Atheists Are Such Lousy Debaters

[kari21]

Why Atheists Are Such Lousy Debaters

by Dinesh D'Souza

UPDATE: If you haven't seen my debates with Christopher Hitchens, Michael Shermer and Daniel Dennett, you can watch them here. I am waiting for Shermer to post our Cal Tech debate of December 9, which was recorded by his Skeptic Society.

I watched the movie "The Great Debaters" last night, and it helped me to understand why atheists are such bad debaters. The movie portrays four students from a little black college in Texas, and shows how, under the tutelage of their pugnacious coach, they went on to defeat Almighty Harvard. Denzel Washington, who plays the coach, says early in the movie that debate is a kind of bloodsport. It's great virtue is that it puts rival ideas up against each other, as argued by people who passionately espouse those ideas, and then it lets the truth emerge through a kind of gladiatorial elimination.

For about three years, it appeared as though the leading atheists were formidable debaters. But the reason was that Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens were selecting weak opponents and then generally giving them a public whipping. In one staged encounter, hardly a debate, Richard Dawkins ambushed televangelist Ted Haggard for a film Dawkins was making. Not only did Dawkins control the format, he also controlled what was shown on film. No wonder Dawkins got the better of that encounter. Harris took on pastor Rick Warren in Newsweek, where Harris made outrageous allegations and Warren basically said that Christians are nice people because they help AIDS victims in Africa. Again, this was hardly a fair fight. Hitchens promoted his book God Is Not Great by traipsing through the South taking on local pastors. Now your typical pastor is not used to debating a versatile and suave character like Hitchens. A few months ago Hitchens embarrassed theologian Alister McGrath in Washington D.C. One problem is that Hitchens has the Richard Burton accent and McGrath sounds like he just came in from shooting birds in the Scottish highlands. Another problem is that McGrath couldn't handle Hitchens' vitriolic accusations and came off looking conciliatory and weak.

Unlike the characters in "The Great Debaters," I was never part of a debate team. I got my debate practice through confronting critics of my various books. Mostly I learned by taking on such seasoned debaters as presidential candidate Walter Mondale, the literary scholar Stanley Fish, and a whole series of civil rights activists from Cornel West to Jesse Jackson. Prior to my debate with Hitchens, he described me as "one of the most formidable debaters on any topic." Richard Dawkins seems to agree: the great Haggard-slayer has somehow gotten cold feet when it comes to debating me. I guess he's afraid that I'll make him look as ridiculous as Haggard.

Then there's Sam Harris, who tells me that debate is not a very useful medium to arrive at the truth. He didn't seem to think that previously, but now it seems that he too is afraid of looking like a public fool. Harris wants to engage in a written debate, and I've agreed, but it should be noted that written debates allow each side to consult experts and therefore they don't reflect the true spirit of debate, which is the clash of ideas embodied in the most articulate representatives of those ideas. I've suggested to Harris a couple of weeks ago that we do both a written and an oral debate, and I'm waiting to hear his response.

Why are the atheists faring so badly in these debates? I think the main reason is that they are so arrogant. Dawkins, Harris, Dennett and Hitchens really think that their position reflects pure reason and that my position reflects "blind faith." If this were really true they should win every single debate, for the same reason that a round-earth advocate should never lose to a flat-earth advocate. In reality there are good arguments on both sides, and I as a believer know this. I know it's hard to make the case for an invisible God and for an afterlife. In short, I know the strength of the argument on the other side. Leading atheists, however, simply do not expect to hear good counterarguments to their position. When they do, they have no idea how to answer them. So they either erupt into jejune name-calling (all to familiar to readers of this blog) or they slowly fall apart (witness what happened to Daniel Dennett).

