Of all the leading atheists, Michael Shermer may be the most affable. I also like Christopher Hitchens, who is terrific social company. But Hitchens tends to play the bad guy in public. I laughed out loud when I saw Hitchens in his trenchcoat on the cover of one of his books. That image made you want to lock the doors and hide the children. Also Hitchens seems almost pathologically anti-religious. What rational person can assert, as Hitchens does in his book's subtitle, that "religion poisons everything"?

Shermer is the editor of Skeptic, columnist for Scientific American, and author of Why Darwin Matters and most recently The Mind of the Market. By contrast with Hitchens in his trenchcoat, Shermer looks like a guy you could trust to take your kids to the park. Shermer is almost congenitally optimistic, and he has none of that chronic nastiness that has come to define modern atheism. (Witness the temperament of some of the atheists on this blog, who provide excellent advertising for the psychological benefits of belief.) Shermer concedes that Christianity has done some good in the world. When asked if religion is a force for good or evil, he answers, "Yes." By this he means that religion is good when it does good and evil when it does evil. Shermer concedes that atheists can be vicious and draw their inspiration from atheist ideologies.

I first debated Shermer at Oregon State in October 2007. Then we debated in Washington DC at George Washington University. Our third and final debate for the year came December 9 at Cal Tech University in Pasadena. The third debate, moderated by the religion editor of the Los Angeles Times, was certainly our biggest and probably our liveliest encounter. There were more than a thousand people in the audience. I understand that lots of Cal Tech professors, and a couple of Nobel laureates, were present. Given the venue, the crowd was disproportionately scientific and technical.

The topics were "Is Religion a Force for Good in the World?" and "Can We Be Good Without God?" The debate ranged widely, however, and included discussions of the compatibility of science and religion, how science supports or undermines theism, etc. My favorite part of these debates is the cross-examination, when each side gets to pose questions to the other. I'm going to be posting on this debate over the next few days, each post accompanied by video footage. So here is the first segment, with me going first and attempting to set the agenda for the evening. Enjoy.