Atheism vs. Theism and The Scientific Evidence of Intelligent Design
Sunday, January 27, 2008 at 4pm PST, Stanford University
Christopher Hitchens — Contributing editor to Vanity Fair; visiting professor, New School in New York; author of God is Not Great.
VS.
Jay W. Richards — Research Fellow and Director of Acton Media at the Acton Institute; co-author, with astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez, of The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos Is Designed for Discovery.
I just found the 10 videos in a youtube playlist. Each video is about 10 minutes.
Part 1 is just introductory, so I skipped it.
Here’s part 2, which is the start Hitchens’ opening speech:
Part 3 is the rest of Hitchens and the start of Richards’ opening speech:
And part 4, which is the rest of Richards’ opening speech:
You can click through to the playlist for the rest. Or you can listen to the full MP3 audio provided by Brian Auten of Apologetics 315.
This is the one where Richards gives his famous line “A sneer is not an argument and insults do not constitute evidence”. Richards has his Ph.D in philosophy from Princeton University, and he is extremely careful with logic and arguments.
Richard Dawkins explains why he will not debate William Lane Craig. (Posted by ChristianJR4, H/T Brian Auten of Apologetics 315)
Let’s re-cap Dawkins’ reasons in point form: (with my comments in parentheses)
Dawkins claims that he is willing to debate high-ranking clergymen (but Craig is a scholar, not a clergyman)
Dawkins claims that Craig is a creationist (but Craig supports his kalam cosmological argument with the Big Bang)
Dawkins claims that Craig’s only claim to fame is that he is a professional debater (but see Craig’s CV and publications below, which is far more prestigious than Dawkins)
Dawkins claims that he’s too busy (busy cowering in fear hugging his Darwin doll for comfort)
William Lane Craig is Research Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology in La Mirada, California.
Dr. Craig pursued his undergraduate studies at Wheaton College (B.A. 1971) and graduate studies at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (M.A. 1974; M.A. 1975), the University of Birmingham (England) (Ph.D. 1977), and the University of Munich (Germany) (D.Theol. 1984). From 1980-86 he taught Philosophy of Religion at Trinity… In 1987 they moved to Brussels, Belgium, where Dr. Craig pursued research at the University of Louvain until assuming his position at Talbot in 1994.
He has authored or edited over thirty books, including The Kalam Cosmological Argument; Assessing the New Testament Evidence for the Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus; Divine Foreknowledge and Human Freedom; Theism, Atheism and Big Bang Cosmology; and God, Time and Eternity, as well as over a hundred articles in professional journals of philosophy and theology, including The Journal of Philosophy, New Testament Studies, Journal for the Study of the New Testament, American Philosophical Quarterly, Philosophical Studies, Philosophy, and British Journal for Philosophy of Science.
Here are some of Craig’s most recent publications:
From 2007:
Ed. with Quentin Smith. Einstein, Relativity, and Absolute Simultaneity. Routledge Studies in Contemporary Philosophy. London: Routledge, 2007, 302 pp.
“Theistic Critiques of Atheism.” In The CambridgeCompanion to Atheism, pp. 69-85.Ed. M. Martin. Cambridge Companions to Philosophy. Cambridge University Press, 2007.
“The Metaphysics of Special Relativity: Three Views.” In Einstein, Relativity, and Absolute Simultaneity, pp. 11-49. Ed. Wm. L. Craig and Quentin Smith. Routledge Studies in Contemporary Philosophy. London: Routledge, 2007.
“Creation and Divine Action.” In The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Religion, pp. 318-28. Ed. Chad Meister and Paul Copan. London: Routledge, 2007.
From 2008:
God and Ethics: A Contemporary Debate. With Paul Kurtz. Ed. Nathan King and Robert Garcia. With responses by Louise Antony, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, John Hare, Donald Hubin, Stephen Layman, Mark Murphy, and Richard Swinburne. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008.
“Time, Eternity, and Eschatology.” In The Oxford Handbook on Eschatology, pp. 596-613. Ed. J. Walls. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
From 2009:
Ed. with J. P. Moreland. Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology. Oxford: Blackwell.
“The Kalam Cosmological Argument.” With James Sinclair. In Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology. Ed. Wm. L. Craig and J. P. Moreland. Oxford: Blackwell.
“In Defense of Theistic Arguments.” In The Future of Atheism: Alister McGrath and Daniel Dennett in Dialogue. Ed. Robert Stewart. Philadelphia: Fortress Press.
Forthcoming:
“The Cosmological Argument.” In Philosophy of Religion: Classic and Contemporary Issues. Ed. Paul Copan and Chad Meister. Cambridge: Blackwell.
“Cosmological Argument”; “Middle Knowledge.” In The Cambridge Dictionary of Christian Theology. Ed. G. Fergusson et al. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
“Divine Eternity.” In Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Theology. Ed. Thomas Flint and Michael Rea. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Richard Dawkins is eminently qualified to debate uninformed clergymen, but he has too much at stake (in terms of book royalties) to disappoint his loyal horde of foam-flecked fundies by debating a professional scholar who has debated hundreds of times, against the top non-Christian scholars, in hundreds of universities, including Harvard, Cambridge and Oxford.
I was supposed to work all through Thanksgiving on a project, but I ended up doing all my Christmas shopping. If you have a lot of people on your list like I do, you might want to consider the “Ministry Give-away” offers from Randolph Productions. They sell intelligent design DVDs and the new Illustra Media production of the Craig-Hitchens debate that occurred in Aptil this year at Biola University.
The ministry give-away packs are neat because they give you the DVD in a simple envelope. It doesn’t have the fancy packaging but then again, it costs $3 per DVD!! (or less, if you buy a bigger pack). I bought the 11-packs, which come with 1 full sized DVD ($20) and 10 give-away DVDs ($3 each!). Shipping is FREE. They have packages up to 100 give-away DVDs! But they don’t yet have Darwin’s Dilemma in Ministry give-away packs yet, so I bought a bunch of those at a discounted price from Amazon.
I have seen the Lee Strobel DVDs they are offering and I do not recommend them, as they are not as detailed as the Illustra/Coldwater DVDs. They try to cover too much in too little time, and some things get missed. Also, they are a bit too stylish and slick for my taste, with too much about Lee’s personal life experiences.
I haven’t actually got the DVDs from Randolph Productions yet, so… you might want to wait and see if mine are done right before you order anything from them! This is my first time ordering from them.
UPDATE: They shipped it by FEDEX ground and e-mailed me again.
Greer-Heard lectures
The Greer-Heard Point/Counterpoint forum is an annual debate run by the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. The only ones worth buying are the 2005 and 2009 ones, and they are both really, really worth buying. I will be writing about both of these pretty soon. The 2005 ones come on CD, although I e-mailed them and asked them to put up an MP3 version of it so y’all could all get it for a better price. No response yet on that.
J.D. Crossan and N.T. Wright — Jesus’ Resurrection – opening speeches and dialogue
R. Douglas Geivett — “What Should We Believe about Belief in the Resurrection”
Chuck Quarles — “The Gospel of Peter: A Pre-Canonical Resurrection Narrative?”
William Lane Craig — “Resurrection: Does it Matter?”
Gary Habermas — “Mapping Recent Trends in Critical Resurrection Theories”
Craig Evans — “The Place of Wright and Crossan in Jesus Research”
Ted Peters — “The Future of the Resurrection”
Concluding Comments from J.D. Crossan and N.T. Wright
Wright laid out his standard case for the 6 mutations, and Crossan tried to explain the resurrection as metaphor. Crossan was hard to pin down, but he eventually did come clean in the discussion time, and even allowed the empty tomb. Doug Geivett’s response was the jewel in a magnificent crown of debate. He was merciless. Chuck Quarles and Craig Evans were very effective and Craig and Habermas were OK. Ted Peters supported Crossan’s view.