In reality, I don't have to win debates against atheists; I merely have to draw. Just by coming out even, I defeat the atheist premise that atheism is the position based on reason and religion is the position based on unreason. Even a tie shows that both positions are reasonable. By defeating atheists in debate, however, I have totally exploded the atheist self-pretense. I have shown atheists to be the unreasonable ones, and this is why leading atheists like Dawkins and Harris are now going into hiding. But if these guys are scared to debate me, even in secular university settings where the audience is largely on their side, what does this say about them and about the soundness of their positions? Perhaps Dawkins and company should go and see "The Great Debaters." They might get some useful tips, and they might also get their nerve back.

http://news.aol.com/newsbloggers/2008/01/0...lousy-debaters/

[redwing]

Why Atheists Are Such Lousy Debaters

by Dinesh D'Souza

UPDATE: If you haven't seen my debates with Christopher Hitchens, Michael Shermer and Daniel Dennett, you can watch them here. I am waiting for Shermer to post our Cal Tech debate of December 9, which was recorded by his Skeptic Society.

I watched the movie "The Great Debaters" last night, and it helped me to understand why atheists are such bad debaters. The movie portrays four students from a little black college in Texas, and shows how, under the tutelage of their pugnacious coach, they went on to defeat Almighty Harvard. Denzel Washington, who plays the coach, says early in the movie that debate is a kind of bloodsport. It's great virtue is that it puts rival ideas up against each other, as argued by people who passionately espouse those ideas, and then it lets the truth emerge through a kind of gladiatorial elimination.

For about three years, it appeared as though the leading atheists were formidable debaters. But the reason was that Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens were selecting weak opponents and then generally giving them a public whipping. In one staged encounter, hardly a debate, Richard Dawkins ambushed televangelist Ted Haggard for a film Dawkins was making. Not only did Dawkins control the format, he also controlled what was shown on film. No wonder Dawkins got the better of that encounter. Harris took on pastor Rick Warren in Newsweek, where Harris made outrageous allegations and Warren basically said that Christians are nice people because they help AIDS victims in Africa. Again, this was hardly a fair fight. Hitchens promoted his book God Is Not Great by traipsing through the South taking on local pastors. Now your typical pastor is not used to debating a versatile and suave character like Hitchens. A few months ago Hitchens embarrassed theologian Alister McGrath in Washington D.C. One problem is that Hitchens has the Richard Burton accent and McGrath sounds like he just came in from shooting birds in the Scottish highlands. Another problem is that McGrath couldn't handle Hitchens' vitriolic accusations and came off looking conciliatory and weak.

Unlike the characters in "The Great Debaters," I was never part of a debate team. I got my debate practice through confronting critics of my various books. Mostly I learned by taking on such seasoned debaters as presidential candidate Walter Mondale, the literary scholar Stanley Fish, and a whole series of civil rights activists from Cornel West to Jesse Jackson. Prior to my debate with Hitchens, he described me as "one of the most formidable debaters on any topic." Richard Dawkins seems to agree: the great Haggard-slayer has somehow gotten cold feet when it comes to debating me. I guess he's afraid that I'll make him look as ridiculous as Haggard.

Then there's Sam Harris, who tells me that debate is not a very useful medium to arrive at the truth. He didn't seem to think that previously, but now it seems that he too is afraid of looking like a public fool. Harris wants to engage in a written debate, and I've agreed, but it should be noted that written debates allow each side to consult experts and therefore they don't reflect the true spirit of debate, which is the clash of ideas embodied in the most articulate representatives of those ideas. I've suggested to Harris a couple of weeks ago that we do both a written and an oral debate, and I'm waiting to hear his response.

Why are the atheists faring so badly in these debates? I think the main reason is that they are so arrogant. Dawkins, Harris, Dennett and Hitchens really think that their position reflects pure reason and that my position reflects "blind faith." If this were really true they should win every single debate, for the same reason that a round-earth advocate should never lose to a flat-earth advocate. In reality there are good arguments on both sides, and I as a believer know this. I know it's hard to make the case for an invisible God and for an afterlife. In short, I know the strength of the argument on the other side. Leading atheists, however, simply do not expect to hear good counterarguments to their position. When they do, they have no idea how to answer them. So they either erupt into jejune name-calling (all to familiar to readers of this blog) or they slowly fall apart (witness what happened to Daniel Dennett).

