The Audio of My Debate with Dinesh D'Souza is Now Online

Here is the link. As you listen this is what to look for. Enjoy. Here is my opening statement.

44 comments:

Richard said...

Which argument/counter argument outside of your opening statement do you think was the strongest?

Anonymous said...

Listen Richard. You tell me. I'm noticing that one debate strategy Dinesh uses is to cut off your opponent, which I think Dinesh did very well. It's my personality not to do this. One way to win a football game is to keep your opponent from having the ball, and one way to win a debate is to keep your opponent from speaking.

Anonymous said...

I'm also noticing that when someone asked us both to answer a question that when Dinesh followed me he didn't respond to the question. He responded to what I said. Another interesting debate strategy.

Richard said...

I was front row at the debate, and even took a few pages of notes as I listened.

Your response at (35:15) started off well with the Sarah Palin joke. I think your comment on Socrates started off well. We suspect that Socrates existed. But, we don't know, and can't know with certainty.

At around (39:00), I feel like answer had started going off track.

At (52:20) your comment, "Just because you've shown that a belief is consistent with the evidence doesn't mean that you've shown your belief is probable" was good.

The audio is clearer than I remembered as well. The volume during your comments isn't dropping off as much as I'd remembered it doing.

Anonymous said...

I'm also noticing how long Dinesh took to answer questions directed to him. Another debate strategy is to use up as much time as you can to keep your opponent from speaking.

Richard said...

I'm entirely with you there. Your opponent didn't make very many points beyond, "We can't know, so it must have a creator (who, btw, is singular, male and intelligent since we're calling it God)"

But, he managed to eat up a lot of time making those points.

Edwardtbabinski said...

John,

The mere fact that a voice did not shout from heaven, nor a lightning bolt annihilate you where you stood next to a Christian debating the Christian God's existence, provided evidence to the audience that maybe God doesn't mind having His existence debated.

That God also apparently doesn't mind having a host of holy books (Jewish, Christian, Hindu, Islamic, Mormon, Wiccan, New Age, etc.) published filled with divine words and teachings of great variety, including a host of commentaries that disagree as to the meaning of all those holy books.

Maybe next time get a panel together with the most fervent holy book believers out of a host of religious groups, and you on the end of the panel, just let them go at it, including Calvinists and Arminians, creationists and evolutionists, Rapturists (end timers) and Preterists (who knows what timers), physical resurrection believers and spiritual resurrection believing Christians, conservatives, moderates and liberals, Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus (the editor of Hinduism Today), Buddhists (the editor of Tricycle Magazine, a kind of Buddhism Today magazine), damnationists, annihilationists, and universalists, and let them debate each other in front of an audience, and then you say a little something at the end, noting that everybody's beliefs remained the same at the end of this great debate, and neither did God intervene to show us all "the way."

Piratefish said...

For your debating style John, my suggestion will be an interview/conversation with your opponent rather than a debate, like the one between Dawkins and Alistair McGrath(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20Tc6EQ94GE). You have a better chance of countering your opponents immediately and they can't escape your arguments by changing the subject.

failedatheist said...

Edward B,

just because people disagree has no bearing on God's existence or the truth of Christianity over other views. Gods never minded having his existence debated, what do you expect him to do, eliminate everyone on earth who doesn't fully understand him properly? There wouldn't be anyone left myself included, I'm sure I'm wrong about lots of things.

Interesting debate though John. Is there a video link anywhere?

Rich Griese said...

Hey John,

Listened to your "debate" with D'Souza. The largest error I saw you let pass, which in effect eliminated your ability to destroy D'Sousa's argument was you allowed him to continually state in error, that Jesus existed "as a historical fact", also towards the end he builds on that incorrect statement talking about "4 historical facts".

These are not facts, and by allowing D'Souza to make a better case.

D'Souza turned the tables on you, he set up the "John has to come up with a better explaination..." scenario.

The real issue is. Some have a hypothesis that there was a historical Jesus, have yet to demonstrate their case. This is the point. they have a hypothesis (not a historical fact), that they have not yet demonstrated.

It does not matter what "that majority of scholars 'believe'". It does not matter if there is universal scholarly acceptance of some idea. Unless the idea is demonstrated, it is still simply a hypothesis.

Cheers!
RichGriese.NET

John said...

The problem with D'Souza's argumant from the origin of the universe is that if there's no time then there's no Causality. Since there's no time "prior" to the beginnig of the universe then there's no Cause. As the Christian astrophysicist Hugh Ross states:

"Your friendly neighborhood physicist will tell you that time is defined as that dimension or realm in which cause and effect phenomena take place."

