it’s ideas AND theater.)
To be clear, I don’t think a debate is a great way to explain philosophical or scientific arguments to those not already well versed on the topics. (I think blog discussions are awesome for it, however; I took a philosophy course in college, and I remember practically none of it. The discussions in which I’ve become engaged online, however, have taught me a great deal more (the very little) about philosophy, etc.)
I work in advertising, and it’s a similar format to debating. Lots of products have many great features, but unless you settle on one (deliver a headline message) you’ll never get the opportunity to talk about the others (body copy).
Well, I love the topic, and I also appreciate those who can make succinct, powerful arguments. So in a debate, I want to be provoked and educated. I want to learn something I don’t know, even if it’s as simple as hearing a pithy one-liner that dismantles a challenge it would normally take me pages to counter.
Like I said, I didn’t hear the debate, and my comments were brought on by the topic in general, not by your performance.
1. I said that there was an invisible unicorn that entered my first, and I am someone.
2. Define real scholars, and show me how you have determined their consensus.
3. If Jesus lived 2,000 years ago I will concede that he died.
4. There is no good reason to doubt that a man named Jesus lived in Ancient Judea, but there are many, better historical reasons to believe that Jesus as described in the Bible did not exist.
5. There are many good reasons to believe that the Tomb is a later invention of the Gospel writers and not a part of early Christian tradition.
But that’s my point; it’s so much simpler to say: “I have an invisible hand here in my fist. See, I proved it’s invisible.”
I meant to write:
But that’s my point; it’s so much simpler to say: “I have an invisible UNICORN here in my fist. See, I proved it’s invisible.”
“If you make the assumption that every argument for God’s existence is 100% fallacy… If you instead accepted that there are good arguments on both sides… BTW, I would say the same to christians who think, similar to you, that their opponents’ arguments are all crap.”
You have an interesting interpretation of my criticism of D’Souza bringing out a litany of the same old debunked arguments. You turned my general criticism of the arguments I heard him make specifically into absolute statements that 100% of all this is that, that I somehow implied only one side ever had good arguments, and that the other’s were all crap.
The closest to my actual view of any of those statements, none of which I stated in the comment you were responding to, is the one about fallacies being required for an argument of the christian god’s existence. To prove the existence of such a thing would almost certainly have to rely on many logical fallacies, just as any attempt to prove that invisible, undetectable, and otherwise non-understandable yet all powerful mega-jackrabbits are actually pulling all the strings of the universe and that’s how everything came to be, why the physical concepts work, etc. Generally when pressed to the full limit of the debate on the existence of the christian god it reaches a realm where the entity becomes entirely detached from the real world so as to dismiss any demands for evidence… while also making it so powerfully intertwined with the world to explain every gap in scientific discovery or hypothesis so as to fulfill an extremely contradictory explanatory role as well.
While this may be all fine and dandy to folks desperate to rationalize the contradictions in their worldview this generally necessitates a heavy reliance on logical fallacies, as it would for any other arguments for a similarly evidence-resistant yet heavily explanatory concept. For religion and gods it seems we’re supposed to give them a pass on this and acknowledge against all better judgment that this is a reasonable pass to offer. Beyond that the arguments generally fall on human perception. What did some cultists think back in the bronze age? What’s a popular perspective today? What nice things do people who believe this or that do for people? All of which is based in logical fallacies that avoid actually backing the claim of the existence of the entity in these people’s perceived reality, in reality.
While failing to distinguish between perceived reality and reality itself is hardly unique to any particular group, religious or otherwise, it is still not something anyone should consider reasonable to give a pass on when it comes to logical debate. One might as well argue that reality includes co-existing universes without light in the visible red spectrum because some people with red-deficient color blindness cannot perceive it in their experience with reality. Empirically we can show that such light still exists in reality whether they can perceive it or not, just as we can do so with non-visible EM waves.
Yet making arguments about reality based on the perception of reality are common allies with the evidence-resistant entities with infinite explanatory power. I’ve been in countless arguments on the existence of the christian god that hit this horror-show dead-end of reason. For the sake of argument I will say it may be possible for people to find ways of reaching that same point without a heavy reliance on logical fallacies, but I’ve yet to witness it.
So I dismiss your absolutes as a misrepresentation of the comments you were responding to. But I do believe that it generally requires giving significant passes on spectacular leaps of logic to put the best of the ‘god exists’ arguments on par with the best arguments explaining how they have not successfully proven their claim. And to cut the inevitable straw man off before his pants burst into flames: this does not mean that others, atheists/agnostics/etc included, are immune to logical fallacies and other poor arguments themselves, nor always have the best arguments either.
I had hoped to attend the debate with the BN Freethinkers but couldn’t make it, so I can’t comment on the debate itself. But I have participated in many public debates about atheism over the past 40 years, so I have some general thoughts about the subject.
(1) The variety of arguments available to the Christian theist are vast. They can range from arguments from biblical prophecy to highly technical philosophical arguments, such as the Ontological Argument. .To make matters worse, the Christian will almost certainly have specialized in a few of his favorite arguments and so know them thoroughly.
If the atheist has no idea of what’s coming, he can easily get bushwhacked with some detailed and unfamiliar arguments. In my earlier days, while I was still very active in freethought circles (I published “Atheism: The Case Against God” in 1974), I was able to field almost any type of argument during a debate; but in later years, as my areas of interest shifted to other topics, a lot of that detailed information tended to fade, especially in matters pertaining to the Bible. Thus, when I was asked to debate in recent years (my first book made me a popular target), I agreed only on the condition that my opponent inform me of the type of arguments he planned to use, so I could prepare properly.