In reality, I don't have to win debates against atheists; I merely have to draw. Just by coming out even, I defeat the atheist premise that atheism is the position based on reason and religion is the position based on unreason. Even a tie shows that both positions are reasonable. By defeating atheists in debate, however, I have totally exploded the atheist self-pretense. I have shown atheists to be the unreasonable ones, and this is why leading atheists like Dawkins and Harris are now going into hiding. But if these guys are scared to debate me, even in secular university settings where the audience is largely on their side, what does this say about them and about the soundness of their positions? Perhaps Dawkins and company should go and see "The Great Debaters." They might get some useful tips, and they might also get their nerve back.

http://news.aol.com/newsbloggers/2008/01/0...lousy-debaters/

sounds a little like ann coulter.

[MorningGlory]

Atheists are lousy debaters because they come to the battle with no ammunition.

[secondeve]

Yes. It is perfectly reasonable to pick apart the efforts of three prominent atheists and thereby conclude that all atheists are similarly poor debaters. In the land of the crazy logic. What would be the result, I wonder, if I were to take Anne Coulter, Jack Chick and the Westboro Baptist Church as my examples of Christianity and, from their combined efforts, conclude that all Christians are foamy-mouthed latter-day loonies? Using my latent psychic powers, I predict that a violent flame war, followed by thread-closure, would result.

Posting articles like this, no matter how good they make you feel, is really pointless. I give this thread the lifespan of the average mayfly before the above scenario - surprise, surprise! - takes place.

And if you really, genuinely and truly believe this article to be 100% true, and not merely a quasi-humerous attempt at incendiary journalism, then I believe you're in for a rude awakening at some point in the near future. Just a heads up.

[redwing]

Yes. It is perfectly reasonable to pick apart the efforts of three prominent atheists and thereby conclude that all atheists are similarly poor debaters. In the land of the crazy logic. What would be the result, I wonder, if I were to take Anne Coulter, Jack Chick and the Westboro Baptist Church as my examples of Christianity and, from their combined efforts, conclude that all Christians are foamy-mouthed latter-day loonies? Using my latent psychic powers, I predict that a violent flame war, followed by thread-closure, would result.

Posting articles like this, no matter how good they make you feel, is really pointless. I give this thread the lifespan of the average mayfly before the above scenario - surprise, surprise! - takes place.

And if you really, genuinely and truly believe this article to be 100% true, and not merely a quasi-humerous attempt at incendiary journalism, then I believe you're in for a rude awakening at some point in the near future. Just a heads up.

that's what's so great about the usa. any one can voice an opinion.

[sweetycakes]

Yes. It is perfectly reasonable to pick apart the efforts of three prominent atheists and thereby conclude that all atheists are similarly poor debaters. In the land of the crazy logic. What would be the result, I wonder, if I were to take Anne Coulter, Jack Chick and the Westboro Baptist Church as my examples of Christianity and, from their combined efforts, conclude that all Christians are foamy-mouthed latter-day loonies? Using my latent psychic powers, I predict that a violent flame war, followed by thread-closure, would result.

Posting articles like this, no matter how good they make you feel, is really pointless. I give this thread the lifespan of the average mayfly before the above scenario - surprise, surprise! - takes place.

And if you really, genuinely and truly believe this article to be 100% true, and not merely a quasi-humerous attempt at incendiary journalism, then I believe you're in for a rude awakening at some point in the near future. Just a heads up.

For once I find myself agreeing largely with Secondeve.

There are a lot of very clever atheists out there, for one thing. It does not do to underestimate them. They provide some very seemingly plausible answers, and will try to 'blind you with science'.....since that is what they have been learning themselves, all their lives.

A lot of atheists also know the bible quite well, and will happily quote it back at you. At least they know the words of the bible, but not the revelation. That is why they are so 'hard' to 'crack'......and that is why, I believe, we can't 'win them over' simply by arguments, evidence and logic, or even common sense. It has to be a move of God.

