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.
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Why Atheists Are Such Lousy Debaters
Posted Jan 3rd 2008 1:35PM by Dinesh D'Souza
Filed under: Christianity, Controversy, Atheism, Film
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Reader Comments ( Page 87 of 88)
1291. Evolution was presented as fact but when I looked closer at what I was being taught I saw holes that could not be explained.
-------------------------
That's because they were holes in your reasoning. I have no problem explaining them, see?
Godless Heathen Brian at 7:40PM on Jan 12th 2008
1292. Heathen,
I can see now that indeed long winded rhetoric is all you have. All blow and no go. You are an embarrassment to your constituents who would at least provide something worth looking at. I can see why the theme of this blog was Atheist make lousy debaters. Of course many have had thought provoking points that they have made so I’m not talking about them. You though are truly making me take a serious look at evolution seeing that your making a monkey of yourself.
AJ at 7:59PM on Jan 12th 2008
1293. Sorry, evolution is a theory and will remain so.
-------------------------------
Of course it will; there's nothing higher, no place else to go.
You still don't even get "theory," do you?
Whatever that MIT education cost, it would have been better spent on farm implements.
Better a scientific theory that has literally millions of different supporting data points along with it, than a tapestry of two-millennia-old fairy tales that you just "believe" without any reason other than wishful thinking and fear of the unknown. It's really the spineless way out. Can't face death? Try religion! Over ten trillion weak minds served! And counting...
Godless Heathen Brian at 7:53PM on Jan 12th 2008
1294. 1282. Heathen,
I asked for proof not your long winded rhetoric. You can berate and condemn all you want but it is just a cover for your lack of proof.
AJ at 7:06PM on Jan 12th 2008
xxxx
you need to believe in magic. proof will be beyond you in your lifetime. you have what you have so be happy with it.
you know where you stood when you were in school. It's not any different now. You couldn't cut the work then and you can't now.
Clif Kuplen at 7:53PM on Jan 12th 2008
1295. And thanks. I'll never look with respect on M.I.T. again, if you graduated from there with this paucity of knowledge.
Godless Heathen Brian at 7:55PM on Jan 12th 2008
1296. Let’s take a vote. Who would like Heathen on their debating team?
AJ at 7:55PM on Jan 12th 2008
1297. Oh, I wasn't debating you! (No wonder you're confused!)
I was poking fun at your ridiculousness. Why debate somebody that (comically) thinks they already know the answer, even though it's a child's answer, and is absolutely sure that I'm wrong, no matter what I say?
No, I just wanted you to see how silly you look to me. I have no interest in proving anything to you, other than that. Your brain is not permeable enough for me to ever have any success in a debate, and I detest wasting time like that. I'd have better luck trying to teach my dog to do my taxes, than trying to convince you that you're wrong.
I do hope that you wake up someday though. In that wish, I am your friend. In everything else, I can't stand you. Like a case of the scabies. Eyew! I love you as a fellow human, but that love is a tough love, if you let yourself go like you have. :-)
M.I.T.? Really?
What a shame...
Godless Heathen Brian at 8:05PM on Jan 12th 2008
1298. You though are truly making me take a serious look at evolution seeing that your making a monkey of yourself.
AJ at 7:59PM on Jan 12th 2008
---------------------------------
AHA HA HA HA HA HA!!! Funny christian joke!!! LOL!
(Because they don't believe in evolution, GET IT?)
WAH HA HA HA HA HA HA!
I am proud to "make a monkey out of myself" to a christian. This is just about the highest compliment that I can think of, considering the fact that your entire perception of reality is reversed. I'm surprised that you don't wipe your forehead after taking a dump...
If only you could make a man out of yourself. But, once a hypochrist, always a hypochrist, apparently.
For you, evolution, as in personal evolution, is indeed a fallacy. In that, we're agreed.
Godless Heathen Brian at 8:23PM on Jan 12th 2008
1299. You are an embarrassment to your constituents
---------------------------
I have constituents? COOL! Eh heh heh... heh heh...
Constituents are awesome!
Godless Heathen Brian at 8:22PM on Jan 12th 2008
1300. You don't like my rhetoric because it hurts. And it hurts because at some deep level, youre afraid that it's true, and you're wrong, wrong, wrong, so pathetically wrong that it's an embarassment, not to mention that your fear of death kicks in and your terror of the unknown as well, so your mind balks, and like magic you just KNOW that you're right, and we heathen atheists are the wrong ones, without any supporting evidence whatsoever except your precious circular logic and wishful thinking.