Dr. Ross believes that God is not confined to one dimension of time. He believes He is in more that one dimension of time. Notice how He defines time. Time is that dimension in which cause and effect take place. If there's no time there's no Cause and effect. Since there's no time "prior" to the Big Bang there's no Cause. The only possible solution that Dr. Ross sees is that the First Cause is in more than one dimension of time. But this raises a problem. How could this Cause traverse an actually infinite number of equal, non-zero, past temporal intervals to arrive at the moment of creation? The God explanation seems to be unlikely.

The laws that govern our universe don't exist outside our universe. Moreover, If something is timeless it doesn't change. It's frozen. If God is outside time then He doesn't change. He's changeless and therefore He becomes frozen. He doesn't act or move and He therefore doesn't stand in causal relations with His creatures. Relationships with God become impossible without time.

Jon said...

John, I've shared my thoughts here. It is criticism, but I hope you find it to be constructive.

Richard said...

I think there are a few, very small, changes to delivery that could have made the debate come off differently.

D'Sousa is easy to understand. Part of the reason is his use of space to separate his arguments. A couple seconds of silence let the audience consider the argument, and realise that a new one is starting.

He also tended to use only a single argument to rebut a single point. Adding on a second (and often slighty weaker) argument seemed like it would dilute the flow. Plus, it makes it hard for the audience to follow.

And, possibly most important, his vocal tone was really good and really consistent. His baseline projection was really good. And, he'd use extra noise/space to mark the central ideas in his points.

Double A said...

I believe the Christian God exists so obviously I'm going to say John lost the debate. However, in finding a positive: I listened to the audio and I like John's voice much better! John's got a great voice to listen to. Furthermore, Dinesh's pulse was probably higher and he was more intense. John stayed pretty calm. Hopefully your next debate you feel better.

Double A said...

Regarding the exchange about the tomb and the body being gone. Wow. D'Souza took John to S-C-H-O-O-L.

Anonymous said...

Dan Rodger said:

"just because people disagree has no bearing on God's existence or the truth of Christianity over other views."

No. It diminishes it's chance of being truthful immensely. Because now there are competing religions that claim many of the same things has Christianity. A lot of religions were around before Christianity, so they're not simply forgeries.

"what do you expect him to do, eliminate everyone on earth who doesn't fully understand him properly?"

You're joking, right? Have you even looked inside the bible? It's filled with God ordering the deaths of those who don't believe in him. Remember the flood? Even if we were to grant you the idea that God wouldn't kill because his creation didn't believe, what about hell? Those he didn't actually kill are sent to suffer for eternity under his will.

Anonymous said...

Double A:

"I believe the Christian God exists so obviously I'm going to say John lost the debate."

WELL SUMMED, MY FRIEND! Of COURSE you're going to disagree with him, because you have a belief! You refuse to accept evidence otherwise, because YOU HAVE A BELIEF!

Thank you for being so truthful to us. I just wish you could be that truthful to yourself, and accept that you're close minded.

Eric said...

Dear John,

(lol, it's not every day one gets to write a dear John) - I saw your response to Richard and a the ones that followed. I wasn't able to watch the debate but I will listen to the audio soon and once the video comes out I'll watch that as well. I know you're a busy guy but I was wondering if you could write a bit about the points you would like to have made if you weren't cut off. I'll come back to this thread once in a while to see if you respond. Also, if you could please provide a few basic ideas to underline your points I would greatly appreciate it. Not to take too much of your time, but I would rather not have to consider your points in a vacuum.

Anonymous said...

I'm only halfway through, but I'm sorry, I don't see how Dinesh is winning at all. His rebuttal to your brainwashing argument is a massive appeal to authority. As is his argument against Stenger's 'quantum tunneling' senario. Having argued this with theists already, I find that it's good to point out that Hawkins says himself in "A Brief History of Time" on page 53 that...

"So in the end our work became generally accepted and nowadays nearly everyone assumes that the universe started with a big bang singularity. It is perhaps ironic that, having changed my mind I am now trying to convince other physicists that there was in fact no singularity at the beginning of the universe-as we shall see later, it can disappear once quantum effects are taken into account"

Anonymous said...

Oops. Stephen HAWKING.

jbierly said...