There are, as someone else said, good arguments on both sides, at times. And both positions require 'faith' to accept that position.

That is not to say that we should not go on trying. We should keep on preaching the Word, and who knows when God will use that Word to impart some Spiritual knowledge to a person? But I have often found myself disappointed when trying to 'witness' to somebody who has a closed mind.

Only God can do it, and only in His time. We can continue to plant the seed, but it is God who waters it.

Indeed, it is the life of God that is in the seed already, from the outset..........it is His Seed, and He chooses to water it.........when He Will.

Incidentally, I found this event quite telling, where Richard Dawkins evades completely a question put to him regarding the evolutionary process actually 'adding' something to the genetic information, since this is the fundamental principle on which all evolution is supposely built. Truth is, there is no basis for evolution as the atheistic scientists claim, and they know it.

[Fraught]

Yes. It is perfectly reasonable to pick apart the efforts of three prominent atheists and thereby conclude that all atheists are similarly poor debaters. In the land of the crazy logic. What would be the result, I wonder, if I were to take Anne Coulter, Jack Chick and the Westboro Baptist Church as my examples of Christianity and, from their combined efforts, conclude that all Christians are foamy-mouthed latter-day loonies? Using my latent psychic powers, I predict that a violent flame war, followed by thread-closure, would result.

Posting articles like this, no matter how good they make you feel, is really pointless. I give this thread the lifespan of the average mayfly before the above scenario - surprise, surprise! - takes place.

And if you really, genuinely and truly believe this article to be 100% true, and not merely a quasi-humerous attempt at incendiary journalism, then I believe you're in for a rude awakening at some point in the near future. Just a heads up.

i don't quite accept your argument. it is standard practice to accept a few of any category as representative. consider polls - a random sampling to represent the whole. this article is even more than fair, as the writer has chosen the top 3 to represent the whole.

[The Lorax]

I've got to question the point of posting this particular article in this particular forum. Maybe I just don't see the point in alienating the guests on our site. This article and its headline especially aren't fair for secondeve and others, who I'm guessing are here to chat or to debate, not to be pegged with umbrella criticisms.

Think Golden Rule, Kari. Would you be happy if secondeve posted a thread called "Christians Are Such Lousy Debaters" ?

[Guest shiloh357]

I've got to question the point of posting this particular article in this particular forum. Maybe I just don't see the point in alienating the guests on our site. This article and its headline especially aren't fair for secondeve and others, who I'm guessing are here to chat or to debate, not to be pegged with umbrella criticisms.

Think Golden Rule, Kari. Would you be happy if secondeve posted a thread called "Christians Are Such Lousy Debaters" ?

Kari is not the type who would be threatened by such an article and neither are most of us.

Atheists are lousy debators at least where the issue of Christianity is concerned. Maybe not EVERY single atheist but then as a general rule, their debate style is usually lousy. Unfair would also be an accurate word to describe it as well.

Christians are held to unreasonable standards of proof and any evidence we can bring to a debate is often brushed aside with little serious consideration.

One thing that I see a lot of, particularly on this board, is the false premises that are erected to discredit our faith. I often see a lot of misquotes from the Bible, as well values assigned to us that we we do not hold to and do not accurately represent what we believe.

The example that secondeve offers regarding the westboro, jack chick and Coulter is invalid on the grounds that she is trying drag up examples of who she considers to be poor examples of Chrisitanity. The article on the other hand cites as its examples the best and most well known athesists in the atheist community. If the article drudged up some psychopathic Charley Manson-type of athesit to make its point, that would be different.

[Guest shiloh357]

Christians are lousy debators. They wont accept anything but fanatical mysticism. If logic or common sense is introduced they deduce it down to blasphemy and disreguard it. Its frustrating but that's the way it is.

How does rejecting the existance of God amount to "logic" and "commonsense" to you?