Harold A. Netland and Paul F. Knitter — Religious Pluralism – opening speeches and dialog
Paul Copan — “Is the World Religiously Ambiguous? No, and Neither Is Religious Pluralism”
S. Mark Heim — “No Other Name: The Gospel and True Religions”
R. Douglas Geivett — “The Futility of Neutrality: The Uniqueness of Jesus in a World of Religions”
Millard J. Erickson — Evangelical Philosophical Society Plenary Address
Terrence Tilley — “Principles for Assessing Theologies of Religious Diversity”
Keith Yandell — “Does Religious Pluralism Have Sufficient Rationale?”
Concluding Comments from Paul Knitter & Harold Netland
I just downloaded this set and it is extremely addictive. I’ve listened to it THREE TIMES! Netland was pretty moderate, and Knitter was a pretty typical religious pluralist – irrational and indifferent to evidence. Copan’s response was the best of a great bunch – it was vicious. Yandell’s paper a close second (his paper had to be read by someone else – if he had read it, he might have surpassed Copan!) Geivett was pretty moderate this time, but still good. Heim was OK and Erickson just made some general comments about postmodernism that were OK. Tilley supported Knitter’s view.
The upcoming 2010 forum on “The Message of Jesus” is set for February 2010. They got Crossan to come back, which is great, because he is a fine speaker and a good participant in these dialogs. I can’t stand his positions, though. And his opponent is Ben Witherington, who is a well-respected historian. Non-Christian respondents are Amy-Jill Levine and Alan F. Segal. Christian respondents are Craig A. Evans, Craig Blomberg, and Darrell L. Bock. All 3 of them participate in debates before.
John Dominic Crossan & Ben Witherington III — opening speeches and dialog
Darrell L. Bock — response
Amy-Jill Levine — response
Craig Blomberg — response
Craig A. Evans — response
Alan F. Segal — response
I’ll probably get this set as MP3s if they keep the price down. It looks like this will be a good one.
I like Craig Evans and Darrell Bock MORE than Witherington and Blomberg, because I think they”ll be more aggressive. All four of these Christian scholars have participated in debates before. Blomberg and Witherington were respondents to the Craig-Crossan debate (the book version). Craig Evans responded to Crossan in the 2005 Greer-Heard forum. And Darrell Bock responded to Borg in the Craig-Borg debate.
You can probably find free lectures from many of these scholars at the Veritas Forum web site.
The best books of 2009, and some older ones you might have missed
If you haven’t bought “Signature in the Cell” yet, what are you waiting for? This is the book of the year. It was named to Amazon’s top 10 science books and to the Best Books of 2009 list compiled by the UK Times Literary Supplement, (selected by the brilliant and honest atheist Thomas Nagel, who is the atheist I would most like to see become a Christian, now that Anthony Flew has left atheism).
For the person who has everything, you can always donate to charity on their behalf.
This year I donated to the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, the Ruth Institute, Reasonable Faith, the Evangelical Philosophical Society, and Michele Bachmann. I also donated to specific debates and conferences that featured Christian scholars in dialog with non-Christian speakers, in non-Christian settings. My goal is to address non-Christian audiences with scholarship that is consistent with and supportive of the Christian worldview. I favor charities that use sound logical arguments supported by objective, verificable evidence.
Something just for fun
I recommend the 1960s spy series “Danger Man“, starring Patrick McGoohan. They’re about $25 from Amazon. McGoohan’s character John Drake is the anti-James Bond. He always put the mission first – he never allowed himself to be manipulated or distracted by enemy agents. And it’s filmed in black and white – exactly the way secret agent John Drake operates.
Here are a couple of videos to give you an idea of what it’s all about.
John Drake infiltrates a murder-for-hire ring based in Italy:
John Drake attempts to kidnap a professional assassin behind the Iron Curtain:
I hope talking about Danger Man doesn’t prevent Brian Auten of Apologetics 315 from adding this post to his Twitter feed. His list of recommended books is here.
WINTERY KNIGHT 