Avalos v Weikart Darwin and Hitler BEST CHECK

This debate ( audio | 35m41s ) took place on the radio in 2008 and it concerned the link between Darwin and Hitler. It pitted Hector Avalos versus Historian Richard Weikart.

DB:  2m28s

4.75 stars. BEST CHECK

PhilVaz 3/5
APF review: 3.5/5

This is a short debate that took place on the radio in 2008. Though it's the radio, it was set up as a formal debate between Avalos and Weikart. In 2008, the movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed in the Classroom came out. I actually saw it in the movie theaters and it was pretty bad. Besides saying that science is purposely censoring ID, the movie also makes connections between Darwinism and Hitler. This is nothing new, but one of the more resent academics to exploit this misconception is Richard Weikart, who wrote From Darwin to Hitler, a book used in the movie.

Hector Avalos asked to debate Weikart about this and so here we are. Weikart's arguments are still pretty weak and unconvincing. He certainly has a knowledge of German thought and history around the time contemporary with Hitler and the height of eugenics, but his complete ignorance of the more obvious influences on the racial ideology and propaganda promoted in Nazi Germany is just too glaring and Avalos does a great job of pointing this out.

If you listened to the later debate that these two had on Unbelievable in 2011 (that I review here) you're gonna hear more of the same stuff. I actually think Weikart does a little better in that one, though not by much.

Weikart comes off as a little too dismissive too when he does briefly address Avalos' arguments: at one point he argues that Martin Luther's call for the murder of Jews was only specific to Jewish rabbis which thereby renders it nothing like Hitler's policies is kinda laughable. Avalos also does a great job of showing how tactically stupid it would be to use Darwinism as the main force of indoctrinating a nation to hate different ethnic groups when religion has such a stronger hold on a given population and is so much more accessible. I mean, why argue from a scientific theory little understood by a general population than from a religious doctrine that is so important to the lives of the members of that population? The fact that Kristallnacht happened on Luther's birthday, Luther was both a German and religious hero AND Hitler lists him as one of his heroes doesn't really help Weikart's case, either.

Again, the only issue with Avalos' side that I have is his style. His responses are effective and well argued, but he has a tendency to present his speeches in a way that make it seem like he isn't really addressing his opponent's arguments. I can sympathize with someone who was persuaded by Craig in his debate with Avalos and with Weikart in this debate, when they stated that Avalos failed to address their arguments. Though Avalos does a little better in this debate and his own arguments were just too damning.

Technical: Great AQ because it's radio.

My Debates

The following are all the different debates I have been in or involved in. I have mostly debated 911, the topic I know the most about. I'll give mini-reviews/assessments with 'em.

Same Sex Marriage Debates

Me v the Westboro Baptist Church (God Hates Fags) kids (2010) ( video playlist )

4.75 stars FUN

These are pretty funny. The kids know how to tow the party line. The problems that people have with the videos is the singing in the background is pretty bad. I also employ the use of shaky cam for artistic purposes.  

Me v Charlie Check'm the Homophobic Atheist Rapper (NSFW) (2012) ( video playlist )

4.25 stars CHECK

The first few have Check'm pretty low in sound quality. Check'm is also very frustrating, but I was told that I did well in these so hence the higher score and the "CHECK", as well. Check'm curses a few times, as do I. I try to keep all my videos PG cause I think that cursing loses its greatness if used too much.

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Evolution

Me plus v Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron plus (2009) ( video playlist )

5 stars CHECK

Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron came to UCLA to hand out free copies of The Origin of Species in honor of its 150th year since it was published. Before the actual content, Comfort (in a larger font) wrote a pretty stupid preface. As the president of the skeptics club on campus I and a bunch of others went down there to hand out bookmarks with information about evolution (and pictures of bananas) to argue with the two pop-apologists.

The one with Kirk Cameron arguing with my friend Randali got very popular. It was on TMZ, PZ Myers talked about it (in the comments someone made a transcript of everything!) and it has just over 200,000 views. I am barely in the most popular one because Cameron only wanted to talk to one person at a time (legit).

