The topic was "Does the God of the Bible Exist?" and the panel of participants included
Dr. Hugh Ross, a brillant Christian thinker and astronomist, Dr. Clay Jones, Apologetics professor at Biola University and Dan Grossenbach, a graduate of Biola's MA program in Apologetics.
The Atheist side of the panel included an ex-Christian, a undergrad student from UC Irvine and a medical Doctor from Riverside.
The education and experience seemed stacked on the side of the Christians, yet I have to say the Atheist panel generally did a good job of debating their points.
About 500 people were in attendance making this debate really interesting and full of excitement.
3 Observations from the Debate
#1 - The Atheist panel had absolutely no idea how to answer Dr. Ross's argument from Design and what now is being called, "Fine Tuning." They Atheist panel conceded on this point in order to get to what they called more "important points." It was cool to see a guy as smart and talented as Hugh Ross, carry himself with such humility and clarity in his presentation. There was literally nothing the opposing panel could debate with his presentation!
#2 - The Atheist panel's main argument attacked the Christian position of God's goodness. They called it God's omnibenevolence. They questioned how a God who is good could allow evil things to happen or send people to a permanant Hell. This is the typical "Problem of Evil" question. I felt the Atheist panel did a good job of presenting this point, even connecting specific Bible scriptures to this argument. The Christian panel was solid in their response to this question, but I felt the Christian panel dropped the ball on answering this question with clarity. They seemed to bounce around alot and got a little off-topic.
For a great response to the problem of evil wrapped around God's goodness, check out William Lane Craig's response.
#3 - The majority of the crowd was from Atheist clubs in the area. I was really disturbed and saddened to hear some people in the audience mock the name of Jesus with such arrogance. This broke my heart. I am so amazed when I read the account of Jesus on the cross and read the part where Jesus is being mocked by the eye witnesses at the cross and He responds with such an incredible answer:
"Father, forgive them, for they no not what they do."
I want Jesus' response of compassion to be my response as I engage with an increasingly bitter and angry secular culture. My friendship with Bruce has been really cool. It was funny to be invited by an Atheist to a debate on Christianity! He did a good job of organizing the debate and and I am proud to call him my friend. I pray God will use me in Bruce's life to show him the authentic Jesus.
I was there, too. It seemed to me the panel conceded the existence of God, who (as Hugh Ross pointed out) could only be the biblical God. They just don't LIKE the God of the Bible because He does not "measure up" to their personal definition of (human) goodness, justice, perfection, and love. They don't like how he treated people such as Job or the Canaanites, and they cannot imagine how hell could possibly be consistent with the character of a good, just, perfect, and loving God. The frustration for me and perhaps for others in the audience was that the debate format didn't really allow for thoughtful discussion of these issues. The Christian panelists never really had (or took) the chance to explain why they read the same Bible passages and come to entirely different conclusions about God. I came away confirmed in my dislike for debates. They tend to focus more on winning the war of words than about exploring what's true.
ReplyDeleteKathy,
ReplyDeleteGood summary, I agree with you. You are right about the format lending itself more to "winning" than to thoughtful discussion.
I am wondering if there is a debate format that would lead to this in a more fruitful way?
I have noticed in some of William Lane Craig's debates with Atheists, there is this format:
Opening Argument for each side
Response #1 from each side
Response #2 from each side
Concluding Remarks
Perhaps this would be a better format than the "free for all" round that we witnessed on Wednesday.
Do you have any other ideas about how a debate could produce fruitful discussion?
Conc
Thanks for asking, Matt. What I envision is something like this: Two participants are seated comfortably on the platform. They have 15 minutes each to explain how they came to hold their current beliefs about the biblical God. Then they dialogue for another 20 minutes or so, till the moderator opens the floor for questions (no "preaching" or "ranting") from the audience. This takes a strong but gracious moderator and dialogue participants who can remain civil. So I suppose that narrows the field of options. But this kind of event would be much more appealing to me.
ReplyDeleteOops! I hit the "publish' button without putting my name in. This last comment is from me, Kathy.
ReplyDeleteKathy,
ReplyDeleteYes, I think your suggested format would work well. Good thoughts.