John-

I listened to this thinking you were going to horribly disappoint, based on some of the reviews you’ve gotten. For about the first half hour, I was actually pleasantly surprised. Your opening statement was excellently delivered, despite a horrible, hideous sounding sinus infection, which made me feel sorry for you (that must have been horrible, trying to do that debate with that kind of illness… I can barely function when I get sinus infections). You really have a quite pleasing debate voice, and I actually think you project more than enough “charm.” One can tell you used to be a preacher.

Then, Dinesh gave his statement. It was much, much weaker than I thought it would be. He made a grievous error in trying to write off your argument as a genetic fallacy, one you could easily hit him for and reinforce your initial argument. Most of the rest of his presentation did indeed commit the “dumb and dumber” fallacy, and then he just gave his standard spiel while demanding you provide a different kind of argument, because he didn’t like the first one.

You could have had this thing in the bag.

But you got massacred.

Here’s why (and I say this as someone who has taken college level classes both in formal debate as well as ancient and modern rhetoric):

jbierly said...

Dinesh mortally wounded your biggest, fattest argument by calling it a “fallacy.” The audience, probably even some of the atheists there, wondered if he was right. Then he did some other stuff, most of it unimportant, but mostly he asked you why only these arguments? Why no positive account from an atheistic perspective of the origin of the universe, or the historical Jesus? In short, he dismissed your first argument as a fallacy, then called the rest of them irrelevant. If you let assertions like that go, then he’s won. He’s just defeated, in the minds of the audience, every argument you had going in.

You didn’t address the “genetic fallacy” thing. Instead you seemed to completely drop the outsider test, only to eventually bring it back in a very weak form which I think in retrospect even you know was a poor formulation of the argument (the whole bit about how they all “debunk each other” that Dinesh killed you on). So, as far as anyone in the audience was concerned, you did indeed commit a logical fallacy, since you didn’t even try to rebut Dinesh’s charge. Why should anyone listen to someone who throws around fallacies? Since you didn’t rebut, it sounds like you got caught doing something naughty, and would just prefer not to mention it again.

Then, you took Dinesh’s bait, and tried to address some of his “no good explanation for the universe w/o God” stuff. This was a big mistake. Presumably, you think the arguments in your opener were strong enough to disprove God, without needing to provide an alternative explanation. I think most atheists on here could explain why that is, but your audience of Catholics probably needed some help here. Instead, you took the bait, got sidetracked, and weren’t able to reinforce and bring back and strengthen your original arguments. At this point, Dinesh won.

You’d practically admitted to fallacious reasoning in regards to your first argument, and tacitly seemed to agree with Dinesh that the rest of your arguments were largely irrelevant compared to the things Dinesh wanted you to talk about. At this point, you stopped even having any argumentative balls in the air, while Dinesh was calmly preparing to toss more into the mix he was already keeping aloft.

Think of a debate as trying to get a set of arguments, which you’ve determined together defeat your opponent, across the finish line intact. Each time you get to speak, defend your arguments against whatever has been thrown at them, bring them back up and reinforce them. Then if you still have time, attack your opponent’s arguments or talk about the additional things your opponent thinks are worth talking about, or challenge your opponent to address things not in their initial arguments. If you do this, then all your arguments will make it across the finish line, and, if you’re right that your arguments together prove your case, you will win.

The problem here is that you needlessly let Dinesh take most of your arguments out of the race at the beginning, at which point he was free to throw everything he had at you.

John said...

Just to comment on William Lane Craig's solution to the problem. Craig believes that the First Cause is simultaneous with it's effect. I'm not sure this would solve the problem. Simultaneous means "at the same time." So, it seems time would still be required. Even if one grants (as many philosophers do not) that some causes are simultanious with their effects, (as Craig does) those causes are themselves states of other things that pre-exist the effects in question in time. The law of Causality states that causes always preceed their effects in time. And as the Christian astrophysicist Hugh Ross has pointed out the scientific view of time is that it is that dimension in which cause and effect takes place. Causality needs a temporal context. There is no time at the Big Bang singularity and therefore no Cause. The universe popped into existence uncaused out of nothing. The laws that govern inside the universe don't apply outside the universe. This would include the law of Causality.

magicshoemonkey said...

I've listened all the way up to the question/answer section. I think bobius has given the most accurate assessment, at least up to this point (and I'm not sure that a question/answer session can turn the debate around).

Basically, I listen to what Dinesh said in his opening statement and thought you might win easily. You came out saying that you didn't need to provide an atheist explanation. He came back and said, "You didn't provide one." You then provided one, which gave him the opportunity to make a lot of claims that you really couldn't combat in the debate format. You could easily have stuck to your guns and said, "No, I'm not arguing for atheism; I'm arguing against Christianity. I have shown that claiming that the universe needs a creator merely opens the door for any creator. You have to show that your specific creator is probable." Then you could demolish his arguments that specific the Christian God as the creator. Basically, as bobius said, you took his bait.

