Written Debate - Sinnott-Armstrong vs Craig and Updates

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!

Blake Giunta vs Matt D - Does God Exist - 2015 2nd Debate

This debate ( video | 1:57m ) took place in San Diego, California on October 13, 2015 between Blake Giunta the guy behind the very well presented BeliefMap website and Matt Dillahunty of Atheist Experience fame. The topic was "Does God Exist?" and it was the second debate between the two, the first one I haven't seen.

2 stars: Giunta impressed me in this debate while Dillahunty showed a disinterest in becoming the atheist debater the community needs.

Giunta starts off very strong. He's very outgoing and likeable and correct when he says he makes great powerpoint presentations. In terms of context he's just as strong, starting off by noting that theism isn't a topic left behind in the realms of academic philosophy and that theist philosophers are still generating new arguments demonstrating the existence of God. Of course there are issues with this but it's a solid point that Matt should address: it seems like pop/new atheists are unaware that philosophers are still vigorously discussing theism at least in some academic venues. This is frustrating because despite this being the case, their arguments aren't hard to overcome.

He then does WLC's Kalam Argument and the design fine-tuning argument adding some current quotes and findings. This part comes off well, too. However Giunta ends with a lame argument from intuition. That is, theism intuitively makes sense while atheism does not and this is evidence for God's existence. He gives a few scientific articles as support and the argument is approachable but it's just so obviously weak that such a quality powerpoint presentation seems wasteful.

So Giunta's opening is fairly strong if a bit thin on content. His angle was to defend the philosopher's God - there was no explicit reference to Christianity or anything.

Matt starts out more casually. He was supposed to debate someone else and that fell through and Giunta was cool enough to step in. Dillahunty's opening is a bit muddled and he follows many tangents, which is a shame. For example he mixes religious confusion with divine hiddenness without really making them explicit. He also notes that Giunta was smart in sticking with theism and in order to prove this continues to attack the Christian God wasting more time.

The last part irked me a little because I disagree slightly with Dillahunty's contention that no one has ever tried to defend Christian theism in a debate against him. Usually Christians will bust out the resurrection against Dillahunty and I know for sure that was the whole point of his debates with David Robertson on Unbelievable. The better thing to say is that Christians start off defending Christian theism but usually retreat to a generic theism when they need to.

Anyways, he gets going and argues that theism and supernaturalism have yet to be confirmed through science. And theism has no explanatory power. But the former is emphasized more while the latter needed more elaboration...or should have been emphasized more because I think it's a power point. He goes somewhere with saying how one makes a powerful scientific explanation but doesn't connect things. Ultimately theistic explanations have failed while naturalistic ones have always been successful.

Rebuttals

The first part of Giunta's rebuttal and the ending of it are brutal in the politest way possible. He nails Matt for not defining atheism in a digestible manner. I agree with Giunta that there's more to the definition but don't agree that Matt gave a poor one. The thing is, it seemed as though Giunta put a lot more effort into the issue and Matt was relying on speaking to a friendly crowd.

However the middle part is scattered and he forgets to make clear links to his own case. He also gives a weak response to the Hiddenness argument.

Cross Ex

This part seemed to be a missed opportunity. I was surprised at how well Giunta controlled this part of the debate but that ultimately didn't amount to much. They both got into specifics and it was more casual - which isn't bad, but only is good if it isn't boring. This was boring sans my surprise that Giunta's understanding of the philosophical approach to assessing evidence and explanations.*

Closings

The closings were a bit weird and Giunta kinda showed some poor form by making a new argument to affirm Christianity. Matt again said he didn't prepare a closing and winged it.

Ultimately I'm giving this to Giunta. I don't think that Giunta's case was all that strong, but the fact that it was more fluid, polished, and a bit nuanced helped. What makes him the winner is my frustration with Matt Dillahunty. Dillahunty can be a contender, but it seems like he's not really interested in upping his game.

Debates are hard to prepare for, even ones on topics you're aware of. But if you've been doing this for awhile and have the ability to speak in public as well as Dillahunty then a debate on whether or not God exists shouldn't be too hard to prep at the last minute. The fact that Giunta beat Matt in this debate should be a wake up call. The problem is that I don't think he's gonna hear such criticism. Like the AXP and in many of the debates I have heard Matt engage in he's already established a routine that's catered to preaching to the choir. If you read the comments to the video, this seems to be the sentiment.

A very frustrating debate. Giunta mentioned JJ Lowder in his closing. I wish that dude would debate more.

