At the Christian Book Expo 2009, William Lane Craig, Christopher Hitchens, Douglas Wilson, Lee Strobel, and James Denison dialogue on the topic: Does the God of Christianity Exist and Does it Matter?Video of the forum debate can be found here.
The apologia podcast also did a live recording at the event which is an interesting listen. Get it here.
Full MP3 Audio here.
Enjoy.
18 comments :
Thanks!!!!!
Oops the video seems to have been removed.
They moved the link for video. I have updated it.
I think the video has been removed again. :
Are you sure? This is the one that is working for me: here.
Brian,
Thanks for bringing attention to this as well as all the other great stuff on this site!
This is one of the best blogs out there for the very fact that it keeps people up-to-date on the happenings in aplogetics. Please keep it up! You rock!
I have to say, though I think Christopher Hitchens is overly insulting and quite the brute sometimes,he has an undeniable charm with his wit and humor. If only he dealt more with the arguments instead of appeal to emotions, he might have been much better off. That being said, I think William Lane Craig did a superb job in his final speech at the end, and effectively ripped Hitchen's arguments to shreds, and I look forward to him doing just that in two days in their debate on April 4th.
Cowloogi,
Yes, that closing statement by Craig was something else. It is here.
My conclusion. Hitchens would be a friend of mine would we meet. He's got great humor and shows sincerity.
But to be honest, like many atheists he rants against Christianity and the Christian God without giving a cogent defense of his worldview. He does virtually nothing to refute the arguments of our fellow apologist. It comes down to an emotional bout of rage against God resulting from unanswered questions and wrong thinking.
I look forward to the debate tomorrow. If you're able to post a link I'd be grateful for that.
Awesome post.
William lane Craig is doing a debate with Christopher Hitchens on Saturday.
I already saw the video. Very informational. Thanks!
An atheist will accept nothing as proof for God's existence and parlor tricks, of course, don't count. But a Christian will accept nothing as proof for God's non-existence because you can't prove something happens all by itself in nature or disprove the exponential progression of conscience. So what then? It all hinges on the resurrection. If no naturalistic explanation fits the data for the resurrection claim, then Jesus is God. A Christian will accept Jesus is not God if a naturalistic explanation can be put forward that fits the data, but an atheist will not accept the proof Jesus is God if they can't find a naturalistic explanation for the resurrection data accepted by skeptical scholars. But Hitchens said the golden rule is to treat others as he would like to be treated, yet he has a double standard. So here is an example of Hitches breaking his own moral values showing that objective moral values don't exist in atheism, since objective moral values don't exist without God.
1) Whatever exists has an explanation of its existence, either in the necessity of its own nature or else in an external cause. If the universe has an explanation of its existence that explanation is best explained to be God. The universe, obviously, exists. From that it follows, if the universe has an explanation of its existence then God exists.
2) Whatever begins to exist has a cause. Philosophical and scientific evidence shows the universe began to exist. What follows is a transcendent cause beyond the universe of space and time which brought the universe into being form nothing.
3) The fine-tuning of the universe is due to either physical necessity, chance or design. It's improbable and implausible that it is due to necessity or sheer chance from which it follows it must be due to design.
4) If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist. These values and duties are obligatory and binding independently of whether anybody believes them or not. Objective moral values and duties do exist. In our moral experience we do apprehend such values. From which it follows necessarily and logically God does exist.
5) The ontological argument (essential properties of a being) says if it is even possible God exist then God exists. God is a maximally great being. There can be nothing greater than God. A maximally great being would be omniscient, omnipotent and morally perfect in every possible world. If it is possible there is a being like that, it follows there is a world for which a maximally great being exists. If a maximally great being exists in any possible world, he exists for all possible worlds, including our actual world or universe. Therefore, it reasonable to believe that God exists. So, if it is even possible God exists, then He must exist. An atheist would have to not only deny God exists but would have to disprove that it is even possible for God to exist. The atheist utterly fails in this attempt.
6) Jesus radical personal claim and resurrection from the dead is the revelation of the Creator God of the universe that is apprehended through the arguments of natural theology that the best explanation for the facts of the empty tomb, the post-mortem appearances and the origin of the disciples belief in Jesus' resurrection, is that God raised Jesus from the dead because Jesus is God. It therefore follows that the God revealed by Jesus of Nazareth exists.
7) God can be known immediately through personal experience. Philosophers call this properly basic beliefs. They are not based on deeper esoteric inferences or hidden secret knowledge but are foundational to a person's system of basic beliefs. These are not arbitrary, but grounded in daily experience and that's what makes them properly basic. A person who knows God, who has a personal relationship with Him, the belief that God exists is a properly basic belief grounded in his experience of God; and therefore, it is both rational and justified to believe God exists in a properly basic way.
http://biblocality.com/forums/showthread.php?p=5572#post5572
Troy,
Although I appreciate the comments, please don't re-post the same comments that you have made on other blogs here.
Troy -- you do realize, of course, that the arguments that you have listed above (Saturday, 4 April) are basically vacuous due to the fact that they rest on so many assumptions and hidden premises. Anyone who doesn't already share your background assumptions and view point will find these utterly unpersuasive. If your goal is to persuade those who might disagree with you the better approach would be to pick one argument and expand on it.
Geez, I'm just now listening to this. The moderator is driving me crazy, and I wish he'd be quiet and moderate.
"An atheist will accept nothing as proof for God's existence" - complete nonsense. God could prove his existence in a million different ways that all atheists would accept. He could do it today. He could have done it at any time in history. He just hasn't. He's just run the universe in such a way that his existence is completely hidden from any intelligent inquiry.
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