Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Lennox/Dawkins Debate.

So PZ had the good sense to clue us infidels into a debate over the God Delusion, via a large number of Christian radio stations.

The format was intended to go as follows:

1) Some read from Dawkins' book.
2) Dawkins says that he wrote that.
3) Lennox pitches a McGrathian fit.
4) Goto 1.

This was admittedly "frustrating" to Dawkins who promptly started to ignore the stupid rules and rebut Lennox on his next chance to talk. The debate then had Lennox getting crushed pretty hard, mostly because Dawkins didn't need to think of new replies as everything Lennox said was stupid and long since disproven (and long since worked out with the best replies).

As I don't have a copy of the Audio some of PZs commenters pointed out the debate comments on the shows site. PZ also made the pointed out the structural problems. To the credit of Dr. Don McDonald, on the show comments he noticed it too. Dawkins should have been defense and going second rather than the pathetic situation of making the argument at the end.

The comments are rather classic:

"Dawkins conceded much more in the debate than I expected. 1. That God cannot be disproved. 2. He had no explanation for morality. 3. That we don't know the origins of the universe. 4. That the staggeringly evident hypothesis would be creation.


1. Didn't read the book. He says that.
2. Didn't read the book. He gives a good explanation for morality as he did in the debate.
3. And?
4. Complete misrepresentation.

Or as Jason Bradfield notes,
"Dawkins got owned. He got completely ripped on the morality issue and historical issues. He also got ripped on the celestial teapot stuff, which is a category mistake. Dawkins can't deal with God as He is explicitly revealed in Scripture. He has to create his own "created" idol."


Jason doesn't seem to understand a lot of what was said, but he's sure the Dawkins got kicked.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Frankly...if you (on both sides) can't show the courtesy and protocol for reasonable debate then Lennox and Dawkins have something to teach you. Why are you so hostile in the States on this stuff?