*There is apparently an exclusive community of theists and atheists who regularly talk about the more advanced topics in the "Great Debate" community that Blake is apart of. Considering the fact that others who told me about this forum are familiar with Greg Dawes and Elliot Sober I am less surprised by Giunta's reference to these ideas. Yes I did feel slick for being invited to the community btw.

This debate ( audio | 1:45m ) for whatever reason isn't on YouTube and only available in rm format HERE. At some point it must have been on YouTube because I have a huge Mp3 file (linked above) of it on my Mp3 player.
 

2 stars: More a set of lectures from two likeable guys but too many drawbacks make me not want to recommend this one. But read McCormick's book!

Each speaker gave a 20 minute opening and then took questions from the audience. It was very light-hearted and more of a lecture-for-the-kids kind of thing.

Both guys are good friends and professors at Sac State in California. A bit after his book, Atheism and the Case Against Christ was released McCormick and DiSilvestro had a bunch of debates with each other on various topics. The more known debate from awhile ago is the one they had on the Resurrection which are reviewed at CommonSenseAtheism HERE and AgnosticPopularFront HERE.

Because McCormick's ACAC is one of the wider-audience atheist books (sans Hitch but that doesn't count) that I really liked a lot AND the case McCormick uses against the Resurrection is also one that I really like, I decided to relisten to this one despite remembering that I didn't really enjoy it.

Unfortunately, I still don't enjoy the debate all too much. As a very causal point-counterpoint set of lectures, this 'bate works a bit better, maybe but even then I felt like something was missing.

DiSilvestro gives a couple of arguments for theism framed in the context of the arguments William Lane Craig gives but unlike Craig, who is an apologist and debate machine, DiSilvestro gives the more moderate case for theism and gives another thoughtful but vague or weak final argument about integrity.

McCormick starts and presents his case in the form of an extended Argument from Divine Hiddenness Case against God. It reminded me of Tooley's single Problem of Evil he gave against WLC in 2010 which was given as a single argument, only with a number of different references to other types of arguments atheists give, only all with respect to the POE. So though McCormick labeled his argument the ADH, it wasn't explicitly that given by JL Schellenberg. Instead it focused on a number of 'hidden' aspects of a theistic deity that shouldn't be hidden. This was followed by a discussion of morality that McCormick really dropped the ball on in terms of his example, which dealt with sex and abortion...This maybe a bit confusing but part way through I kind of forgot why he was talking about this due to cringing so much. Then he discussed how concepts of morality could have arisen through evolution.

There were no rebuttals and the rest of the event was an extended Q&A with thoughtful but not quite the best questions. The thing seemed more like a learning thing, not so much a debate which I like, but it just wasn't all that great or enlightening.

Craig vs Law - Does God Exist? October 2011 CHECK

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.

BEST CHECK

Other Reviews
Hallq discusses the debate
JJ Lowder review: Law won
SkepticInk review: part 1, 2 & 3
WK review: Xians always win
JW Wartick review: Craig won
Almost Atheist review: Craig won
CoaDT review: Craig won?
Randal Rauser review
Think Matters: Craig won
ApologiaPad review: Law won

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.

Max Andrews va Justin Schieber - Existence of the Christian God 2013

This is a different debate ( audio | 1:45.12s ) between Christian Max Andrews and Reasonable Doubt's Justin Schieber. It took place in early August 2013, so I think this is the most current debate I have reviewed on this site. Remember this glorious day, dear reader.

The Debate Begins around 3:40s in.

3.25 stars. Though this debate is lacking in terms of rhetorical interest, it's nonetheless packed with denser arguments given the great format. CHECK

JJ Lowder's reviews 1, 2, 3 & 4.
Counter Apologist review

Besides how recent the debate was, there were a few other reasons why I am reviewing this debate. One is that it isn't between two well known debaters, though I think both guys have done debates and are active on the interbuttz in this topic, especially Schieber.

Another reason that is more interesting is that this isn't a public debate. Instead, both guys recorded and transcribed their openings and responses. The first week they would make their openings available and they would have one week to make a response and some allotted time after that to make another response. It was more akin to the Infidels.org written debates only this time, they also recorded their arguments. The recording that I am linking to is just one response after another, there is a brief opening introducing Andrews. 

This structure is fantastic and I wouldn't mind participating in a debate like this in the future, when I have more time and feel more comfortable with my grasp of all the different arguments. This format also makes the responses way more detailed and packed as the opponents had more time to prepare and rehearse their responses.