One thing that was annoying was that some guy came down and played the tuba. Almost all the comments were people complaining about the tuba and not being able to hear what was happening. I thought that the tuba guy was there with Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron but my friend later told me that he knew the guy through band and that he just decided to come down and play his tuba. Just decided...

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911 Debates


I call in to a debate with Dylan Avery and Pat Curly (2009) ( audio | video part 1 )

4.25 stars BEST

JREF discussion about it (my username is fourtoe)

The 4.25 stars is for the whole debate, the AQ, the host and other callers. I call at 24.49 into the debate. Listen to the whole debate though! The video is just audio and it's poor AQ.

Me v Misc. Truthers and Jeremy the Bearded Truther (2010) ( video playlist )

3 stars

A lot of information is brought up. Jeremy is the only Truther who I have met irl who knows the more tedious arguments about 911. Sorry for the shaky cam!

Me v CSI911.info Guy (2012) ( video ) 

2.5 stars LAP

This one I did not do well in. I had to walk on eggshells around the guy cause he got pretty defensive. He also refused to look at any other sources of evidence. My style is pointing out that thousands of independent entities have studied the attacks on 911 that explain the things that Truthers complain about as unknown. The guy also dismissed a lot of stuff I said because it was found on JREF, a place known for throwing down with Truthers.

But yeah, I just wasn't prepared and couldn't go about this as I normally do because of how defensive and condescending the guy would get.

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Misc Debates

Me v Crazy Anti-Semitic 911 Truther (2011) ( video )

3.75 stars FUN

After I graduated from UCLA I was still in contact with some of the club members of the skeptics club I was apart of. They called me and told me that the Westboro Baptists were in town and I went down to debate them again! As you can see, I tried to debate the more adult members this time around but it was either too loud or the guy was too busy talking to his iPhone. THEN a wild 911 Truther appeared! I was so excited, but the guy was just nuts...so here we are. 

Me v Crazy Lyndon LaRouche Supporter NSFW (2010) ( video )

1 star

This isn't really a debate as it is more of a recording of some guy calling me a bitch over 50 times (I once counted). The LaRouchebags are a cult of personality around a guy with no personality Lyndon LaRouche. Their members are known for the Obama Hitler mustache signs and for being aggressive and creepy. They're also known for not arguing with someone if they know that the guy knows what they're talking about and if the guy has a camera. They have that right, but...


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Well there you have it. I enjoy debating too, but I don't think I would do well in a formal debate like most of the ones I review. I think I would be better at more of a dialogue-debate. Also for some reason I am interested in rather esoteric topics, like conspiracy theories and most people aren't interested in them because of how ridiculous they are.

Douglas Jacoby vs Richard Carrier - Jesus: Son of God or Apocalyptic Prophet? 2012 BEST

This debate ( audio | video-audio only | 2:51.52s ) features Richard Carrier and Apologist Douglas Jacoby with the debate topic being: "Jesus—Son of God or Apocalyptic Prophet?" It took place in 2012.

First image hit, though this is Pilate washing his hands. SOURCE.

 

4.5 stars. Not even a pandering apologist and hostile Christian crowd can phase the Carrier Biblical Machine in this lively but potentially polarizing debate. BEST

Very long WOE review
Christian review
AIGBusted review

This is one of the best debates I have heard. Usually people on both sides cite Carrier's debate with Licona in 2004 as being a great and lively debate and I would say that that one falls below this one*. This debate is also really long and I enjoyed the format. Be careful with the Q&A section, though...I'll explain that in a bit.

This is Carrier's best performance. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy his debates and think he actually comes out on top in most of them but he came off as smooth and polished and presented himself well, here.

Though I still think he suffered from a few issues that plague his debate performance in general, but not as much in this one. For example, Carrier's too smart for his own good. The one thing I can give Jacoby (though just barely and I'll explain later) is that he knew how to read the audience and cater his talking points to them. Richard Carrier said some things that believing Christians could easily misconstrue and find insulting and many of them in the Q&A confirmed this.

