A collection of every single Atheism, Religion, Evolution/Intelligent Design/Creation/YEC, Conspiracy Theories and Social Issues/whatever ever. Reviewed and Rated, Most Awesomely.
This debate ( video only | 1:17m ) happened this year and pitted apologist debate missile William Lane Craig and OSU Philosophy Professor Kevin Scharp against each other on the topic "Is There Evidence for God?"
3.5 stars - Scharp was brutal and essentially met the wishes of all us Craig critics who are tired of seeing his opponents drop the ball debate after debate. Craig's less compelling performance and Scharp's over-zealousness and other tactical issues ultimately hold this back from being a great debate albeit a compelling one.
Billed as a discussion, each speaker gave 15 minute openings followed by a botched 20-30 minute dialogue and then questions from the audience.
Craig went first and gave his usual arguments emphasizing the contingent argument and adding his lame IBE from math to God argument in the mix. He focused a bit more on knowledge and experience which I think was Craig tapering his case to Scharp's background. Polished and easy listening as usual and no curve balls.
Scharp came in with a head full of steam - prepared and intense. It was refreshing as hell to see him give such an organized presentation with specific points, arguments, refutations, and even a ppt. He starts off by explaining how he would gauge the evidence for God, compares it to Craig's weird probability claims - 51% likeliness that evidence points to God - gives general arguments against theism, including something new (in public debates) called the Argument from Divine Psychology to undercut Craig's FTA, KCA, and math argument. He then continued with the same criticism Tooley and Law leveled at WLC in their debates about his half-assed moral argument. After this he critiqued Craig's approach, apologetics in general and Craig's socially dubious positions.
There was a lot of content in Scharp's presentation and it's clear that he took seriously what people have been begging for years that Craig's opponents do - prepare a case that is relevant to current concepts in the great debate and freaking research WLC's arguments and tactics.
The only issue which I think plagued Scharp is that nothing was really hammered home in his opening. Good stuff was mentioned but quickly and though it certainly is a feat to fit in ones' own case and refutation of Craig into a single opening, it seems like the latter could have been condensed in order to make parts of the former glaringly clear for the audience.
During the discussion WLC certainly took advantage of the Scharps' fast and furious opening and Scharp was able to clarify things but another thing holding Scharp back came into light during this part of the debate: Scharp was like a caged puma. After every one of Craig's statements Scharp would go "yes - yes - yes - mmhm" not in a rude manner but in one that belayed someone who decided to double his Red Bull consumption to prep for the debate. He didn't come off as mean-spirited or obnoxious though, it just made me want to side bar and say "reign it in, bruh, let the points sink in - contain your argument boner."
One thing that was a bit new to me was that the moderator was especially crappy and biased towards WLC. The bulk of the conversation was either of the two talking and Scharp playing defense. When Scharp brought up an argument mentioned in his opening the mod actually shut it down after a bit saying it wasn't relevant to the debate. Usually the Veritas 'bates I've seen are exceptionally fair and I'm not even against bias mods but the moderator seemed more interested in guiding Craig to make his more rhetorically enticing points we've all fallen in love with. The thing here though is Scharp really nailed Craig on the poor explanatory power his arguments yield which is crucial since Craig ran them all as inference to the best explanation arguments (IBE). Craig never responded and was saved by the moderator a few times.
Craig's less forceful performance also keeps this debate back from being stellar. The debate ultimately gets a high score because of the novel arguments (in terms of public debates) Scharp ran and that despite being a spazz at times he certainly was an engaging speaker.
I hope more are able to throw down as well as Carroll and Scharp have done in these last few years because I wouldn't be surprised if Craig (with legit reasons) retires from his more competitive debate gigs. It seems like he kind of is considering this is billed as a discussion.
ETA 5-21-2016 Found a pdf of Scharp's presentation with his script which was neat so I linked it. ETA 7-17-2016 Lowered the score because the debate seems to get more and more flawed the more I think about it. Mostly the criticisms I have for Scharp just seem to get heightened and the format wasn't ideal to say the least.
HERE is a link to a pdf copy of the book God? A Debate between a Christian and an Atheist between William Lane Craig and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong. It has been on the net for awhile in this format but because I don't want to get into trouble I never linked to it. But on Sinnott-Armstrong's website he links to the pdf himself, so I figured it's no big deal.
I suggest everyone check it out. It's based off of two of their debates on God's existence and the problem of evil. The former is not online and the latter is online but not as content rich - though very good.
Because it's based off of their public debates it's very accessible and easy to follow. Again, this is a great resource!
I have three different debates of my own I want to post. They are all interesting and very in content quality. I'll post them I swear!
This debate ( audio | video | very biased transcript | 1:45 ) took place in 2013 between William Lane Craig and Scientism Philosopher Alex Rosenberg.
1.25 Stars: Rosenberg is completely out of his depth and Craig has just been doing this for too long.
Craig’s still got it. He's debated over 10 other people since Kagan in 2009 and only Tooley, Law, and Carroll between then and now have given him a good debate. Rosenberg is completely scatter-brained and Craig is so focused and slick that he'll make even well spoken opponents cower.
Rosenberg gets a very bad deal, too, because Craig gives seven arguments in this debate, plus his "this isn't really an argument" experience argument. Usually Craig uses five at most and sticks to three depending on what he's vetted about his opponent.
He busts out:
(1) The Contingency Argument;
(2) The KCA;
(3) Fine-tuning;
(4) Conscious Minds;
(5) The Moral argument;
(6) The Resurrection;
Plus one newer argument than his usual material:
(6) mathematics. Craig manages to fit all this in and critique Rosenberg's work. It seems like this huge number of arguments and his vague mentions to materialism meant that Craig wasn't as sure of Rosenberg's background as he usually seems to be in other debates. But that sure doesn't phase him and ultimately doesn't backfire on him.
Rosenberg very briefly started out okay by calling attention to the unoriginal arguments
Craig brings to the table. And he also preempts any attempt to call on the
Holocaust as an example in his future responses for some reason.
But Rosenberg fails to back up his first statement and doesn't convincingly demonstrate how these unoriginal arguments can be destroyed. Craig also steers away from the big H and sticks
with good old Stalin, instead. And in general he just creams Rosenberg.
Another philosopher bites the dust. I’ll be honest, I just can’t see any of the
other guys I see in my Craig debate queue throwing down. Nor
can I see John Loftus, Dan Barker or Michael Shermer.
People I want to see debate Craig: Jeremy Beahan, Justin Schieber, Matt Dillahunty, Douglas Jesseph*, John Loftus** and Zombie
Hitch. And rematches I'd like to see are Sean Carroll, Richard Carrier, Keith Parsons, Hector Avalos, and Arif Ahmed.
Technical
Good audio quality dunno about the video. Also note that I got the audio from the great GREAT PhilVaz site.
Other Reviews
PhilVaz 4/5 WK review: Xians always win
Hallq hassome thoughts
JJ Lowder considers this one of the worst atheist debate performances. Edward Feser's brief mention of the debate Jason Rosenberg's Review part 1...no other parts?