Also, I think that you lack some focus. The opening is fine, but when you respond to him, often, you tend to go off topic. I think, for example, when he brings up near-death experience, you say something like, "Why doesn't Jesus appear and explain himself." To me, this looks like a blatant red herring. It would be better to point out how near death experience is not evidence of an afterlife, and that even if it is, it's not evidence of the existence the Christian God. It would be better to point out that someone having a subjective hallucination is not evidence anymore than someone claiming Jesus appeared to them in their bedroom last night. You also allowed him to get away with dismissing you off-handedly a lot, like calling your argument "mostly bull." Obviously you can't answer everything, but certain things beg a response.

That's the main problem I see. Overall, I would say you did OK. You should take what your learned from this debate, listen to the constructive criticism, and come back with a more focused, stronger stance next time.

Anonymous said...

Hi John W. I’m part way through the audio; just finished listening to Dinesh’s rebuttal.

Sorry, but I can see why a lot of sceptics are saying you lost. D’Souza is an expert debater with a wealth of experience and while I disagree with practically everything he said his speeches were far more structured and incisive than yours. You simply didn’t sound very confident and let him play those childish tricks about points here and there and a whole lotta bull in between.

Having said that, I am appalled at the way D’Souza trashed Victor Stenger as making “no significant contribution to science”. In his first rebuttal, D’Souza quoted an old thesis by Stephen Hawking and Roger Penrose from the 1970s when they believed that the universe began with the Big Bang singularity. I’m in the middle of Stenger’s most recent book The New Atheism and he exposes D’Souza flagrant distortions of atheist scientists, including Hawking.

In A Brief History of Time Hawking makes abundantly clear that he and Penrose have recanted their earlier thesis and do not believe in the Big Bang singularity. The line most commonly mined by the likes of D’Souza and William Lane Craig from BHOT is “nearly everyone assumes that the universe started with a Big Bang singularity.” However, the very next sentence Hawking writes, “It is perhaps ironic that, having changed my mind, I am now trying to convince other physicists that there was in fact no singularity at the beginning of the universe – as we shall see later, it can disappear once quantum effects are taken into account.” (p. 50)

Debates on religion are invariably heated affairs. I have been accused of attacking Christian apologists personally rather than focusing on their arguments. However, there is honest disagreement between two sincerely held viewpoints and “telling lies for God”. D’Souza and his kind sit firmly in the second category.

Don’t give up, John W. You deserve a lot of credit for leaving the comfort of your blog and actually stepping up to the microphone.

MSP

Samphire said...

I I felt for John trying to debate with a sore throat - it can’t have been very enjoyable for him.

I thought Dinesh’s opening was unpleasant. The use of “diarrhea” and “whining” to personalise John’s opening was quite unnecessary - but then, he did use to be engaged to Ann Coulter. Later, his claim to be a christian despite having been born in a muslim country was disingenuous as he emigrated to America when he was only 17. Were his parents Christian?

I agree with ed on Dinesh's deliberate distortion of what Hawking's position is on singularities. Perhaps Dinesh should debate Craig on the matter of the possibility of infinities within a temporal universe as these two leading christian debaters disagree fundamentally on the matter. He should perhaps also debate a YECist (Hovind's first available date is September 2015) as to whether the infinite density of a singularity conforms to the literal creation account of Genesis 1:1.

Dinesh berated John for claiming that he made a “flat out false statement” about current cosmology on singularities. How the hell does Dinesh know whether it’s false or not? He belittled Stenger but where was his mention of Smolin? He then immediately claimed “there was and is a singularity”. Oh, yeah? Where?

There is very little in Dinesh's statements that is unarguable. Indeed, it is extremely frustrating listening to him making the most outrageous and unsupported claims. But it was also amusing to hear him defend the truth of christianity on the basis that the vicious disputes over doctrine which took many millions of christian lives in the middle of the second millennium were simply matters of irrelevant detail and now all christians agree on 99% of doctrine. So much for the belated witness of the Holy spirit.

As for his near death book, have any contributors read it?

Anonymous said...

After watching the rest, I'd have to mostly agree with bobius's assessment, you just didn't rebut enough. You didn't even try to counter the genetic fallacy line. You should have at least pointed out his fallacies, which were many.

