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Humanist Association president Polly Toynbee runs away from debate on God

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Is this what atheism amounts to?
Is this what atheism amounts to?

Here’s the story at BeThinking.

Excerpt:

The President of the British Humanist Association has pulled out of debating renowned Christian philosopher William Lane Craig. Polly Toynbee, Guardian columnist and prominent critic of religion, readily agreed in April to debate Craig on the Existence of God but withdrew her involvement last week saying “I hadn’t realised the nature of Mr Lane Craig’s debating style, and having now looked at his previous performances, this is not my kind of forum”.

The event, hosted by Premier Christian Radio and due to take place at London’s Westminster Central Hall in October, has already been advertised and hundreds of pounds of ticket sales banked. Toynbee apologised for the “inconvenience”. Organisers will be contacting ticket holders, but are hoping to find an alternative leading atheist voice for the debate [see note below], who is willing to dispute the strong rational grounds for Christian theism that Professor Craig is renowned for defending.

William Lane Craig is Research Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology, California. He has debated leading atheists the world over including Anthony Flew, Lewis Wolpert, Christopher Hitchens, and most recently Sam Harris, who described him as “the one Christian apologist who has put the fear of God into many of my fellow atheists.” Following the debate with Hitchens, an atheist website concluded that Craig had “spanked Hitchens like a foolish child.”

Craig says of his debates, “These are academic forums, where one concentrates on the arguments and counter arguments, the truth of the premises in those arguments and objections to them, and not on personality or ad hominem attacks.”

Richard Dawkins recently described Craig as a “deeply unimpressive … ponderous buffoon”, who uses logic for “bamboozling his faith-head audience.” Yet he still has not responded to the actual content of the arguments presented by Craig. Dawkins’ refusal to debate one-to-one with Craig was recently described as “apt to be interpreted as cowardice” by Dr Daniel Came, a lecturer in Philosophy at Oxford University. Dr Came, who is himself an atheist, called it “a glaring omission” on Dawkins’ CV.

Meanwhile, A.C. Grayling, who this year published a humanist ‘bible’ called The Good Book has refused to debate with Craig on the foundations of atheist morality. With secular Britain beset by moral difficulties, not least among politicians, police and the press, this seems to be a neglect of his moral and intellectual duty. Grayling stated that he would rather debate “the existence of fairies and water-nymphs”.

Bolstering his own refusal to debate, Richard Dawkins posted this statement by A.C. Grayling on his website: “Craig claims to have debated me before – that is not correct, unless a brief and rather pointless exchange of emails counts as such.” Why should Craig claim to have debated Grayling, if it was not true?

This embarrassing lapse of memory on Grayling’s part has been exposed by Premier Radio who on 3rd July broadcast a recording of the entire Grayling vs. Craig debate on the Problem of Evil from 2005 and placed it on their website. Within the next 10 days, 10,000 people had downloaded it. It is now available on YouTube.

The Chairman that evening, Roger Preece, remembers it well. “The Debate was excellent. Craig and Grayling spoke to a packed house of 4-500 students at the Oxford Union. I enjoyed chairing the debate and it was a memorable and robust exchange, as the audio tapes confirm.”

Grayling has since commented “I was wrong about debating Lane Craig – but Lane Craig is wrong about everything else in the universe, so I guess I don’t do too badly in the deal.”

Dr Peter May, Director of the Craig Tour, said, “If Craig is ‘wrong about everything else in the universe’ and his arguments for the existence of God are so easy to refute, it is hard to see why the leading atheist voices in the country are running shy of having a debate with him. Rather than hurling ‘ad hominem’ attacks on Craig from their bunkers, it would be good to see these figures come forward to rationally defend the atheism they publicly espouse. At the moment it’s looking like a rout.”

While Toynbee is President of the British Humanist Association, Dawkins and Grayling are both Vice-Presidents. The BHA describes one of its core values as “engaging in debate rationally, intelligently and with attention to evidence”. [View the BHA core values here.]