A list of mini-reviews of Craig's debates can be found here!
*There is a transcript of this debate but I am lazy and
enjoy audio debates, they should just debate again, because I maintain such a
stunning blog.
**I know I just disparaged the guy but I wouldn’t mind
seeing a debate between these guys, Loftus certainly wants it to happen.
Revisions 7-14-2013Added another review. 8-23-2015 Cleaned up and fleshed out and formattededed. I think I've added enough to warrant a re-post, though.
A few days ago Jeffery Jay Lowder, former pres of the Internet Infidels, made a blog post asking William Lane Craig to take up his offer on a debate on whether or not God exists or on God-based morality.
HERE is the post. Following his message to Craig, JJL lists all the people who support the debate.
Don't worry Lowder, I know you read this blog. I got you too, man. Add me to the list. I have an MA.
Dear Dr Craig,
Bill, can I call you Bill?
Look Bill, Jeffery Jay Lowder has been talking a lot of talk over the years about his debate abilities. He definitely devastated Phil Fernandes in their debate on Theism vs Naturalism. But that debate was against Phil Fernandes, in 1999, Lowder went first, and was preaching to the choir at a skeptics convention or something.
JJL later debated Kevin Vandergriff, but that debate was a bit of a let down ultimately, though extremely informative. Also, Vandergriff seems to be a minor leaguer, the debate was in a format that allowed an entire week between segments to prep, and JJL still got to go first. I also think JJL picked a pretty liberal Christian to take on (or vice versa, I dunno how the debate was set up). In that debate, JJL was pretty much given evolution and morality and the latter topic I think you Bill are very good at tackling in a debate setting.
Anyways, JJL did come out well in those debates but he doesn't seem to have too much experience going head to head against apologists like yourself. I want to see him debate more but he seems to be waiting to get into the thick of things only if he can debate you (or has a life and doesn't want it to just be debating apologists everywhere unless it counts).
Come on, you debated Hitchens because he has a lot of clout and you're not gonna get a chance against Dawkins and for the obvious reasons. Plus, the Horsemen are old news, anyways. Why not take on the guy who despite not having a lot of religious debating experience does have a lot of experience interacting with the topics AND does have experience in high school debate.
Just debate the guy. He's willing to do it at a college campus and debate the topics you want to debate. Weren't you stoked when you went up against Jesseph awhile ago? He too had high school and college debate experience. Come on Bill!
This debate ( audio | video 1 & 2 | 2:31:26s ) took place in 2009 between Craig and Richard Carrier and was on the resurrection.
4.5 stars. Carrier does better than most against this content-packed resurrection debate and Craig is pretty good too. BEST CHECK
This debate is underrated, IMO. Listen to the debate and you can really hear Craig struggling to stay on the ball throughout it.
Craig's opening for this debate gets into the pretty specific detail on some of the NT scholarship. It seems a lot more academic in nature, actually. I don't know if that was a good thing for his audience if it mattered but judging by the crowd responses it probably didn't. For me it kind of became tedious and out of place. Craig will get technical/specific/dense with his presentations but usually in his rebuttal periods. Because rebuttals are shorter than the opening, he presents this stuff are a much faster pace so it was odd to hear him kind of take his time with specific and recent scholarly insights on the book of Matthew. Finally though, I don't remember him calling on all these specifics in his rebuttals. Usually that would lead me to think that Craig made a miscalculation to preempt something he thought Carrier would argue against but if he did it didn't phase him too much.
Carrier gives a very solid opening. In his post-debate write-up he mentions that he liked it and wouldn't change anything from the script and that's something I would agree with. The only issue is that he definitely was nervous sounding, which is a shame. Another issue is one that Carrier is now quite notorious for and seems pretty unapologetic* about and that's his repeated mentions of how in this book or that book he's authored he goes into detail about certain arguments. In the questions later at least two of the audience members reference this with a bad impression of Carrier's plugging.
Carrier sticks to bringing up more and more parallels as his presentations go on and a few things kind of happen that are related to this tactic. Positively, it is giving a lot of information for the audience to hear and upon a more recent listen to the debate quite a lot of the examples themselves Craig doesn't actually respond to. Craig instead sticks to general criticism of the patterns seen in the parallels and when Craig does talk about specific parallels Carrier does respond to or they're actually not mentioned by Carrier. Negatively, it started to look as if Carrier was spending time he should have allotted to pointing out things he felt Craig didn't address or needed to give a better account for giving more literary examples.
I also feel that Carrier was able to hold his own quite well against Craig's shotgun approach though he didn't address all the things Craig said and made some blunders (stating that Craig used Habermas as a source and not Jacob Kremer and still going with that mistake)** and let a lot of things go unchallenged. However I think he was able to give just as much as he took from Craig. At the very most he came out to a draw, though I am perfectly fine with saying this one went to Craig because while Carriers' case began to sound like longer and longer lists of examples, Craig gave a better impression of synthesizing his case making it more impressive for lack of a better term.
Craig also made one of the better points of criticism I've heard about Carrier's case. At times Carrier sounds like he is
speculating a lot of his assertions and some of them, like the one that
Craig pointed out, do sound unfalsifiable, at least at first blush. Craig's a good speaker so I'll just quote from an interview of his,
...Because if you say, “Look at these differences between, say, the Iliad
and the Gospels,” what they will say is, “Ah, but that is actually
evidence for dependence because it shows how Mark changed the Homeric
narrative so as to conceal its dependence. So the similarities are taken
as evidence of literary dependence, and then the differences are taken
also as evidence of literary dependence. So it becomes utterly
unfalsifiable and vacuous. Therefore, this is a terrible method of
literary interpretation (SAUCE. Emphasis added and lack of closing quotes on the second quote is not my fault and really annoys me).
I don't think this is falsifiable but I can't even think of a nice concise reason to explain why now (partially because I've been up for over 24 hours as of the most recent update of this review) so I wonder if in a debate Carrier would be able to come up with one on the fly. Buuuuuut I think this accusation has been leveled at him before so I dunno.
Why such a high score? Well as I mentioned in previous reviews on Carrier's debates: Carrier makes a more interesting case against the resurrection, the most novel I have heard so far and all of Craig's responses (sans one) to the evidence Carrier presented for the literary aspects of the resurrection story were pretty weak because as mentioned earlier, they were sweeping or not pertaining to the examples given by Carrier.
Missed opportunities: earlier I mentioned that Carrier's opening was almost flawless and what makes it almost a perfect opening is that Carrier mentions the argument that if god wanted us to accept the resurrection she should have given us better evidence for it. Though I agree with this I also agree with Craig that this kind of argument isn't necessarily germane to the debate. Carrier makes the argument for why he disagrees but much later on during the Q&A. I think it would have been better if Carrier mentioned this in his rebuttal in an objection to Craig assuming that God exists during his historical facts argument. If Carrier's assertion doesn't belong in a debate about the historicity of the resurrection then neither does invoking god.
