Barker vs Rajabali Does God Not Exist? 2003

This debate ( audio | video 1, 2 & 3 | 2h24m10s ) took place between FFRF's Dan Barker and Brother Hassanain Rajabali in 2003. Earlier, I reviewed a team debate Barker did against Rajabali in 2004 featuring Richard Carrier and Michael Corey (the review is here). Compared with that debate, this one was much better in terms of cordiality, that's for sure.

3.25 stars CHECK

Richard Carrier's review: Rajabali won

First I should note that I am gonna say CHECK to all the Muslim vs a non-theist debates I'll review because they are rare compared to Christians vs non-theist debates. I have recently come across a few others and will hopefully review them in the near future.

Now, the debate. This debate featured a tweak on the normal debate topic and actually put the burden of proof on Dan Barker. Barker had to demonstrate that god did not exist and some of his arguments were more effective than others. Barker is a much better speaker, though he can still hold his own in a debate.

Despite Carrier's assessment, it seemed like Barker came out on top in this one. He was more clear and did a better job of pointing out the flaws in Rajabali's arguments.

Rajabali was certainly more polite and less caustic this time than he was later in the team debate but he still talked really fast and was incoherent in his responses. He would mention an argument brought up by Barker but then would either dismiss it or respond with something that would sound like a non-sequitur. For example, Rajabali would equate not being able to prove the existence of god to not being able to prove your own existence and thereby declare it is absurd.

Later on, during the Q&A, Rajabali admitted to it being impossible for him to think there is no god even if legit evidence were used to support such a claim. This explains why it sounded like Rajabali wasn't so on point and his arguments were rather superficial...or they would start out as sounding persuasive (he used the basic god of the gaps and teleological arguments) but fall apart after Barker countered and Rajabali would respond by being flabbergasted or hand-waving. He seemed to just get cheers when talking about how worthless life is on an atheistic worldview.

Barker also suffered from muddling his own position. He kept explaining the difference between Atheists and atheists...when morality came up, he had to explain that you don't look to atheism for morality and then near the end of the debate he stated it wasn't his intention to deconvert people - I agree with Carrier, all of this probably would have been unneeded if he just simply said he was talking from the naturalists' POV. Oh well...

The Q&A was pretty extensive, it wasn't great but there were some decent questions thrown around.

Technical: Good AQ but the moderator was really quiet for some reason. The audio skips a lot of announcements and the breaks...I dunno if the video does this, too.

Pigliucci v Hovind on Evolution and Creation BEST TOP TEN

This debate ( audio | 2h10m26s ) occurred in 2003 on the Infidel Guy Show. It was between Biologist/Philosopher Massimo Piggliucci and Dr. Kent Hovind. It was on a lot of topics.

DB: 1m40s

5 stars. BEST TOP TEN

This one is pretty great. A lot of different topics are covered including evolution, Creation, geologic time, science education, Hovind's salary.

The debate is pretty one-sided, Piggliucci almost never lets Hovind get away with anything and calls him out on a lot of things. Hovind certainly is a smart man but he refuses to correct himself and though he is polite and doesn't interrupt or talk over his opponents he is a total sleazeball. You can tell he ultimately wants to just keep people from leaving the insane views of YEC.

One particularly annoying part is Hovind's relentless stance that time is the god of evolution. Apparently saying that evolution occurs over a long period of time is the same as saying that anything can occur given enough time. This is the argument Hovind uses to argue that evolution is a religion, too. The worst thing is that I have heard others use this argument - more specifically: Rabbi Schmuley Boteach uttered it in his 2008 debate with Hitch. So a pastor and a rabbi are so ignorant of what is required to label something a religion that they'll label the concept of time as a religion, as a god even.

Oy.

Anyways, like I said, a lot is covered, Hovind has a response (not necessarily an answer one would take seriously) to everything that can be brought up on this topic so he certainly keeps at the debate all the way through. The calls are all pretty great too, again this is one of the best!

Technical: Decent AQ, no video cause it's an internet radio show.

Craig vs Stenger - Is There a God? 2003 BEST

This debate ( audio | video )  took place in 2003 at Hawaii U between Craig and Physicist Victor Stenger. The topic was "Is There a Good?"

4.25 stars. BEST

PhilVaz 5/5
CSA review: good
Ed the MSP review

Victor Stenger does better than most, he's a physicists and can better address the more sciency sounding arguments Craig throws out there than most. I further think he gave little ground and actually made a better (or more straightforward) quick* argument against the resurrection, especially since history is not his field.

But alas, Craig is just really good at having denser presentations and addressing a lot of information. Stenger's presentations just didn't come off as full of content as those of Dr. Craig.

Still, Stenger was pretty good in the Q&A portion of the debate as well. So I would rate this one up there with Dacey's first Craig debate, though Dacey was able to get a little more information out in his speeches compared to Stenger.

Stenger also debated Craig in 2010 and I want to listen to that one and review it soon!

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

*I say quick because there are better arguments that are put forth in other debates on that specific topic.