The Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox

You can listen to it here.

12 comments:

The Uncredible Hallq said...

Someone tell me if anything interesting comes up in the later parts of this debate. I tried the first time around, but really the format was all off and Lennox was intolerably silly.

Caleb said...

The entire "debate" was a travesty, particularly in regards to the utterly biased format which allowed Lennox to attack The God Delusion without Dawkins being given a chance to respond.
Dawkins was in perhaps the worst form I have yet heard him, and yet he still managed to demolish the pitiful arguments presented by Lennox - who, incidentally, came off as nothing more than a raving lunatic for a great portion of the debate, refusing to actually address any of the issues presented by Dawkins and instead spouting a river of mindless drivel and circular reasoning.

It's no wonder Dawkins typically refuses to debate believers. Here we have him faced off against one of the foremost Christian "scientific" minds, and the result is nothing more than an hour-and-a-half joke, with Christian debate ethics serving as the punchline.

Ah well. If anything, it demonstrated the typical inability of Christian "experts" to provide any sort of reasonable basis for their arguments. Lennox's guns were as empty as they could possibly be; even Josh McDowell's ludicrously weak arguments from Evidence that Demands a Verdict were more convincing than Lennox's imbecility.

My apologies if I come off as offensive, but I am only honestly describing what I have heard. If anyone believes I am reacting too strongly and too brusquely, they have only to listen to this "debate" to understand my indignation. Even Christians will likely be appalled at the results of this program.

Jeff Eyges said...

"Debates" of this kind are nearly always fruitless. Neither side comes away questioning their basic assumptions. Stephen Jay Gould used to refuse to debate creationists. He knew that his opponent's supporters wouldn't change their minds, would hear what they wanted to, and would come away feeling vindicated in that the mere fact that an evolutionist would even debate a creationist meant that he considered it to be a defensible position. He was concerned that he'd legitimate it by implication.

Rabbis tend generally to refuse to debate missionaries and "Messianic Jews" for the same reason.

Bill said...

Not entirely useless, cipher. They help those of us with open minds to better discern which side has a better grasp of the truth.

Jeff Eyges said...

Yeah, but you already know which side has a better grasp of the truth!

If it's a debate between two evolutionists, for example - classical Darwinianism vs. punctuated equilibrium - then I can see the value. But a debate between an atheist and a Christian? Or between a Christian and a proponent of another religion? I have yet to hear or read the transcript of one that has impressed me. I'd like to hear one that did!

Shygetz said...

I might agree that it is a bad tactical idea for a majority view to debate a minority; however, it is important to remember that debates tend to be toward a lay audience, and lay audiences (especially in Birmingham, AL) tend to be religious. So, what have we got to lose? Show 'em that we're not crazy, not immoral, and don't hate God, and that we have reasons for not believing that go beyond mere obstinancy and rebellion.

Bill said...

"I have yet to hear or read the transcript of one that has impressed me. I'd like to hear one that did!"

I guess it depends on who the audience is. These debates helped me when I was in the process of questioning my faith. For the first time, I opened myself up to reading and listening to atheistic reasoning. It started with debates of this kind.

Jeff Eyges said...

Okay. If that's the case, I concede.

Anonymous said...

Listening to part 2 right now, and I have to agree with comments on the format. You can hear Dawkins getting fed up with it, its so clear I can picture his body language in my mind.

Anonymous said...

In another thread, akakiwibear complained that we weren't taking the debate seriously, so, I have: http://notidentical.blogspot.com/2007/10/comments-on-dawkins-lennox-debate.html

Anonymous said...

Many of the comments for Dawkins and against Lennox sound like members of a mutual admiration society patting each other on the back. Pathetic.

It seems that there are two types of people - those narrow-minded individuals with a position to defend and those that really have an open mind, a degree of humility and a real desire to know the truth.

These two groups span both sides of the debate but seem to reside more in the naturalistic/atheistic camp.

GKC said...

Does being narrow-minded mean someone who affirms that there is absolutely no god or someone who is open to the idea of god?
Narrow-minded people could be right about the truth and broad-minded people could be wrong. At the end of the day this is not the arbiter of truth: It is whether the particular worldview conforms with reality - Is it atheism, theism, pantheism, deism or something else?
Every world view must deal with 4 questions:
1. Origin: where do we come from?
2. Meaning: why are we here?
3. Morality: what is right or wrong, good or bad?
4. Destiny: where do are going and where will we ultimately end up?

You then apply the tests of truth to each of these 4 questions individually and collectively:
1. Logical coherence. Is the worldview that you hold logically coherent?
2. Empirical adequacy. What is the evidence for (and against)
3. Experiential relevance. Does this resonate with you and work out in practice in your everyday life?

Whether you are a naturalist/atheist or a theist (or something else), it is worth your while to consider your worldview and the alternatives. There is one thing going for being 'broad-minded', you will want to follow where the evidence leads you to and you will be willing to look critically at all the alternatives. Not all of the alternatives can be true, maybe none of them are true but my personal conviction is that there is one worldview that most satisfactorily and plausibly meets the tests of truth. If you are a genuine seeker of truth then my recommendation is that you do so with a questioning but humble attitude. If you want to know more please return the correspondence.