Another missed opportunity related to the audience Q&A. Someone claimed Carrier's describing the gospels as though they were written by highly literate people was absurd because the disciples were fishermen and unlearned. Carrier went on about how there is no proof that any of the disciples were fishermen or unlearned - which sure, whatever, there probably isn't - but probably the more important thing to wax on about is that the gospels were not written by guys named Mark, Luke, John and Matthew something Craig and anyone who looked into the NT more than two minutes would agree to. Poor Richard, it seems like people ask the snarkiest questions of him and he is just too nice of a guy to throwdown with such uninformed questions. Now I think he is just unaware of the underlying cheek of his questioners which actually might be a good thing.
One thing I'll conclude with is the pattern of uncharitable ruthless Craig followed in the debate:
-Craig
is infamous for repeatedly calling out his opponent for not responding
to his arguments. In his earlier debates he would even do this in his
opening speech before his opponent even presented but nowadays he
usually waits until his opponent has their first rebuttal but he doesn't
let Carrier have this luxury. More annoyingly glaring than in his other
debates, he also harps on points that Carrier never disputes as if they
were points Carrier failed to respond to or account for, which seems
obnoxiously persnickety (I like the word, too!). He keeps doing this
about the women witnesses, Carrier explicitly addresses this issue
multiple times.
-Craig underhandedly calls Carrier a
crank, too. Craig has done this before with other opponents, most
notably Ehrman and if you hear Craig resorting to this type of tactic
then you know he's getting cornered. But with Carrier it's the most
blatant I've heard Craig go, which means something but I'm not sure
what.
Victor Reppert's site discusses it in this post HERE Now I've heard Carrier called many things, both good and bad, but I've never heard him referred to as "verbose"...I vaguely thought that Reppert was one of the more thoughtful apologists. Either he's changed since 2009 (it's possible) or he seems depressingly uninteresting after seeing this post.
WinteryKnight gives a quick thought HERE but I'm including this because of what he says about the 2004 Carrier-Licona debate. WK said that Carrier "either won or tied" the debate...Well I've said a number of times that if you see someone like WK say a Christian vs [insert someone disagreeing with WK] was a tie then that usually means that the non-Christian won. But either won or tied!?! Jeez WK might as well stop calling yourself a believer after such a concession.
Ben from War on Error reviews the debate HERE and makes me jealous of not having my own picture with WLC.
I'd frame the photo.
A list of mini-reviews of Craig's debates can be found here!
*I don't mean this in a "get a load of this guy" way, in this more recent debate he mentions that there's a drinking game people play when listening to his debates. Whenever Carrier plugs his books you take a drink.
A Note on Craig's Scholarly Consensus Source
From what I've looking into it would almost seem like Carrier was being generous to Craig in assuming he cited Habermas for such a claim. Because as far as I can tell the citation is pretty old. Craig responds to this criticism, though HERE.
The question points out that the source is from 1977 which is ancient. It also argues that Kremer recently changed his mind based on an interview Kremer had with some student. Craig spends most of his answer talking about how the student mistranslated some German words and confused Kremer's theological views on the resurrection with his historical views. He also says the interview isn't credible.
He then goes on to claim that it appears Kremer hasn't changed his mind and his focus on this issue almost seemed especially drawn out so as to avoid some pretty big problems that still rest in this citation:
1. It's still really freaking old, and Craig even mentions that Kremer has actually died in 2010; and
2. MAYBE you can get away with doing this in print but in a public debate it is beyond cheap to cite a 1977 book written only available in German. ESPECIALLY for one of the claim and especially if a subsequent article has been published on the topic.
Revisions 8-26-2015Lots of added stuff. Lots of editorial changes too. Lots of lotsa. Didn't change the score on this one however so I guess that shows how this debate ages well.
This debate ( audio | video | transcript | 2:15 ) took place in 2011 between Craig and English Philosopher Stephen Law. The question was: Does God Exist? 4.25 stars: Law gives a good show considering his more subtle style, making for a more fulfilling debate experience.
As you can see...a lot of people had a lot of opinions on this debate.
This debate at first annoyed me and I put off finishing it. I am so used to Craig's debating style and find it to be pretty persuasive sounding. A perk of this style is that if the opponent doesn't follow the same style or isn't as structured/organized, then they usually come off weaker. In essence, Craig is great at framing the debate - he's great at guiding the format in his favor. This is pretty effective because it meant that I immediately became disgruntled when Law started his presentation.
However after looking over all the reviews of this debate I was surprised by how many thought Law came out on top. Even theists thought Craig dropped the ball on this one. There wasn't even the usual qualifying that Craig sounded better or was more organized, either. So I listened to the debate again and came to the conclusion that Law (without some faults, or course) pulled ahead in this one.
But how?
First I'll explain what I didn't like about the debate when I first heard it. Law mumbles so much. I was listening to the debate in the car and could barely hear him. So this bugged me and of course I couldn't hear everything he said. Also, Law didn't address Craig's arguments in a structured manner. And Craig actually narrowed his arguments down to just three, something I am sure people like Carrier or Craig's resurrection-debate opponents would have killed for.
But then I re-listened to the debate and went through JJ Lowder's review of the debate and, more important to changing my mind, the comments in that review, specifically Keith Parsons' comments.
The debate was on the existence of god. It wasn't specifically on the existence of the Christian god. Craig often employs the following clever maneuver (terms Tooley): Craig presents arguments to support the existence of the Christian God or a theistic concept of God (KCA, FTA, Ontological Argument, DCT, the resurrection, and personal experience) but will retreat to claiming he is defending a more vague conception of God in light of his opponent's arguments. He contends that it's a cumulative case in total, that taken together, his argument supports the existence of a God and that said deity is the Christian God.
Now, Law's entire presentation rested on presenting his articulation of the evidential problem of evil and then busting out his Evil God Challenge. In short, any arguments that support the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, and all-good god can just as easily be used to support the existence of an evil god.
Basically, after hearing this argument, it appears that Law has given us a nice and simple argument we can make to render the apologists' arguments that attempt to prove the existence of some generic deity. This is because the KCA, FTA, all that stuff, who's to say that such a celestial being guiding it isn't just a total douche? Well, theists do have arguments that attempt to say such a being isn't a douche, but they're pretty lame. That's unfortunate, however, because the EGC means that those are the arguments the theist have to rely on.
Now this argument is slightly less forceful sounding against the vague philosopher's god, than it is for the Christian god. Craig knows this and that's why he does the clever slide mentioned earlier. However, Law is pretty steadfast in his claims throughout the debate. Several times he mentions that Craig has failed to account for key points made in the EGC and he even presents a pretty good, if a bit belated and simplistic criticism of the resurrection. He also gives a good argument against Craig's moral argument, though I think he could have spent a bit more time on it.
Craig just seemed a bit perplexed after his first rebuttal, too. As the debate went on, he kept upping the rhetoric, saying several times that Law's form of atheism is unworthy of the title if it's fine with positing the existence of a creator being behind the cosmos that might be good, evil or indifferent. However it started to become comical that Law came back to his make his responses seemingly uninterested in addressing Craig's criticism.