2) One occasion where I had no idea what to expect from my opponent was with an informal radio debate with Greg Bahnsen, a professional theologian who specializes in debates with atheists. (This is available on YouTube in six parts and can be found by doing a YT search for “George Smith and Greg Bahnsen.”) This was done on a Christian radio station during the early 1990s, and I was given pretty short notice. Other than reviewing some basic arguments, I didn’t prepare much, and I had no idea that Bahnsen was a discipline of Cornelius Van Til, who had some very odd arguments that I was only vaguely familiar with at the time. Some of Bahnsen’s Tilian arguments struck me as nonsense, and I pretty much said so. At times there is not much more one can say, except to point out that B doesn’t follow from A and that assertions are not arguments. .
Even so, I wasn’t entirely happy with how I responded to some of Bahnsen’s arguments, but this was pretty much inevitable, since I had never read Van Til at that time. What I tried to do was to keep the the conversation focused on fundamentals.
If you read the viewers comments on YouTube, you will find that some think that Bahnsen wiped the floor with me, whereas others think that I came out on top. I haven’t listened to the debate for several years, but I recall being fairly pleased with the outcome, especially the Q&A. (Bahnsen posted the debate, so he was obviously pleased with the outcome as well..) I tried to keep my sense of humor and not get belligerent, and that always helps.
I have some additional comments about debates that I would like to post, but I need to stop here. I will try to pick this up later.
Ghs
“You have an interesting interpretation of my criticism of D’Souza bringing out a litany of the same old debunked arguments. You turned my general criticism of the arguments I heard him make specifically into absolute statements that 100% of all this is that, that I somehow implied only one side ever had good arguments, and that the other’s were all crap.”
I only used your quote as a peg (an example) to hang a more general point on, so I’m sorry if you thought everything I said thereafter (e.g. christians thinking atheist argument are crap) was directly related to your quote – it wasn’t intended that way. But I feel the guts of your reply demonstrates exactly the attitude I was pointing out. I still think that attitude innoculates the holder from understanding their opponent, but I don’t feel inclined to argue the case further. Thanks for your response.
I would like to address some of Phil’s questions. (Again, I wasn’t able to attend the debate, so I my remarks are based on my own experiences.)
(1) “How would you have attacked Dinesh’s use of the ontological argument (aka the First cause argument)?”
The Ontological Argument is much different than the First Cause Argument (in whatever form).
In its classical form, as expressed by St. Anselm, the Ontological Argument was based on a Platonist (or Neo-Platonist) theory of forms, or ideas. According to this approach, the more abstract something is, the more real it is. Hence when Anselm posited a being than which nothing greater can be conceived, by “greater,” he meant more abstract and hence more real.
Descartes revised the Ontological Argument somewhat, but it still rested, if only implicitly, on the same epistemological assumption. Hence whenever I discuss these older versions of the Ontological Argument, I stress the implausible epistemological premise on which they were based. Kant’s famous refutation (“existence is not a predicate”) is also effective, but that gets into some very technical issues that are difficult, if not impossible, to explain briefly in a debate format. I devoted an entire chapter to these objections to the Ontological Argument in “Why Atheism?’ (Prometheus, 1991).
Of course, there are modern versions of the Ontological Argument, some of which are extremely complex. I don’t know which version D’Souza used, but I suspect it was one of the modern versions, since the traditional versions have been thoroughly discredited.
Ultimately, the only effective way to deal with the modern versions in a formal debate is not to get bogged down in details, but to focus on fundamentals. I have never encountered a version of the Ontological Argument, whether traditional or modern, that makes sense to a lay audience. Most people (including theists) will shake their heads, wondering what the hell the point is.
This is what makes the Ontological Argument, in any form, difficult to refute in detail.. It is so full of unstated presuppositions and logical jumps that it can be difficult to know precisely what to say in a few words. What I have done in the past is to call attention to those presuppositions and logical gaps, and conclude that there isn’t much more to be said about it. A string of assertions does not constitute an argument. (I have also used the old joke about the Ontological Argument for the existence of Santa Claus, which begins, “Conceive of a being than which nothing jollier can be conceived.” That usually lightens the mood.)
(2) “What would you have said when he said all Atheist are whiners?”
I would have responded very sarcastically with something like, “Better to be an atheist whiner than a Christian moron. Now, would you like to dispense with the name calling and get serious, or would you like to continue with your childish game?”
(3) How would you address the question of why do we care?
I would say that I care because I would rather live in a society with rational people than irrational people. I would then ask D’Souza why he cares. Why does he bother to debate atheists?
(4) “Why don’t we just live our lives and leave the xtans alone?”
I would say something like: “Are you kidding? Christians been propagandizing their beliefs for over 2000 years. Evangelical Christians are the most obnoxious busybodies on the planet. Your question should be addressed to them, not to atheists.”
Ghs
One more brief point.
The debate topic was “Does the Christian God Exist?” I regard it as unwise to debate a topic that is framed in this manner. I much prefer the wording, “Is It Rational to Believe in the Existence of the Christian God?”
I won’t explain my reasons here, but I suspect most readers of this blog will understand what they are.
Ghs
George, thanks for responding. I like your work and wish you well. Email me please. I have a request for you about this debate of mine.
johnwloftus@verizon.net
Cheers.
“@Paul: Interfaith discussions are tricky. Anyone who has been through a deconversion knows that it can be a physically painful experience. The harder you believe, the harder you fall. That being said, I’m against actually bringing up the topic of *why* I’m an atheist with anyone who doesn’t express curiosity first. Even then, I proceed with extreme caution. Being a friend who does friendly things and doesn’t eat babies is as good a first step towards kicking down the barriers as any. Sometimes, it’s enough all by itself.”
justkem, You misunderstand me completely. What I suggested was that atheists and believers should talk about what we share in common which can be anything and everything except religion. I agree completely with your last sentence, “Being a friend…”.