In particular, a lot of people were hung up on Carrier referring to the early Christians as schizotypal, word that just has to be either dropped for a term or description with less baggage, or mentioned with the constant caveats that this isn't just schizophrenia. I wouldn't be surprised if even a more neutral-minded audience also got a bit irked by the term.

Jacoby seems like a nice guy but he employed several sleazy tactics in this debate that I think he should be embarrassed and ashamed about because he seemed perfectly fine fanning the anger of the crowd to throw Carrier under the misconception bus in order to come out on top.

Jacoby should be embarrassed for: not being prepared. Carrier had to correct him on several mistakes and misconceptions he made when he mentioned things from Carrier's book. He also rambled in his opening and then it seemed like at the last second he took out a Sparks Notes book on Bill Craigs' arguments for the resurrection and spouted that out, whether it was even relevant or not

Jacoby should be ashamed for his tactics in the debate. He definitely fell apart after his opening speech and resorted to playing on the audience's misconceptions. Several times Carrier explained what he meant by some of the terms he used only to have a bunch of other questions come up making them same mistakes. This isn't the fault of the audience because they were not a more academic crowd and even I am not familiar with the term schizotypal. And yeah, as I mentioned, Carrier is just too smart for his own good sometimes and doesn't always drive points home in a succinct manner because he'll take them for granted.  

But Jacoby exploited this. Jacoby exploited the good nature of his audience and of Carrier in order to score points in this debate.

One of the bummers that kept coming up was that Jacoby disputed Carrier's claims that Jesus said that those within his generation would see the second coming by stating that those parts of the bible are apocalyptic writing and can be considered metaphorical and not literal. Wouldn't noting that the most cited document used to describe the life of Jesus is filled with apocalyptic writing that should not be taken literal kind of help support the claim that he is an apocalyptic prophet? I need to look more into this "apocalyptic literature" retreat because it just seems so weak.

Great debate otherwise!

*Note that I think that Licona did a much better job and was more professional and prepared in his debate against Carrier.

RE: 7-5-2013: Added some reviews on the debate.
RE: 8-6-2013: I lowered the score, I have too many 5 star debates.  
8-15-2015 More clarity attempts like the many others attempted on this day. I also added a link and toned down my annoyance of Jacoby's behavior.

William Lane Craig vs Hactor Avalos - Resurrection: Fact or Fiction? 2004 BEST TOP TEN CHECK GTP

This debate ( audio | video (audio only) | 1:59.57 | Debate Starts: 5m47s in ) took place in 2004 between Craig and Biblical Scholar Hector Avalos on the Resurrection of JesuCristo. It took place at Iowa State U and was in front of 3,000 students according to Craig.

4.75 stars: Avalos and Craig both bring a lot to the table and make for an interesting debate on the resurrection filled with more impressive arguments.


Other Reviews
PhilVaz 2/5
CSA review: bad

This is an intense debate and one that I go back to a lot because of how detailed it was and the uniqueness of some of the arguments made. It's also one of Craig's best debate performances on this subject, IMO. That is, at least in terms of forcefulness and maybe not so much rhetoric.

Craig starts out attacking Avalos being “unprofessional” in a previous debate debate he had with Rubel Shelly. Craig spends a good deal of time doing this, too. I'll ramble about my problems with this later, though.

Avalos has a great opening and doesn’t let Craig’s attack phase him. This is Avalos’s best presentation in the debate but he kind of gets less and less persuasive for the rest of the debate until the Q&A. I agree with others that Avalos can come off as mean-spirited in his approach. His presentation made it seem like he was attacking Craig, for example, saying things like “yes, there are two Dr. Craigs”. I can see how the audience would think he’s just trying to discredit Craig rather than focusing on the historical "facts" Craig mentioned.