For the topic being, 'does the christian god exist', I expected more attack on doctrine. I really expected you to attack the cosmology of the bible & how it is the exact opposite of what we know about how the universe came to be. You barely touched on the POE. You stuck with the OTF, & you kept repeating yourself about pushing him into agnosticism, wasting valuable speaking time that could have been used rebutting or making other points.

This has gotten way over-inflated. No way do I think you did as bad as most skeptics have been saying, but there was definitely room for improvement. Listen to the criticism, take it as a learning experience, & come back that much smarter. Remember that when it comes to arguing against Christianity, you are still the man!

Clare said...

"I'm also noticing that when someone asked us both to answer a question that when Dinesh followed me he didn't respond to the question. He responded to what I said. Another interesting debate strategy." John Loftus

I thought that was what you were supposed to do.

jwhendy said...

@Clare: not necessarily. For example:

Audience member: This question is for both John and Dinesh. What is your explanation for the existence of evil given each of your respective world views?

John: I'll take this one first. Well, for the atheist, I really don't have much of an issue with the problem of evil. We're complexly evolved mammals who are in a tension between intellectual capacities to know what's best for ourselves and others and our emotional/impulsive urges. Sometimes the compulsions, like anger, win out against the intellect and evil is committed. While I have admitted a somewhat primitive mammalian aspect to our lives, I firmly believe it is our moral duty to develop our ability to choose what is right for ourselves and others despite opposition with instinctual desires. This is what makes us human.

Dinesh: Well, John, you completely vomited up your dinner as an answer on that one. Everyone, here is a guy who says that there is no duality, that is to say: there is no difference between the mind and the brain. Yet look at what he just did. He explained our evil tendencies by contrasting the emotions and urges with the intellect. But how is this to be. For the atheist, the emotions and thoughts happen in the same place and therefore this is to say that the 'brain' is fighting the 'brain.' Thank you everyone; thank you.

Ok, so if you're reading this John or Dinesh, please don't take offense. I have no idea how you would have answered this question. I just came up with a plausible scenario to illustrate how it is absolutely a 'debate tactic' (vs. Clare's suggestion of 'what you are supposed to do') to simply pick at the other guy's arguments when the question was intended for both equally. To be fair, Dinesh would have had to take on how evil exists when a perfectly good god supposedly made us in is perfect image and likeness and loves us but now refused to remove suffering and evil from the world.

Do you see that the answer he should have given in this hypothetical situation is far more difficult than simply trying to make John look bad for his own answer?

Anonymous said...

Thanks Hendy. I'm reading. I tell you this though. There is nothing better for making me a better debater than in actually debating someone who has mastered the art like Dinesh has. It's unlike merely watching him debate others.

And to answer the question of Eric I do intend sooner or later in addressing his arguments.

There is a video but it hasn't yet been posted. It's supposed to be, but when I don't know. Maybe they'll even change their minds. I have no control over that.

Double A said...

Wow, you caught me magnumdb. LOL. The debate was whether the Christian God exists. I believe, even after listing open-mindedly to the debate, that the Christian God exists. Let me break it down for you: Since John's presentation did not get me to believe that the Christian God does not exist, to me, John lost the debate. Does that help you a little? Hmmm?

Walter said...

@Double A

To be fair, most of us will not change our worldviews based on an entertaining debate. The person that "wins" is usually the more polished orator.

Dinesh is a good rhetorician, but I believe is arguments are fairly weak.

Ken Pulliam said...

John,

I have listened to the debate. Dinesh definitely won on style and delivery but he lost miserably on substance. If you had been a litte more experienced debater and focused on refuting his "arguments" you would have won in most people's minds.

Dinesh did not deal with most of your arguments but rather dismissed them as "whining" and "argumentative diarrhea." That is insulting and childish on his part (he would fit in well on TWEB).

I am preparing a summary of the debate with my comments to posted on my blog sometime soon.

Sarah Schoonmaker said...

I will listen to this debate soon, but wanted to offer a brief response to Cole's comments: "The laws that govern our universe don't exist outside our universe. Moreover, If something is timeless it doesn't change. It's frozen. If God is outside time then He doesn't change. He's changeless and therefore He becomes frozen. He doesn't act or move and He therefore doesn't stand in causal relations with His creatures. Relationships with God become impossible without time."

You assume that there are only two possibilities for God; that he exists inside or outside of time. This is a false dichotomy because God exists inside and outside of time. Since we live in a universe of cause and effect, we believe these are necessary conditions for anything to exist. However, this assertion is false. Without the dimension of time, cause and effect is impossible. Everything that exists in such a realm would have always existed. Therefore, God has no need of being created. If God created time, cause and effect would never apply to His existence. In other words, space/time, cause and effect are contingent on God.

Stephen Hawking, George Ellis, and Roger Penrose extend the equations for general relativity to include space and time. Their results demonstrated that time has a beginning - at the moment of creation (i.e., the Big Bang). Such assertions support the Bible's claim that time began at the creation of the universe.

MauricXe said...

I listened to the debate just now.

You didn't do as bad as everyone said you did.

Right off the bat, Dinesh incorrectly accused you of using the genetic fallacy. The point of saying someone born in India would be a Hindu is not to say therefore Hinduism is true, it just means you are presupposed to its validity and that presupposition may blind you to the opposition.

To answer Dinesh's question:

What would I say if I were asked if there was an afterlife?


I would say: I don't know. I have no reason to believe in one, its possible but I just don't know.

Dinesh incorrectly states that atheists would say no. He incorrectly labels atheist positions during the debate. I wish you had called him out on those. That may have accounted for him getting a W; you didn't do enough to challenge his beliefs.

I am not into ad-homs, but sometimes he really makes you want to call him an idiot.

John said...

Sarah,

I agree that Stephen Hawking, George Ellis, and Roger Penrose extend the equations for general relativity to include space and time. While some continue to try and come up with models that avoid a beginning they all invoke conditions that would make physical life impossible because they negate the second law of thermodynamics. Physicists Arvind Borde, Alan Guth, and Alaxander Vilenkin over a span of ten years published five more extensions of the singularity theorems that establish that all cosmic models, regardless of assumptions about homogeneity, isotropy or lack therof, or energy conditions, must be subject to a space-time singularity. Any reasonable cosmic model-that is any model where the past obeys an average expansion condition (a necessary requirement for life to be possible)-must be traceable back within finite time to an actual beginning of space and time. The problem is how we define time. The scientists I've read would define time as that dimension in which cause and effect phenomena takes place. Causality requires a temporal context. If there is no time there's no Causality. So, I'm not sure that a half timeless, half temporal Cause even makes sense.

christophermencken said...

John, I listened to the debate. Bravo to you! D'Souza is a greasy, deception monger. That slippery MF has 25% of your IQ points, but he knows how to dodge and weave.

Like when that dumb ass had zero, ZERO, answer to your Balaam's ass question but he slipped away. It was like that moment in the Shermer debate someone posted where Michael caught him flatfooted on the "Why does God hate amputees?" bit. You know those Christians in the audience were perking their ears when you started speaking so well about the New Testament.

Like you told Hendy above, I think you'd benefit with debating expert debaters. You know, like in the presidential debates where the campaigns use a surrogate opponent (who knows the opponent's tricks).

Like Ken Pulliam said, you won on substance. That's going to be the winner in the long run.

We need you out there, champ. Great beginnings. Flu season is over and your voice will recover. Take some time off. Make some money. We'll buy the new book and give you a few dollars too. Lots more rounds in this important fight to light a candle against the darkness of superstition and Dinesh's bullsh**.

jwhendy said...

I've thought about typing up the debate... maybe post it here as well as getting it at infidels.org... anyone think this would be a good idea?

If it were in type, it would even allow for others to make commentary for the benefit of others as well?

christophermencken said...

typing it up would be great, Hendy. I'm sure there are many things to learn from in a transcript.

Ken Pulliam said...

I have posted a summary of the debate with my observations on my blog..

Unknown said...

"You assume that there are only two possibilities for God; that he exists inside or outside of time. This is a false dichotomy because God exists inside and outside of time."

...says who? And how did they find this out?

Gandolf said...

Christian said... "says who? And how did they find this out?"

Does it really matter ?...Just chalk it up to the good ole "classical theism" !!

Absolutely anything you can manage to imagine, might infact be totally possible .You only need the ideas!,evidence is thought a mere minimal side issue, that hardly even matters.

Real Classic ! aint it :)

shane said...

John:

I haven't heard the debate, but i read the opener.
Dispite what some of these christians are saying about you losing this debate, i felt that you made some very good points in your opening statment!

You brought up some real issues on the subject of christianity that i really dont think can be defended logically.
One thing i noticed is that christians go to great lengths to twist reality to their advantage,
im also surprised at the very UNHUMBLE remarks i've read here by believers!

Sabio Lantz said...

Well done, John.
I was very impressed with your presentation. You won hands down in my view. I appreciated your boldness. Thank you !