And now we sing the atheist theme song:

If I were an atheist, I would be ashamed. This woman turned down a formal academic debate with a leading Christian scholar. The debate format is neutral, featuring fixed length speeches and no interruptions. Craig’s style is to use scientific evidence and formal logical arguments. I thought atheists were supposed to be good at logic and science? I guess not, though. “I don’t like God telling me what to do” is apparently as far ahead as they’ve thought. Is that all atheism is? Is it just a childhood tantrum that has run on too long? Is there no argument or evidence to sustain it at all? Are the “best” atheist debaters simply the ones who can rant the most shrilly? Is there anything more to atheism than whining and insults?

If you are interested in seeing William Lane Craig debate, check out the two videos below:

Yes, that is Christopher Hitchens in the first debate.

Related posts

Videos

Conservative Michael Gove defeats Labour’s Harriet Harman in debate

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From Jonah Goldberg at National Review.

It’s a knock-out! She tries to defend the rioters as victims, and justifies their rioting.

Here is my previous post on Harriet Harman and the riots. She is opposed to marriage, fathers, shared-parenting and law and order. She just doesn’t like men parenting their own children. She wants to treat everyone as victims, and coddle them when they act irresponsibly. She favors subsidizing women who have children out of wedlock with taxpayer money.

And here’s another article from Life Site News about the riots.

Excerpt:

In fact, all of these are valid observations, but some factors are more fundamental than others. Social order in some communities – and unfortunately more often in the most vulnerable communities – is breaking down. And it is being driven by an unprecedented breakdown of the family, which in turn is causing a vicious cycle of poverty, lack of education, lawlessness and further erosion of the basic values people need to keep society in order.

It is difficult to say this without being accused of targeting single mothers or attacking absent fathers. I know many single mothers who are doing an amazing job, in difficult circumstances, and who have raised the best of kids. And there certainly are other pressing issues which need to be tackled, such as the fact that there are huge inequalities of income and opportunity in British society.

But some facts are so startling, and some effects so obvious, that even the most liberal newspaper of the British press, the Guardian, is now acknowledging that lack of family structure is creating a huge problem. On Wednesday, the paper interviewed a youth worker from Tottenham who has spent 30 years working with disadvantaged communities. He said that parental authority had now been eroded to the point where the parents of rioting children would be afraid to discipline them.

His views were echoed by the local MP David Lammy who commented, “There is none of the basic starting presumption of two adults who want to start a family, raise children together, love them, nourish them and lead them to full independence. The parents are not married and the child has come, frankly, out of casual sex; the father is not present, and is not expected to be. There are not the networks of extended families to make up for it. We are seeing huge consequences of the lack of male role models in young men’s lives.”

There are 3.5 million children from broken homes in Britain. Their growing numbers, and the effect on of family breakdown on children, caused a leading family law court judge, Sir Paul Coleridge, to recently describe the scale of the problem as “social anarchy” and to urge the government to work to promote marriage.

The decline of marriage has left a significant proportion of children with a confused understanding of stability and of boundaries. And the lack of a male role model means that young men in particular seek out the toughest in the gang for an authority figure rather than their father. That means just one bad apple can influence a whole community of young teens.

I was recently talking with someone online who was a fiscal conservative, but a social liberal. I think that view is mistaken. It turns out that government will expand to deal with the problems caused by people being irresponsible and reckless in their private lives. That will have an impact on tax rates and the free market, but it will also impact the very liberty that the social liberals want to protect. The more government grows to restrain these riots, the less liberty we will have. Being too permissive on social issues is bad for liberty, in the long run.

Commentary

An excerpt from Dr. Laura’s “The Proper Care and Feeding of Marriage”

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Found here. This is from chapter 1 of the book “The Proper Care and Feeding of Marriage“.

Is there really ever such a thing as a perfect marriage? The answer to that question is, “YES.” I know you’re stunned. Stay with me here: “perfect” doesn’t mean that everything goes right, or your way for that matter, or that you’re feeling romantically perky all the time. There are just too many unpredictable events, challenges, and tragedies in life for any of us to feel content and satisfied for any prolonged period of time. Yet, even in the midst of misery, you can still feel and believe that your marriage is perfect if you have the right attitude; and I don’t mean that you think positively – I do mean that you think outwardly. When you do so, married life becomes perfect no matter what difficulties you’re going through.