Ultimately though, Law probably would have came off a lot stronger if he made it more explicit that Christians (at least those that Craig is arguing for) are required to reject the idea of an evil god as absolutely absurd. If you read the reviews I posted, a lot of people didn't understand how Craig screwed himself over. I didn't even, at first and it wasn't until I gave the debate a second try that it became a bit more obvious. But it isn't a great public debate strat to debate for people who have the time to relisten to it again and again.
But one last thing that made Law come off strong was that Craig didn't perform with his normal A-game. He made a few mistakes and came off as unable to address certain points. Specifically, he spent too much time on his weird animal suffering views and as always, he floundered in the more informal Q&A part of the debate. This last part was pretty crucial because it was pretty long and unstructured. It was moderated by Justin Brierley, who pretty much moderated the way he does on his Unbelievable radio show. Informal debate would seem to be the bane of Craig...though to be fair, I should listen to more of Craig's informal debates to officially conclude that.
So there you have it, I'd say Law came out stronger than Craig but that he could have done more damage and been more rhetorically persuasive.
Technical: Great AQ and I am sure the VQ is pretty good, too.
A list of mini-reviews of Craig's debates can be found here!
Edits 7-20-2013: I decided that Law's style caused me to think so much that it should get a .25 higher score. 8-4-2015 Tightened the review up and took it out of the drafts grave in my blogger dashboard.
The guy had a gnarly beard...and interesting ties.
Ridic update March 26, 2019.
Specifically the top 15 debates have changed significantly. I can't believe I was complimentary to Sam Harris...
Purpose
Craig is a formidable debate opponent and I agree with Luke Muehlhauser, (RIP CommonSenseAtheism.com) overall assessment of WLC. LM made me realize WLC is who I should pay attention to if I want to improve my own debate-game, especially the concise, accessible delivery of potentially heavy philosophical concepts.
Below is my version of LM's WLC debate mini-reviews page here.
Craig was did high school debate and earned a BA in communications he started his apologist career/earned a degree in philosophy. He's also been running essentially the same arguments for theism/the resurrection since the 80s that he's plateaued on refining them probably around the mid-90s...this is why I almost never listen to his openings anymore.
Instead, the best parts of WLC's presentation are his rebuttals and conclusions. in his rebuttal periods and conclusions. Craig has a gift for condensing complex points and arguments into short and easily digestible statements and keeping responses relevant to the topic and his opponent's responses. WLC also mangles his opponents argumentatively and rhetorically and won't shy away from slamming them when they make mistakes.
I agree that WLC will make assertions without support or bolding float the most ridiculous arguments/support for his positions but so do his opponents a lot of the times. What gives WLC the edge is I can count on him to call out his opponent on such things AND do so in an easy to understand manner - something I rarely see his opponents do.
Craig against Michael Tooley...look at all those notes Craig has! Plus he uses ppt. The man is a machine.
WLC also does his homework and it's clear a lot of time is placed into his presentations, even if he uses the same arguments he uses relativizes them to whoever he's debating.
Since the early 90s he's been a barracuda, and now that the internet has made his debates more accessible it might be the case that he'll receive more challenging opponents, but the bulk of his debates since 2011 have been obvious wins for WLC, even now in 2019.
So here's my mini-reviews of WLC's debates, mostly video/audio debates, though. I'm sticking with LM's categories and naming format.
The debates are in this rough order: best to worst. For example, the first debate listed in the Ugly section is the least ugly debate. CHECK the bottom of the post for updates!
The Good
1. Arif Ahmed vs WLC 2005 Is Belief in God More Reasonable Than Disbelief? (video | review | 1h 50m 24s) | LM's rating: Bad Ahmed knows how to condense his arguments and lucidly discuss them, but he is also very impassioned and charming so he has good rhetoric. Two things stood out in his performance: his example against the resurrection and reply to Craig's argument that atheists cannot condemn the atrocities of the bible or religious folk if they cannot ground objective moral values.
Two of the three arguments against theism Ahmed gives are ones I still put forward (Burden of proof argument and the POE...so I'll be a bit safer and give Law's POE which is the evidential version) but his third argument seemed awkward which made his case a bit minimalist when compared to the more intense case for theism WLC gives. Some of Ahmed's responses might have seemed too dismissive, or in need of expansion.
But it's Ahmed's ability to straightforwardly present the topics and the fact that he keeps up his end of the debate, i.e., he calls WLC out when he dropped arguments and does much better than others when it came to hammering WLC on the sketchier claims and arguments he'll usually get away with.
2. Stephen Law vs Craig 2011 Does God Exist? (audio | video | review| 2h 3m 37s) | LM's rating: Unrated
The more I listen to this debate the more I think it's a clear loss for WLC...though I won't disagree with the fact that WLC probably won the audience over.
Law gives the evidential problem of evil followed by his Evil God Challenge which he uses to undermine many of the classic theodicies theists use and WLC employs as well.
Law's response to Craig's moral argument was great though. WLC gets away with presenting a lame evolution-fanboy based morality as the default atheist moral system and Law is one of the few to call Craig out for acting like Law held such a position. I also enjoyed his point about moral intuitionism (Craig's some things are wrong "and deep down we all know it" schtick), too. If we just went with all our intuitions we'd think the Earth didn't spin 1000 mph because I don't feel like I'm traveling that fast.
This debate has gone from almost the bottom-middle of the Bad section to Top Ten. I listen to it a lot, it really is a great one.
3. Walter Sinnott-Armstrong vs Craig 1999 Problem of Evil (audio | video | review | 1h 25m 57s) | LM's rating: Good (though he's referring to their book more so...)
WLC was fighting against a few handicaps in this one: had a bit of a handicap in this one: S-A went first - which is rare for a Craig 'bate - it was a more informal setting, S-A had time to undermine WLC's usual rebuttal strats like saying "my opponent didn't respond to x and/or y argument..." during the dialogue portion, and the topic was specific to the problem of evil. I wish Craig was more open to doing informal debate events and at the same time remember why it is that he isn't too fond of them.
4. Keith Parsons vs Craig 1998 Why I am/am not a Christian (1st Debate) (audio | video 1 & 2 | review | 2h 11m 50s) | Luke's rating: Good
This is the one debate I can say, hands down, that Craig lost. Parsons had Craig on every argument and is a fun speaker - lots of passion. Parsons also kept up with Craig, though he isn't as polished. The topic limited Craig a little more though, he wasn't able to give the larger case he usually offers, busting out the KCA, MA and FTA and Parsons even nailed Craig on using his personal experience argument in a great way. Craig got a HUGE laugh from the audience at one point, it was too much, but Parsons recovered and definitely came away from this one as the victor.