Craig also does the slickest (positive connotation) rebuttal I have heard him use so far. In his first rebuttal, Craig notes that Avalos has used biblical sources for his own published work on ancient healthcare. Craig argues that if Avalos wants to say the bible is an unreliable source, then it would undermine his own research which relies on such dubious sources. Of course, I wouldn't be surprised that Avalos used the bible to talk about a non-supernatural phenomena known as healthcare, not to prove the resurrection of a human being. The standards of evidence to talk about healthcare in ancient times are not the equivalent to the standards of evidence required to prove someone rising from the dead. I would also suggest that Avalos is a biblical scholar and professor at a university. The latter means that he is required to publish regularly to maintain his job while the former entails that most of what he publishes will somewhere have the bible mentioned.

But the important thing, debate-wise, is that Avalos doesn't address this and thus Craig definitely gets this point in his favor at least in a fridge-logic sort of way.

In fact, one of the criticisms I have of Avalos is that he seems to just talk past his debate opponents. This is evident in other debates of his and it’s a really easy thing for his opponent to point out which is what Craig does when Avalos doesn't respond to the criticism I mentioned just prior to this paragraph.

Another criticism I have of Avalos is I think he needs to be more explicit in demonstrating how the points he made are relevant to the debate. In this debate he brought up a linguistic issue which Craig was able to address only cursorily because he never used it in that specific debate so he deemed it irrelevant. It also didn't help that the topic was just simply lost on the audience because it required a knowledge of translating between ancient languages. In an email correspondence with Avalos he mentioned that in hindsight he agrees with this sentiment. Also, in his most recent debate, it seems like he's aware of this issue because when he does bring up some Hebrew translations it's done with a lot of hedging.

In sum, the good parts of this debate were: Besides Craig’s opening he had really good rebuttals and seemed very on point and forceful. Avalos did a good job of showing how Craig is picking and choosing which passages in the Bible to take as history and did a great job in the Q&A. I was reminded of how Price did in his Q&A segment against Craig where it seemed that Price (and here Avalos) where kind of forced to be more focused in their responses to some of Craig's criticisms due to the questions asked by the audience. I also felt like Avalos did a better job of summarizing his point and ended with a thoughtful appeal in his closing.


So there is a lot to take out of this debate and because of this, I'm making it a TOP TEN debate because of how strong Craig did in it again, despite his lame opening and the strength of Avalos' performance.

Technical
Okay AQ, a little low and it seems like a bit of Avalos' 2d rebuttal is cut off.

About Craig’s attack on Avalos

First off, that Craig can spend the first 5 minutes of his presentation attacking his opponent and still present his normal schtick is a testament to Craig's skill as a debater. But it was still a pretty cheap move to pull and it didn't go unnoticed if you go by the audience's impressions in the Q&A. In fact, when someone brought it up, Craig said he felt "uncomfortable" doing that, as if he wanted some sympathy for doing it anyways.

Elsewhere someone made a good point about this, too: Craig should have contacted Avalos about it before the debate if he was so worried about it. Or if Avalos did do that in this debate Craig should have simply pointed out that Avalos was being too critical about the quality of the ancient texts and sucked it up, but to be fair that's not an answer a perfect apologetic missile like Craig would consider. Ultimately maybe he shoulda offered another unique or interesting point to his arguments. Whatever.

Concerning the "printers errors" mentioned by Craig, there is more of a discussion about it here and here, if you're interested. 

LASTLY, through my university's ILL, I was actually able to get a copy of the debate audio between Avalos and Shelly. And I can say that Craig at least mischaracterizes the tone in which Avalos said the things he quoted in this 2004 debate and at most quote mines Avalos. I will claim that Craig misrepresents the context of the issue. I have been nursing over a critique of this attack on Avalos for awhile, now. I'll have a review of the Shelly debate (it wasn't too great) and the aforementioned critique hopefully soon. Oh, and I'll have links to the debate audio because both Avalos and Shelly said I could host it because they are both absolute mensches.

A list of mini-reviews of Craig's debates can be found here!
Revisions
7-7-2013: I fleshed out some comments and added some more links at the end.
8-4-2015: I polished up the entire review to make it clearer and updated a view of my opinions on some matters.