William Lane Craig vs Shabir Ally - Did Jesus Rise from the Dead? 2009 CHECK

This debate ( audio | video | 2:25.39s ) took place somewhere north of the United States in 2009, between Craig and Muslim Apologist Shabir Ally. They have debated several times, and on several topics, but the topic of this debate was the resurrection.

Debate begins 3:46s in.

3 stars. CHECK

(Source)

I'm afraid of talking too much about Craig's debates on this here blog. And throughout my reviews of his debates I have explained why he's so popular amongst non-theist blogging nerds, but I have recently attempted to defer my reviews of his debates to my big mini review post here.


However, I've decided to do a full debate review on one of Craig's debates with a Muslim apologist, since I haven't done one, and he debates them a lot as well as non-theists.

Craig's Performance
Craig doesn't change too much up. The only difference is that Craig instead, critiques Islam rather than some type of materialism. This meant that Craig emphasized Jesus' crucifixion (which the Q'aran denies) and he also evangelized a little more emphatically.

Ally's Performance
Ally starts off rather weak and muddled but manages to have more forceful rebuttals. This is the first time I heard Craig remark on the number of points raised by his opponent. Usually it's the other way around*. Despite this however, Ally falls flat when trying to counter Craig's arguments against Islam. I think Ally might have done better if he opted to go the irreligious-historian route with his presentation, but it's pretty obvious why he felt obligated to defend Islam and he did have to respond to Craig's repeated referrals to the Q'aran's position on Jesus' crucifixion.

When Ally was defending his own dogma it never sounded all that convincing, unfortunately. It actually made me decide to unpack one of the problems I have with Craig, in fact. For one thing, I wish his opponents would be more forceful in arguing that Craig needs to defend the bible as essentially inerrant with as much self-righeousness and gusto seen in Craig when he complains about Muslims defending the Q'aran. Also, Richard Carrier was extremely on point when he said that Muslim apologetics has a long way to go to reach the sophistication seen in Christian apologetics. However Ally is at least several steps above Rajabali who thank the gods, hasn't debated since 2004.

Anyways, Craig also said this is one of his favorite debates, too. He wrote a song to the tune of Prince Ali from Aladdin about it, after all...

Shabir Ally, wily is he!
Crafty and cagey!
Turns things around,
Quotes Raymond Brown
In support of Islam!

My SO thought it was racist, but I took issue with the "crafty and cagey" part - it would flow better if it was "cagey and crafty" IMO.
 
Technical
The AQ is kind of quiet, same for the video.


A list of mini-reviews of Craig's debates can be found here! 



8-20-2015: Made it a bit more coherent. I think I should listen to this one again and talk more specifically about the arguments.