5. Sean Carroll vs Craig 2014 God and Cosmology
(audio | video | review | 1hr40min)
Sean Carroll is pretty impressive in this debate. Craig had everything going for him in this debate but Carroll was extremely well-prepared, charming, and was able to meet WLC with an equally impressive ability to pack a lot of content into short response times. WLC says something like "Wow one feels like they're drinking from a firehose" in response to SC around the end and I've only heard him say that to Parsons. If WLC says something like that, then you know you've made him work for his supper.
6. Shelly Kagan vs Craig 2009 Is God Necessary for Morality? (audio | video | review | 1h 30m 15s) | LM's rating: Good?
Kagan is another guy who comes out of nowhere and devastates Craig. Besides the fact that Kagan knows his stuff, argues against the points made by Craig, and presents a positive case for morality without god, this is one of the refreshing examples of a debate WLC wasn't able to get away with the usual assertions and sketchy arguments.
This is another debate where WLC had some handicaps going against him: Kagan went first, it was more informal, and it seemed like WLC was unsure of what he was supposed to prepare for format-wise...he even says he winged his closing remarks. It also seems like WLC prepared to take on the moral position Kagan is known for supporting in the literature/academically and floundered when he found himself taking on contractarianism instead.
7. Cavin vs Craig 1995Resurrection (audio | review| 1h 33m 20s) | Luke's rating: Bad (though interesting)
Another debate I like more and more with each new listen. Cavin gives a pretty brutal opening making arguments I find myself relying on more and more, too. Cavin drops the ball on a couple things though and this isn't helped by how well Craig does in the rebuttal periods. I think Cavin gives a great opening and his rebuttals get weaker and weaker to the conclusion (he just kind of finishes what seems like a single presentation from the last rebuttal to his conclusion which looks impotent to WLC's strats and brutal conclusions AND Cavin runs out of time in his conclusion). Another thing Cavin never makes crystal clear for the audience is the nature of his Jesus twin hypothesis. Cavin makes the case that even something as highly improbable as Jesus dying and having a twin he never knew of faking the crucifixion Jesus stuff is still more probable than the resurrection case WLC gives but he only really says this once and buried in language that makes it sound like he's conceding to WLC that his hypothesis sucks. Craig has no problem framing the debate that way for the audience too. Take this quote from Craig's closing:
"[Given all the ad hoc BS Cavin has to dish out to save his twin hypothesis] I think this shows the extremity of the lengths to which you have to go in order to deny the resurrection of Jesus.
If this is what we're led to by denying the resurrection, then if I were a non-Christian I would be shaken to the soles of my shoes by this demonstration.
[Audience cheers while hotties throw panties at WLC on stage at this part.]
Is this what I got to believe to deny the resurrection?!"
I doubt WLC would have gotten away with this even in front of an audience of undergrads. 8. Raymond Bradley vs Craig 1995 God and Hell (audio | video | review | 1h 15m 16s | Luke's rating: Good
This is another one where Craig pretty much lost. To be fair, it's a hard argument to counter: how can a loving god send people to Hell and WLC was going against something rare: a prepared opponent. Bradley did his homework. This one gets pretty technical; they talk about possible worlds, free will, compossible sets.... I'm still not sure if Craig's right that heaven isn't a pw, or if he conceded the point or managed to slip away from being called out on it. This debate was a little short but it emphasized cross-examination - the bane of WLC. I agree with Luke that Bradley's concluding speech was especially weak, unfortunately.
9. Austin Dacey vs Craig 2005 Does God Exist? (2nd Debate) (audio | video | review | 2h 8m 11s) | Luke's rating: Good
Dacey does better here, he sounds a little less meek (compared to his 2004 debate with Craig). They do cover the same ground in the debate they had the year prior (listed below), but Dacey is able to address Craig's arguments a bit more because he consolidated his time a little better. The thing is that Craig actually does pretty well too, his first rebuttal is especially brutal and sometimes you wish Dacey would be a bit more punchy about some things but he remains pretty demure, instead. 10. Tooley vs Craig 2010 Is God Real? (audio | video | review | over 2hrs) | Luke's rating: Unrated Tooley does a good job of explaining Craig's debate MO and even has Craig on the ropes a few times. What I mean by this is that you can tell Craig is working for his supper when he goes past the clock. The bummer is that Tooley's own arguments seemed really technical and it was obvious that Craig knew the audience probably felt so, as well. Craig plays that issue up in his responses and Tooley doesn't sound as forceful as one would hope. Two things that stand out are that Tooley does a good job of pointing out how Craig hasn't taken the time to address better, non-theistic accounts of morality and drawing attention to Craig's slide from defending the Christian god to defending a more generic philosophers' god.
I would suggest checking this one out and would also mention that I am probably gonna give it another listen.
Keith Parsons vs Craig 2002 Does God Exist? (2nd Debate)
This debate is a damaged mess that a friend sent me and only the openings and Q&A are intact. Parson's opening speech is nearly flawless, however and one of Craig's rebuttals is complete and at least three of Parson's points remain unaddressed and obviously so, which is a rare feat. Further evidence that this was a good debate is that Craig starts one of his rebuttals off by saying "it feels as if I've been drinking from a fire hose tonight!" in response to one of Parson's rebuttals.
He says this for his debate against Carroll and it seems like a good sign. Parsons has since said he felt he did well in the debate and JJ Lowder concurs.
The U of I Cru copyright people won't let me get the debate and it's such a shame! I almost got an mp3 CD of it but never heard back. It's been months. I don't care, I'll email them again. They have to at least make it available on their site!
Hector Avalos vs Craig 2004 Resurrection ( audio | video | review| 1h 59m 57s ) | Luke's rating: Bad, though it sounds like he liked it when he interviewed Avalos.
Here both parties do well content-wise but suffer from poor form. Craig starts with a 5 minute attack on Avalos for arguments he made in a previous debate and Avalos' language sounded like he was attacking Craig rather than Craig's arguments.
Avalos does get specific in this one and he uses arguments that had Craig scrambling while also making arguments that Craig weakly answers. But he doesn't address Craig's arguments as explicitly as Craig, something which Craig calls out several times.
Also, despite Craig opening with a cheap shot, he just does really well in this debate, IMO. This is one of Craig's best performances. Harris vs Craig 2011 God without God? (audio | video | review| 2h 3m 46s) | Luke's rating:Ithink "Ugly"...
So Sam Harris is boring, a poor reasoner, and really whiny. The fact that people think his moral philosophy is something to take seriously staggers me.
This debate is a good debate but I'm all on WLC's side for this one. WLC mangles Harris in the debate. He quotes Harris, cites brutal critiques of Harris, quotes Jerry Fodor, and offers his own arguments against specific pieces of garbage Harris asserts in his book the Moral Landscape. It's great.
Harris seemed almost insistent on giving a crappy performance here. I wonder if that's how he approaches other things in life...
Stenger v Craig 2003 Is There a God? (1st Debate) ( audio | video | review| 2h 32m 55s )| Luke's rating: Good
Stenger does the best job of showing the flaws in Craig's arguments concerning more mathy and sciency topics. Like Luke says, he doesn't let Craig get away with nearly as much stuff as he does in his other debates. Stenger also sounds very laid back and his arguments are pretty straight forward/interesting, especially his analogy about logical consistency and video games.
