Me in a debate

Tomorrow I am going to do two 30 minute shows on Urban Theologian Radio with Vocab Malone, Vermon Pierre, and Bob Korljan. Vocab is the one I will be debating the resurrection about and I will also have more of a discussion with in the first show.

In their most recent episode about Mormonism they mention that there is another episode they are having with their Mormon guest that will air next week. So I think my episodes will not air for at least two weeks...if they're any good.

Stomach Butterflies

I am nervous as hell for this. I feel I know my stuff but after the past few weeks of talking with Christians and Muslims over Skype and teasing out the reasons why I am an atheist, I do not feel like I am very articulate or persuasive.

I wrote down all the stuff I want to say based on the email exchange I've had with Vocab and listening to some of his debates and reading a few things he's written. From what I can tell he is very sincere and charming but I think he holds some pretty dubious views about some topics. I don't think I'll change his views, but that's not really the point of going on the show.

Technical Things I'm Worried About

After listening to the debates from their past radio show, Back Pack Radio, it also seems like I'm going to have to deal with having less air time to state what I have to say and will have to worry about commercial breaks. But this will be worse for me because those shows were 45 minutes long and each show I'm on will only be 29 minutes long.

For example, in Nick Covington's debate with Vocab on the resurrection, NC made a case with multiple reasons to support it. But just before the break, Vocab came in and said that NC, as an atheist needed to account for the problem of induction and the fact that his worldview is skewing the way he goes about the resurrection debate. Then a break came and all of Covington's case was left forgotten or he had to repeat himself. And again, the problem of induction took up a lot of the dialogue.

I've prepared for defusing this but I don't know if it was a good idea to prep for it because it might not even come up for me.

Content Issues

I also think Covington made his opening too long. He mentioned a lot of good stuff, but you gotta make sure you're working with the clock, you know when the commercials might come. I'm going to listen to some more episodes and figure out the commercial pattern and even ask before we start the show what the schedule is and have a timer next to me. Let's see if that works.

Like Covington, some of the things I need to flesh out seems like they're going to be most forceful if I can say them all at once. I would like to mention eyewitness testimony but think it's important that I give the ramifications associated with it. But because this is an informal thing, I might have to stop and elaborate and/or respond for each point.

When I talk normally off a script, it takes me a bit to say what I want to say. I don't like it and it involves a lot of pauses. I also ummmm a lot more and say "like" and "I mean" a lot, too. Normally I'm used to talking to people and getting stuck on supplying a reason but just say "You know what I'm talking about, right?" I can't rely on that for these shows and even things that seem quite basic to me have turned out to be completely alien to the people I have talked to and it seems like I need to also be prepared to elaborate on things that seem more self-evident and have something written out in case that happens.

Presentation Issues

I have a pretty lame voice, which sucks. There's no combating that, besides building on the things I can control. But I think I come off as unlikable, too. Or rather, I come off as not too bright and don't make it clear enough that I'm joking. This could be elaborated upon but the point is that I need more time to become lovable, which sucks if I'm going to have less than a half an hour to do so.