Thanks for your comments on the ApologeticJunkie blog, Matt. The 3v3 rapid fire question format was tough, but from what I've read so far, people could see our side did most the heavy lifting that night. I'm planning a debate between my friend Sean McDowell (Capo Valley)and Dr. James Corbett (Capo HS) on the morality issue on Feb 26th. That one will fit the typical academic 1-on-1 format. I hope to do try it some day myself. Thanks for watching and reporting it on your blog. Blessings, Matt!
ReplyDeleteMatt, thanks for post at my blog. I came over to read your thoughts. It is interesting to see how different our thoughts are on Dr. Ross. I wonder why that is?
ReplyDeleteAs an Atheist who attended the debate I would agree that the format was not conducive to clear arguments from either panel. Each side continually interrupted the other making it almost impossible for anyone to get a reasonable answer across. That being said, the impression I got from the Christian side of the debate was that I, as an Atheist, am a murderous adulterer who is responsible for all abortions performed and thus should spend eternity being punished. I found this all very strange since I've never killed another human being, I've never cheated on my spouse and I personally do not approve of the casual destruction of innocent life. None the less, Clay Jones pronounced his judgment on us all and Hugh Ross was right there agreeing with him. Overall the Christian panel struck me as a group of overly judgmental extremists intent on inciting fear and hatred.
ReplyDeleteDan,
ReplyDeleteThanks for checking out my blog, I am honored. Sean is a friend of mine as well and I am excited to hear about the Feb debate. I plan to be there!
Mojoey,
ReplyDeleteGreat hearing from you. From the looks of your blog, I can tell your are a deep thinker.
I am curious why you believe Dr. Ross is a "psuedo" scientist. If you get a moment, I would really be interested to hear your thoughts.
A,
ReplyDeleteI am sorry to hear that you felt the Christian panelists came across so full of hate. I know that was not their intention at all.
Is is possible you are mis-defining "hate?"
Hatred is not someone having a different opinion than you?
Hatred is not someone sharing their person religious beliefs with you.
Hatred in my opinion is someone saying they could care less if you were alive or dead. Hatred is someone placing no value on your life.
In my opinion, the reason the Christian panel spoke about Hell was because they want no one to go there and believe people who don't believe in Jesus as God will go there. Ultimate Hatred for someone who believes in a real Hell, would be to not tell someone about Hell.
I refer you to Atheist "Penn" from Penn and Teller speak about this very subject on You Tube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JHS8adO3hM&feature=player_embedded
Matt, according to the Oxford online dictionary the term hate means: to "feel intense dislike for or a strong aversion towards".
ReplyDeleteDuring the debate Clay Jones was asked to defend an article he had written in which he stated that he thought this generation was more wicked than that of the Canaanites. He affirmed that he did. He was then asked if this generation of non-Christians should be slaughtered just like the Canaanites and he agreed that we should. Finally when pressed as to wether or not he would be willing to take part in such a slaughter he agreed that if god commanded it he would.
In short, the Christian panel accused the Atheists in the crowd of actions which they were not responsible for and then declared that the Atheists deserved to die for those actions. I think that fits in with both Oxford and your definition of hatred.
I watched the Penn Jillett video and I agree with Penn's conclusion. The difference is that the person Penn encountered treated Penn with dignity and respect while expressing a sense of compassion. Clay Jones appeared angry, condescending and demeaning. Apples to Oranges as they say.
Anonymous Writes
ReplyDelete"I watched the Penn Jillett video and I agree with Penn's conclusion. The difference is that the person Penn encountered treated Penn with dignity and respect while expressing a sense of compassion.'
Although I trust that Dr. Jones didn't intend to come across angry or demeaning, I think I agree with you, the man who approached Penn had a more compassionate and respectful attitude.
Bruce here - the organizer of the debate, I enjoy the different views everyone here has on the debate. I thought many points were taken and discussed. I will take into consideration all the comments, howeverm the 3v3 approah does offer a more entertaining formate. If your viewers here would like to see the entire debate, visit www.freethoughtalliance.org to order you DVD. All the revenue from the DVD will be goin to our future debates. The next one will be about Creationism and will be held in March.
ReplyDeleteBruce
Hi Matt - Bruce here, the organizer for the debate. I'm glad you attended. I appreciate the views and comments on your blog. Do you think anyone would be interested in ordering the DVD from freethoughalliance.org? All the revenu will be going to sponsoring more debates in the future, such as our Creationist debate coming up in March 2010.
ReplyDeleteBruce