But does this work out for an interesting debate? Kinda. I felt that both sides presented rather convoluted arguments that at times seemed like they could have probably been streamlined. Some of the stuff seemed super technical or again, like it was presented in an overly technical just because they had the time to be so rigorous. This is why I am giving the debate a positive review because the arguments were definitely catered for the format I suppose. I highly suggest you read Jeff Lowder's reviews of the debate, he likes reviewing them like a forensic judge and meticulously summarizes the debate as well.

Hmph. I thought I would have more to say about the debate itself but I guess I don't, for now. Sorry folks, maybe I should just solely outsource my review to Lowder...I think the few criticisms I mentioned do make sense, at least.

Tabash v Slick "Does God Exist?" CHECK

This debate ( audio | video | 1h54m46s ) took place in 2009 between Lawyer Eddie Tabash and Apologist Matt Slick. The debate topic was "Does God Exist?" and this isn't the best debate but it certainly was interesting.

3.5 stars. CHECK

The Godless Skeptic review: Tabash won

First I suggest you all read a better written review of the debate here because my reviews aren't nearly as full of content as the ones that I link to (sans the ones to WK which amaze me that someone could write so much summary about a given debate and not follow the arguments presented by anyone he disagrees with).

Matt Slick has some issues. I think he has potential to be a much more formidable apologist but a) he is just wayyy to condescending b) gets too excited about his pet arguments (which aren't that good to begin with) and c) is too whiny. He just comes off as a total douche and though I won't lie, I think he probably is, he probably could still improve his tact.

But I digress, on to the debate: Slick starts out setting up a lot of qualifications in order to ultimately present just one argument (something that is quite obvious, Eddie points out and Slick doesn't deny). Eddie presents his usual stuff, he does ask a lot of questions and says a lot (hence why he came off better against Craig when they debated) but he does make arguments. He argues against divine command theory, divine hiddeness, the argument from design, the argument from fine-tuning and claims of miracles. He further demonstrates how morality based on the bible is demonstrable and subject to varying interpretations that lead to an incoherent worldview.

In the rebuttal period Slick comes out swinging. He flips out on Eddie for not addressing his one argument*, dismisses Eddie's criticisms for the morality of the Christian faith because atheists are morally bankrupt and that the debate is on whether God exists and complains, complains, complains.

Slick keeps mentioning throughout the debate that he's watched Eddie's previous debates, several times, and that he has counted the questions Eddie has asked and that there were just too many. He further suggested that he could answer them all and here is where it gets good: he doesn't. The entire time, Slick relies on complaining that he has debated this stuff for over 30 years, has debated atheists in formal and informal settings and that he totally could answer these questions. If you're so experienced in these addressing these questions then why did you waste yours, Eddie's, the audience's and my time NOT answering them. I mean, Eddie is a lawyer, a part-time judge plus he's active in the atheist community and debates. This is your livelihood, Matt, you make your money defending these superstitious ideas, and like you repeat over and over and over and over in this debate, you've been doing this for a long time.

I'm serious, Slick's whole second rebuttal is complaining about how Eddie asked too many questions and how great of an apologist he is. He addressed one thing: Eddie can't pass judgement on the bible because the atheistic view is morally bankrupt. But what about Hindus? or Buddhists? or Neo-Pagans? If Slick were debating one of them would he deign himself to consider the fact that the bible is an evil and disgusting book? This is a question that I am thinking of asking more seriously, atheists have plenty of moral frameworks they can rely on to pass ethical judgements, too, but can't we just agree with the myriad of others religious views who agree that the bible blows?

Regardless, Slick doesn't even explain why they are morally bankrupt. I mean, I guess he hints at it and because I know the arguments I can put two and two together but seriously, he totally wastes his first rebuttal.

Eddie doesn't. Eddie devastates Slick's opening argument and because Slick was dumb enough to a) only present one argument and b) waste his rebuttal period away complaining about the questions Eddie asked, Eddie has more than enough time to demonstrate how his questions are relevant and need to be answered and explains that he asks them but further answers them himself.

Technical: Good AQ and VQ.

**Matt is good at saying "I'm not saying that X is a Y, but...X is a Y". Several times he said something like that. He said that he wasn't claiming Eddie was trying to deceive, or dupe, anyone but then continued on as if he were saying that anyways.

Craig v Dacey on Does God Exist? 2nd Debate BEST

Make a counterargument cake!

This debate ( audio | 2h08m11s ) took place in 2005 between Craig and Philosopher Austin Dacey with the following debate topic: Does God Exist?

4.5 stars. BEST

PhilVaz 5/5
CSA review: good

This is a better debate than the last, it is longer and both debaters showed that they learned some things from the previous debates. Again I agree with Luke in that this one is better for the couple of reasons.

Dacey's presentations are a little bit more dense in content. Also, Craig does a pretty good job, himself. This is one of his best performances and it is just a bummer* that it happens to be against probably one of his best opponents. Though he was without faults at times - something which probably also lead him to concede at the beginning (a classy move, btw) that Dacey is a tough opponent

Technical
Unlike the previous debate, there is only audio, and it is kind of quiet. A few stutters occur in Craig's first rebuttal, too.

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

*Considering Craig's debate style, I think he wouldn't mind my talking about his debates in such a competitive fashion. I agree that not all debates should be about only scoring points but that's how Craig debates AND that still, isn't a negative view of debates, imo, anyways.

Craig v Brown in 2009

This debate ( audio ) took place in 2009 between Craig and Jim Brown on whether or not God exists...I think.

4 stars.

CSA review: bad
APF review: 4.5/5

I don't have too much to say about this one that hasn't been said in the two reviews I linked to above. I pretty much agree with both of them. Brown does come off as kind of ramble-y in his beginning speech and this always just looks a millions times as bad when up against Craig because of his skill. You gotta give Craig something to counter or he has the playing field to himself.

Brown catches up a little and really handles the Q&A (sans the Behe question, which is a total bummer because it is a pretty weak argument that has been addressed in so many different ways ever since Behe first talked about the flagella). But the questions were all kind of naive, for lack of a better word.

Brown is one of the better debaters against Craig but Craig definitely took the debate.

Technical: Low AQ.

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

Craig vs Stenger - Does God Exist? (2d Debate) 2010

This debate ( audio | video ) was between retired Physicists Victor Stenger and Craig. It took place in 2010 and the debate topic was: Does God Exist?

3 stars.

PhilVaz 5/5
WK review: Xians always win

I was pretty disappointed with this debate. Stenger did a great job against Craig in 2003 but this time around he seemed more muddled and even less prepared. Stenger even introduced whole new arguments in his closing speech, which was kind of lame because Craig couldn’t respond to them.

Craig was polished as usual and I think he did better in this debate than the previous one. He did kind of ignore some of Stenger’s arguments but Stenger wasn’t all that great at pointing that out.

The Q&A was kind of a waste, too. Not a wonderful but not a terrible debate.

Technical: Good AQ, Stenger messed up his mic at some point, though.
A list of mini-reviews of Craig's debates can be found here!

Dillahunty v Lucas Does God Exist?

This debate (audio | video) was supposed to be about the existence of god but Lucas, right off the bat pretty much said that god exists and turned the debate into a debate about morality. Dillahunty calls Lucas out on this and apparently had to scrap all the counters (I would hope) he had prepared for all the regular god arguments.

3 stars. 

And so we have a debate on justifying objective morality. I like these debates but a) this wasn’t a debate only on that topic b) Dillahunty wasn’t prepared to only tackle that topic anyways c) Lucas wasn’t that interesting of an apologist and d) I agree with Dillahunty about debate formatting, the opening speeches should be the shortest, 20 minutes is just too long imo.

Dillahunty also had the same issues in this debate that I felt he had in the previous debate I reviewed. He’s super into TAG and you can get more than you can handle in this debate he had with Matt Slick and he’s super into, well, I’ll use the word he used several times to describe it: being pedantic. This time he was a little better about presenting a positive case but because the debate changed it seemed like that couldn’t be fleshed out.

The cross-exam was good, and by good, I mean terrible for Lucas. Lucas really fell apart when it came to the slavery issue but can you blame him? Slavery blows and his god was fine with it. This is a morally corrupt position and Xians gotta stick to it, unfortunately. But again another issue with Dillahunty came up, he was just too glib with his answers and too tedious about definitions it seems. The debate ended up being about morality but there are several different, convincing and certainly better moral frameworks out there that Dillahunty could have suggested or he could have even fleshed out the one Lucas attributed to him (utilitarianism) or at least clarified the misconceptions Lucas made about it.

Check this debate out if you enjoy hearing an apologist get devastated but skip it if you want to see good debate performances.

Also, this is the second formal Dillahunty debate I’ve heard and I’m pretty downtrodden, tbh. I honestly think he could take down WLC but unless Dillahunty becomes Hitch or Harris status in popularity than we won’t see that debate anytime soon. I got two more Dillahunty debates to listen to, I hope they work out.

Technical: Good AQ. The audio I made has a section of Dillahunty’s repeated but I don’t know if that occurs in the video or not.