Godless Heathen Brian at 8:34PM on Jan 12th 2008
1301. Cliff, I think when he says "HEATHEN" at the top, he means me. It's my new name there, the Godless Heathen Brian thingy.
But I liked your answers a lot, too! :-) Feel free anytime! I always appreciate your incredibly sane and balanced commentary, seriously. Wish there were more like you.
Godless Heathen Brian at 9:03PM on Jan 12th 2008
1302. 1299. Cliff, I think when he says "HEATHEN" at the top, he means me. It's my new name there, the Godless Heathen Brian thingy.
But I liked your answers a lot, too! :-) Feel free anytime! I always appreciate your incredibly sane and balanced commentary, seriously. Wish there were more like you.
Godless Heathen Brian at 9:03PM on Jan 12th 2008
xxx
I got that he meant you a little too late. In answer to aj's question, you'd make an excellent debate partner based on what I've read.
These guys like to call it debate but their only source is the bible or babble so it's really just preachin'. I could argue their side and I imagine you could too but they'd shit if they had to take negative.
Clif Kuplen at 9:22PM on Jan 12th 2008
1303. I don't know if I could argue their side, Cliff. I'm not sure of that. I wouldn't like to be in a place like that with no solid leg to stand on and nothing to support my position except circular logic and wishful thinking. I don't think any debater can function in that scenario. I could come up with arguments, but how would they be solid ones?
You know, the title of this blog is "Why are Atheists such lousy debaters" and I know the answer.
It's because we're debating against christians, so whatever points we make will just go over our opponents heads or are summarily ignored, and no matter what we present the christian will always still have the same position, no changes. They believe they're right, and are incapable of seeing otherwise if their lives depended on it.
Nobody can be a good debater against people that are that dense and intractible. We present valid scientific theories only to have the word "theory" itself called into question. We speak about history only to be countered with revisionist history. We talk about early christian forgeries only to have these same examples touted back to us as genuine. We note that it's impossible to prove the existence of God, and are then required (insanely) to disprove him, which is equally impossible. We speal of the huge hypocrisies in the bible and are told that Jesus said that it's it's okay to ignore just those, but that they still must OBEY things that are mentioned in the same paragraph. We see our earstwhile opponents quoting scripture in response to a serious query, and quoting it selectively, cherry-picking the parts that support the point and ignoring the parts that don't. We inform them that there's no real historical proof of Jesus even actually living at all, and we get back fake history to support his existence written by other christian liars in the distant past. We hear attacks against science written by people that have no grasp of it WHATSOEVER, we refute it, and then we get to hear the same tripe from all other comers, even if we've already refuted it a hundred times.
Our opponents seek not to win the argument, since they know it's impossible, but to baffle us with bullshit until we can't take it anymore, and when we get angry at them for being such idiots, then we're the haters, even though we only came here to defend ourselves on an ATTACK BLOG targeted against us in the first place.
NO argument is too hypocritical for them. They will cheerfully argue that an infant is inherently evil or that a child that dies without accepting christ will be roasted in live flames forever for their "transgression." They will argue that God made us, is all-knowing, all-loving, merciful, and yet allows us to die like flies in horrible ways, believers and un-believers alike (in the same percentages) but the believers will all get to belong to a huge Fan Club in the sky where they get to praise God for all eternity, because God needs their praise for some reason, whilst the unbelievers will get roasted for eternity.
(I picture God and the heavenly choir with popcorn on the sidelines, enjoying the torture, a la roman gladiatorial games)
That's why we're "lousy debaters" against them. No debater can be anything more than that, when they are forced to debate these illogical people that aren't aware of the fact that they are illogical in the first place.
As I've said many times on these boards, it's easy to win an argument with a Christian, since they are based in beliefs rather than thoughts, faith rather than reason, fantasy rather than fact. The hard part is getting them to see that they've lost the argument, for the same reasons.
That's why Atheists are such lousy debaters against christians.
Everybody is. No real debate is even possible in the first place against these people.
Godless Heathen Brian at 2:57PM on Jan 13th 2008
1304. Just wow at the humor of this article..... this dude really doesn't like atheists huh?! Lmfao smh.
ebz at 3:51PM on Jan 13th 2008
1305. dear heathan ;)
“Evolution is as real as gravity.”
Oh Really? Your broad use of the term “evolution” is deceptive. No doubt evolution takes place to a point, most Theists will agree. However, “particle to man evolution” is in no way as solid a reality as gravity. Because someone discovers Hawaii, doesn’t mean you just proved you could drive a car from California to Japan.
paul at 6:23PM on Jan 13th 2008