Craig comes off stronger in this one because of his rebuttal-game, however.
Eddie Tabash vs Craig 1999 Secular Humanism vs Christianity ( audio | video | review| 1h 42m 10s) | Luke's rating: Good
Tabash
had Craig flip a coin to see who went first and
won. Tabash comes out like a hurricane and he quotes Craig a lot from his previous debates. Such a tactic and the fact that Tabash really drove home the immorality of the Bible made it so Craig barely kept up. Craig had to address a lot of issues about Biblical atrocities that he usually gets away with avoiding, something which resulted in him wasting a lot of time and making some pretty terrible sounding arguments.
Tabash
does a good job keeping Craig on the ropes but doesn't really support his own position: Secular Humanism, something Craig calls attention to. The Bad Bart Ehrman vs Craig 2006 Resurrection (audio | video | review | 1h 54m 56s)| Luke's rating: Bad because...
Ehrman is full of passion about the topic and keeps his case nice and simple. He's one of the few debaters to really grill Craig for avoiding the issue of biblical inerrancy - in a way that doesn't sound borderline ad hom. He also presents scenarios accounting for the empty tomb that're more plausible than godidit - scenarios which are weakly dismissed by Craig. Craig also spends a bit too much time trying to explain Bayes Theorem that Ehrman promptly rejects.
Pigliucci v Craig 2001 Does the Christian God Exist? ( audio | video | review | 2h 34m 48s ) | Luke's rating: Unrated
Great debate. Both guys do a great job and Pigliucci really nails home the idea that Craig agreed to defend the Christian god so Craig couldn't fall back on hoping the audience gets the impression that when he uses the KCA, FTA and MA, he's not only presenting evidence for a generic god or gods, but for the Christian god. Pigliucci's morality argument is a bit weird or poorly relayed, though.
This debate is pretty fun too, lots of Q&A at the end with good back and forth. Draper vs Craig 1997 The Existence of God ( audio | video | review | 1h 26m 25s ) | Luke's rating: Bad
This
debate is pretty decent, though a little short. Draper, officially an agnostic, brings up great arguments and sticks with them as well as sticks to
calling Craig out on things. The main issue is that despite presenting wonderful and damning phil articles, Draper's public debate-game is pretty mild.
So in the end, Draper ultimately doesn't come out as strong
as he probably would have if given more time and if debating against only the
Christian god. His positive case for naturalism is one of the more cogent and explicit ones that I have come across, however.
Price vs Craig 1999Resurrection ( audio | video | review | 2h 32m 20s ) | Luke's rating: Good
Price
has a pretty no-BS first speech, but it mostly attacks Craig's
apologetic motives and barely touches on the topic. Despite showing the
dishonest goals of Craig's exegeses, Craig was still able to dismiss this assault by
showing how it is irrelevant to the debate.
Furthermore, Price doesn't
follow it up too much and stays on topic for the rest of the debate
making you wonder how much better he would have done if he shortened
his criticism of Craig in his first speech and gave more arguments
relevant to the debate topic. He certainly has Craig jumping through hoops in the rebuttal periods but Craig definitely swayed the audience. Another kind of bummer with this was the Q&A in which Price really demonstrated his ability to dismantle the common apologetic line. But Price definitely had the odds against him getting skewered by the questioners and was followed up by Craig getting a bunch of softball questions and getting the last word...He gets to open debates and close them? Bummer City.
I think Carrier did better than he and others thought, but he still let Craig get away with too many things. Craig was also smarmy-er than usual in this one. Carrier runs out of time due to being flustered and not organizing his points enough, something you simply can't do against Craig.
This one is better than what others have said about it though, that's for sure. Carrier's first speech was just about flawless and he definitely was able to clarify a few things in the Q&A section.
It's a shame that Craig won't debate him again.
Crossley vs Craig 2007 Resurrection ( audio | video | review | length ) | Luke's rating: Bad
Crossley does well, especially at first. He has a good opening and gets the audience on his side. He went with a more humorous approach but kind of dropped it in response to Craig's rebuttals.
Again, the more content-dense presentations and organized structure of Craig's arguments has him pulling ahead. Craig's ability to give more specific and relevant arguments that cite the work of his opponents is very impressive and it is so rare that you hear his opponents do the same that it becomes frustrating.
Of course Crossley is an academic in the field so it's easier to find his work and cite it in ways that could work to one's agenda, where as most of Craig's work is already written in an apologetic format. It is easier to find things in the former that would be difficult to respond to in a debate format than in the latter, the latter is already written to conform to such a format! Brown vs Craig 2009Does God Exist?? ( audio | review| 2h 9m 37s ) | Luke's rating: Bad
Brown starts off with a rambling opening speech. It seems like he knows what he's talking about, but he just wasn't sure what kind of debate he was in for with Craig. When Craig throws down in his first rebuttal, Brown figures it out and comes back and does a good job. He's just not focused enough to handle Craig and engages with the arguments too late in the game, however.
Dacey vs Craig 2004Does God Exist? (1st Debate) ( audio | video | review| 1h 59m 33s ) | Luke's rating: Good
Dacey is a little more timid than he is in the debate he had with Craig a year later. He still gives a good show, addresses almost all of Craig's arguments and gives positive arguments for atheism. This one is barelyyyyy bad...maybe it should be labeled a good debate...I should give it another listen.
Hoover vs Craig 2008Resurrection ( audio | video | review | 2h 1m 46s ) | Luke's rating: Bad
Hoover does a solid job of showing how the resurrection of someone as a concept isn't as amazingly radical (to contemporary Jews) and as groundbreaking as apologists make it out to be. But Craig is too organized and gives too many arguments for Hoover to keep up with.
I mention the resurrection in Jewish thought thing because in other debates Craig tries to show how referring to other religions having resurrection stories is irrelevant to the "very Jewish" Jesus story, but instead Craig notes that all the resurrections Hoover refers to, show a reliance on a bodily resurrection. Heads I win, tails you lose. This eliminates the spiritual resurrection argument from Hoover's debate repertoire. CURSES!*
Hoover also squanders his cross-examination time, which is a shame because that and Q&A are when Craig is at his weakest.
*7-25-2015: I forgot that I had an issue with this and see here that I don't explain it too well...Now I can't figure it out from what past-Joe wrote as it kind of makes no sense. I'll come back to it eventually.
Ahmed & Copson vs Craig & Williams 2011 Is God a Delusion? ( audio | video | review| 1h 31m 11s ) | Luke's rating: Unrated
I'm
not sure where to put this as it was more of a debate between Copson
and Williams. Ahmed and Craig don't really come in until the end and
don't say all too much. Ahmed and Copson come off as charming whereas I
can only remember Williams giving a weird analogy about socks and Craig
having to deal with rather lame questions from the floor.
I guess I do know where to put it, in the bad section. It seems like such a waste, too.
Antony vs Craig 2008 Is God Necessary for Morality? ( audio 1 & 2 | video | review | length ) | Luke's rating: Ugly
Antony
does a decent job of explaining how there are ways we can come up
with a moral framework without relying on the supernatural, but she
doesn't bring anything too explicit to the table (like Kagan) and it comes off as too obvious that
she is reading from a script. That isn't a bad thing, but it doesn't look too hot when compared to Craig. Ultimately, her speeches sound more like lectures and she is just too vague.
Stenger vs Craig 2010 The Existence of God (2nd Debate) ( audio | video | review| 2h 12m 11s ) | Luke's rating: Unrated
Stenger does alright in this one. He doesn't seem as organized as he is in their 2003 debate. Stenger especially becomes scattered in his closing speech, however. Overall, just a disappointing debate.
The Ugly
Shook vs Craig 2008The Existence of God ( audio | video | review | 2h 18m 26s ) | Luke's rating: Bad Shook
certainly had Craig fighting for the audience's favor and was pretty zingy, but
he just didn't really present his arguments or counter Craig's arguments
too clearly. They were also kind of weak and uninspired. During the cross-ex Craig seemed flustered and timid despite the fact that some of the things Shook mentioned at times sounded non-sequitur.
Shook would also take awhile to say something that shouldn't take
all that long, especially when answering a question near the end about
certainty and testing.
Pyle vs Craig 2007 Does the Christian God Exist? ( audio | video | review | length ) | Luke's rating:Unrated
This debate was supposed to be about Christianity, specifically, but Craig gets away with simply arguing for the generic philosopher's god. He's more organized and Pyle refuses to offer any positive cases for atheism/naturalism.
Pyle does get Craig on one thing and he really slams him about it, it's too bad that it gets lost in all the other arguments because Craig responds to it miserably, I mean miserably. But like I mentioned, it gets lost amongst the other arguments. Here's a link to what the argument discussed.
Hitchens vs Craig+EVERYONE 2009 ( audio | video | review | length ) | Luke's rating: Unrated
Craig is barely in this one, it's all Hitch's show. When Craig does come in, he seems more like the fatherly voice of logic between the polemical Hitch, the bizarre arguments of the moderator, Doug Wilson and the other forgettable apologists.
Craig does come in at the end and gets all condescending about Hitch not answering all the arguments and says he should prepare more in their up coming debate. Shame on Hitch!...for not answering all the arguments brought up by five different opponents in less than 90 minutes...Craig says something like, "I noted that there are 10 arguments Christopher wasn't able to address..." oh come on...
Millican vs Craig 2011 Does God Exist? ( audio | video | review | 2h 23m 19s ) | Luke's rating: Unrated
Millican
is definitely new to this debate schtick but he has a decent opening
and, though weakly, counters several of Craig's arguments. But alas, he, like
many others, just can't keep up. An interesting side note: Millican gets pretty passionate
during the Q&A about evolution. Maybe cause Craig wants to debate biologists so much (Dawkins and Coyne),
he should face someone who at least has such a passion for the topic,
like Millican if they're not taking him up on his offers.
Slezak vs Craig 2008? Atheism v Christianity ( audio | video | review | 1h 28m 19s ) | Luke's rating: Bad
Slezak starts off strong but Craig is in good form for this debate. If it is the case that Slezak wasn't wishy-washy about his position on evidence against the existence of god, then Craig sure was convincing in arguing that he was.
Slezak just loses steam as the debate continues, he's a decent speaker though, which was such a shame.
Wolpert vs Craig 2009 Is God a Delusion? ( audio | video | review | 1h 47m 56s ) | Luke's rating: Ugly
Wolpert is all over the place in his first speech. When Craig slams him in the rebuttal Wolpert sounds down-right amazed and befuddled and just couldn't keep up and organize a defense or an offense. Another debate where someone lectures and the other guy debates. DiCarlo vs Craig 2009 Does God Matter? ( audio | video | review | 1h 38m 32s) | Luke's rating: Ugly
I agree with Luke, this debate was a mess. It was nice to hear Craig change up his schtick due to the different debate topic, but DiCarlo is just an awful debater and doesn't bring anything interesting to the table. DiCarlo drops the ball in another debate against other apologists, despite even having Matt Dillahunty on his side.
Rosenberg vs Craig 2013
Is Faith in God Reasonable? ( audio | video | review| length ) | Luke's rating: Unrated
Craig gives eight arguments for this debate! Eight! I don't see why, considering Rosenberg just had no idea what he was doing and kept trying to shame Craig about something concerning the Holocaust for some reason.
This debate was brutal.
Barrier v Craig 2000 Does God Exist? ( audio | video | review | 1h 30m 14s ) | Luke's rating: Ugly
Barrier only superficially touches Craig's arguments. Another agreement with Luke: Craig walks all over Barrier and Barrier just gets more frazzled and less coherent as the debate continues. Painful to listen to.
Dawkins, Shermer & Ridley v Craig, Geivett & Wolpe 2010 Does the Universe have Purpose? ( audio | video | review |1h 43m 28s ) | Luke's rating: Unrated This debate is all over the place. I only listened to it cause it semi-fulfilled Craig's dream: a debate with Dawkins.
The debate blew. The topic was stupid, the parameters were stupid, only the theists really touched on the stupid topic and it was short as hell, too.
The only kinda interesting thing was the questions from other noted folk that attended the conference, but they all sounded like they just wanted to give good soundbites and make catchy zingers. Bleh.
Zindler v Craig 1993 Atheism v Christianity ( audio | video | review | 2h 17m 32s ) | Luke's rating: Bad
Zindler gets slapped around in this debate. Craig has a bit more spit and vinegar in him in this one too so that doesn't help. He's also got a pretty heavy home court advantage and he is certainly able to take advantage of his audience with his statements concerning evolution and defining atheism. You can tell he is just trying to please the crowd when he makes fun of Zindler for musing on the existence of the three wise men in the nativity story, one that is rejected by most scholars...God impregnating a virgin with his son who is also god so he is also the father - that's perfectly reasonable. Three wise men visiting a manger a long time ago? Get real!
Crossan v Craig 1995 Resurrection ( audio | video | review | length ) | Luke's rating: Ugly
Again, I agree with Luke on this one. Crossan definitely came to the debate to lecture. What is worse is that Crossan is very incoherent, as well. He's absolutely scattershot, talks generally, and gives confusing presentations. Craig isn't too great in this debate either, he tries to paint Crossan into the naturalist corner throughout the debate and where a more sharp opponent would call Craig out on this, Crossan just muddles through his vague, wishy-washy view on theism. Maybe Craig knew that Crossan would miserably respond to his accusations? It still seemed like such a waste.
This debate was moderated by Bill Buckley Jr, too. The guy is certainly eloquent and sharp but his absolute reverence for god is kind of off-putting and certainly doesn't help in his ability to moderate. I don't mind if a mod is biased but they should still do their job and make sure the discussion is moving and not getting bogged down. Way too much time was spent on rather stupid questions like whether or not god existed during the Jurassic period...
Lawrence Krauss vs Craig 2011 Is there Evidence for God?
( audio | video )
I avoided this debate because of the review of it on APF. Krauss is merely petulant and uninteresting. Several times throughout the debate he assures us that Craig is wrong about something but gets too whiny to actually get around to showing exactly how that is.
I listened to this one to gear up for the more notorious later debates he has with Craig in 2013. I wish Craig could take back a crappy debate and replace it with another rematch instead...So rather than having three miserable debates against Lawrence Krauss, why not another Ahmed, Ehrman, Parsons, Carrier, and Carroll debate? Hell, give Loftus a chance instead...Whatever Craig calls upon to justify not debating those people* can't be more discerning than dealing with Krauss for four debates, right?
*Ahmed, Parsons, and Carroll I think Craig has no problems with, but I have heard tell that he won't debate Carrier again, will never debate Loftus, and I think there's something between him and Ehrman...not sure.
Discussion
Superficial observation
I've heard enough of these to have a hypothesis for how to tell if Craig is up against a challenging opponent. Craig is a great speaker and debater. One of his pieces of advice for debating is that you have to watch the clock and kept that in mind.
In the good Craig debates two things relating to his appreciation of timed debate are evident. One is that the mod will have to warn Craig his time is up and he'll have to quickly summarize. This happened in his debates with Parsons, Avalos, and Tooley. Lesser instances have occurred, like in the Parson's debate, Craig had to end a rebuttal on a specific claim Parsons made rather than what he usually does, which is reiterate his main position.
The second thing is that Craig will actually comment on the speed and amount of content delivered by his opponent in their previous presentation. In the Carroll debate, Craig states, "Perhaps you feel like you have been drinking from a fire hose this evening!" for example. He says the same thing in the 2nd Parsons debate. Less obviously, he started the Tabash debate by quipping "Wow, you'd think he didn't like me?"
Other examples of this second thing are in the Carroll, Tooley, and kinda in the Ehrman debates. In those debates he's actually noted some point brought up by his opponent but won't address them, qualifying that it was because his opponent went through it too quickly that he wasn't sure if he got it all or that his opponent brought up so much stuff in general that he's not sure if he addressed it all.
Concluding Thoughts
I do not think that Craig is as formidable as Luke and others claim he is - nor do I think he's won nearly all his debates. But as you can see from the above posts, I do think he is a very formidable opponent who has bested even some of my favorite atheist thinkers (example: Hitch and Carrier).
Craig's debate style (aside from the more slippery maneuvers he utilizes) is also very impressive. It's one that I hope will inform the presentations I would make in future debates, e.g. always going first, keeping your opponent on the defensive, calling your opponent out on not addressing all of your arguments and having a denser presentation wrt content are very successful avenues to travel towards winning a debate - and Craig makes sure to always do these things.
Now, does that mean that Craig's arguments are right? No. Does that mean Craig has won most of his debates? No. Does it mean that Craig is a person who holds a worldview that we should all admire? Gods no. He's still fun to listen to, though!
I'm also not the only one who's reviewed a buttload of Craig debates, here's a few links:
Ed Turner of MSP isn't as impressed with Craig as Luke or others are.
Damion at APF is a little more charitable towards Craig's opponents.
Wintery Knight thinks that all Christians, ESPECIALLY Craig win all their debates, ever. I'll make a general comment about Christians that I am willing to take back if someone deems it as too much of a generalization: It's pretty rare that Christians will flat out say an apologist lost a debate. In fact, it seems that if you see a Christian reviewer saying the debate was a tie, that usually means that the apologist lost. With WK in particular, if you see him saying an atheist was respectful and on point and non-combative then that's a good sign that they think the apologist dropped the ball. He says this in his reviews for the Kagan, Sinnott-Armstrong, and Carroll debates. Why do I think this? Because in the debates where the atheist opponent is still respectful and on point, but gives a weak performance, he's perfectly cool with being uninterestingly mean-spirited, dismissive and snide towards the guy.
The Unseen
The
following are debates that I have yet to listen to or watch. Some of
them have been reviewed by Luke. Some of the above debates and those
below might come up in a post if I feel they need more commentary. Be
sure to check the reviews I link to for those debates I have already
reviewed to see more of my thoughts and links to other reviews!
Kurtz v Craig ( audio | video | review | length ) | Luke's rating: Bad
Desouza v Craig ( audio | video | review | length ) | Luke's rating: Bad
Hardin v Craig ( audio | video | review | length ) | Luke's rating: Ugly
Ludemann v Craig 1997 Resurrection (1st Debate) ( audio | video | review | length ) | Luke's rating: Ugly Atkins v Craig 1998 What's the Evidence For/Against God? (1st Debate) ( audio | video | review | length ) | Luke's rating: Ugly
Flew v Craig 1998Does God Exist? ( audio | video | review | length ) | Luke's rating: Ugly
Borg v Craig 2001 Resurrection ( audio | video | review | length ) | Luke's rating: Ugly
Ludemann v Craig 2002 Resurrection (2nd Debate) ( audio | video | review | length ) | Luke's rating: Ugly
Spong v Craig 2005 Resurrection ( audio | video | review | length ) | Luke's rating: Ugly
Begon v Craig 2007 G? ( audio | video | review | length ) | Luke's rating:Ugly?
Ayala v Craig 2009 ID ( audio | video | review | length ) | Luke's rating: Ugly?
Hitchens v Craig 2009 G? ( audio | video | review | length ) | Luke's rating: Ugly?
Grayling v Craig 2005 G? PE ( audio | video | review | length ) | Luke's rating: Unrated
Tannsjo v Craig 2009 Moral ( audio | video | review | length ) | Luke's rating: Unrated
Silverman v Craig 2010 G? ( audio | video | review | length ) | Luke's rating: Unrated
Williamson v Craig 2011 G? ( audio | video | review | length ) | Luke's rating: Unrated
Kappel v Craig 2011 G? ( audio | video | review | length ) | Luke's rating: Unrated
Atkins v Craig 2011 G? ( audio | video | review | length ) | Luke's rating: Unrated
Enqvist v Craig 2012 G? ( audio | video | review | length ) | Luke's rating: Unrated
Craig debates I hope to review in the near future
Silverman 2010 - I don't know anything about him as a debater, just that he is known for being the guy in this meme.
UPDATES 7-30-2013; I rushed this post out so I went through and revised a lot of the reviews. 8-13-2013 Reviewed the Zindler debate. 9-19-2013 Reviewed the Crossan, Crossley, Tooley and Pyle debates. Of those guys, Tooley does the best. 7-25-2015 Reviewed the Krauss 2011 and Carroll 2014 debate and did A LOT of clean-up wrt content, formatting, and ranking of debates. 8-4-2015 More revisions here and there and added the Keith Parsons debate I've been sitting on forever. 3-26-2019...so long...I'm an error theorist analytic philosophy obsessed weenie now...
These are the two links I use to get WLC debates: PhilVaz and Apologetics315