I took a call from Michelle, a seventeen-year-old high-school student, which will clarify:

Michelle: Hi, Dr. Laura! It’s a pleasure to speak with you. My question is this: this Saturday is my boyfriend’s and mine senior prom. As it turns out, we have a conflict because it is also his championship lacrosse game, at the same time as the dance. He has told me that I could decide which one we should do.

Dr L: Really? So, what’s your decision?

Michelle: Well, personally, I want to go to the prom because it’s our senior prom and it’s our last dance together, it’s meaningful, you know? But it’s also his major opportunity because scouts will be at this game for college recruitment. So, for him the best choice would be for the game but I want to go to prom… selfishly.

Dr L: Do you love him?

Michelle: Of course. Yes.

Dr L: Do you imagine you’re going to marry him? I’m asking you that because I just want to know the depth of your compassion and caring for him.

Michelle: I can see it. I can definitely see it working, but I’m only seventeen… Yes, I care for him a lot.

Dr L: Well then, I guess he’s going to his lacrosse tournament.

Michelle: (sounding deflated) Okay.

Dr L: Because that’s what we do when we’re in love – we give them gifts… that doesn’t mean you go to the store and buy something. It means you give up something that’s very important to you to give them something that’s very important to them. O’Henry wrote a short story called, The Gift of the Magi. There was a young couple, very poor, married, and very much in love with each other. Christmas is coming and there is no money to buy gifts for one another. Her prized possession was her long, lovely hair which she had grown since childhood. His prized possession was his solid gold pocket watch – an heirloom, passed down from generation to generation.

Come Christmas morning, she hands her beloved a package. It is a solid gold chain for his pocket watch. He hands his beloved a package. It is a bejeweled comb to hold her beautiful hair in a bun on top of her head. They both cried with joy… even though… he no longer had the pocket watch, as he had sold it to buy her the jeweled comb… and she no longer had long hair, as she had sold it to buy him the gold chain.

Neither could use the gift the other had given them from a store – but look at the gift they truly got from the other.

Michelle: WOW!

Dr L: So, when you love somebody you give them what they really need – and your boyfriend needs you to be supportive of the fact that this game is important to his college career – for scholarships. If you do get married, you’ll be dancing together for the rest of your lives.

Michelle: That’s true. Well, I guess he’ll be playing this game and I’ll be sitting on the sidelines cheering.

Dr L: Good for you! That’s the kind of woman a man should marry.

Michelle: Thank you so much, Dr. Laura.

Oh, wait a minute, friends! The story does not end there. A few days later I received this email from Michelle:

“A few days ago I called in with a dilemma I had with prom because my boyfriend’s championship lacrosse game (with college scouts) was the same night. You told me the story of the Gift of the Magi, and that if you really loved someone you would be willing to give up whatever was most important to you – which for me was the prom. I took your advice and called up my boyfriend telling him that we would be going to his lacrosse game instead of senior prom. He explained to me that he knew I would decide to go to his game, so he went ahead and bought our prom tickets so we would go to the prom.

So, basically, I was willing to give up senior prom for him, and he was willing to give up what was most important to him, his championship game – proving the story of the Gift of the Magi…

But hold on! The story gets better! Yesterday we found out that because of some unknown factor, his championship game was changed from 7 o’clock to 3 o’clock in the afternoon. Is this a God thing? I think so! Now we not only get to go to prom and his lacrosse game, but we have the knowledge that we are both willing to sacrifice what is most important to us because our love is stronger.

I know that I am only 17, but I think I found a keeper!! Thank you so much for your wonderful advice to let my MAN know how important he is to me. This experience not only made me grow as a person, but is strengthening our relationship as well.”

Now, dear friends, even some seventeen year olds can understand the beauty and meaning of having somebody care enough about you to put themselves aside for you – that beats every prom and game imaginable. And when you are living this scenario, no matter what grunge is going on in your life, your marriage is PERFECT!

Here is my previous post on her earlier book, The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands.