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!
TTYL
JC
Showing posts with label Lowder. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lowder. Show all posts
Friday, September 18, 2015
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Lowder v Fernandes Naturalism v Theism BEST
This debate ( audio | video | 2h07m59s ) took place in 1999 between Dr. Phil Fernandes and former Infidels.org President Jeffery Jay Lowder. The topic seemed to be Naturalism v Theism
4.5 stars BEST CHECK
Hallq's review
Nothing particularly groundbreaking occurred in this debate in terms of content, I also don't think that Fernandes has ever been a strong debater. This debate highlight's Lowder's performance. This is the only debate of Lowder's that I have been able to find and it is just such a shame. Lowder does a great job. He is very common sensical, cogent and organized. I definitely think Lowder would give Craig a run for his money.
But I guess Lowder was mostly active in the irreligious community in the 90s and kind of moved on and thus we are left with just this one debate of his. Augh, I wish he would come back, I think he could even give the more ridic debaters a run for their money (D'Souza) but I especially think he could throwdown with Craig. I am apparently not the only one who thinks this.
I also think that Lowder is stylistically similar to Craig in debate terms, he really drives the point home when Fernandes doesn't answer him in the same manner that Craig has perfected. I think I have over emphasized my impression of this tactic because I mostly enjoy the more informal types of debate and I don't think that this tactic can be thrown around in that format so I never hear it...or at least it was rare, now that I am trying to be more rigorous in my debate listening for this blog I am starting to hear it a lot and most of the time from Craig.
Poor Fernandes, he was out of his league with Lowder AND he was right when he compared himself to Daniel in the Lion's Den because this was at some secular conference.
Technical: Good AQ though there are some glitches here and there. It's an old video.
4.5 stars BEST CHECK
Hallq's review
Nothing particularly groundbreaking occurred in this debate in terms of content, I also don't think that Fernandes has ever been a strong debater. This debate highlight's Lowder's performance. This is the only debate of Lowder's that I have been able to find and it is just such a shame. Lowder does a great job. He is very common sensical, cogent and organized. I definitely think Lowder would give Craig a run for his money.
But I guess Lowder was mostly active in the irreligious community in the 90s and kind of moved on and thus we are left with just this one debate of his. Augh, I wish he would come back, I think he could even give the more ridic debaters a run for their money (D'Souza) but I especially think he could throwdown with Craig. I am apparently not the only one who thinks this.
I also think that Lowder is stylistically similar to Craig in debate terms, he really drives the point home when Fernandes doesn't answer him in the same manner that Craig has perfected. I think I have over emphasized my impression of this tactic because I mostly enjoy the more informal types of debate and I don't think that this tactic can be thrown around in that format so I never hear it...or at least it was rare, now that I am trying to be more rigorous in my debate listening for this blog I am starting to hear it a lot and most of the time from Craig.
Poor Fernandes, he was out of his league with Lowder AND he was right when he compared himself to Daniel in the Lion's Den because this was at some secular conference.
Technical: Good AQ though there are some glitches here and there. It's an old video.
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