Now, you might remember that British humanists Polly Toynbee, A.C. Grayling and Richard Dawkins soiled their knickers at the thought of debating Christian philosopher William Lane Craig.

Here’s the press release from BeThinking, in case you didn’t hear about it:

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.

[…]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.

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”.

So British humanists say they are interested in debate, but they run away from debates. But it’s worse than that – they don’t want anyone else to be debating whether humanism is true or false, either!

From Access Research Network. (H/T Mary)

Excerpt:

This week has seen the launch of a new website, with the title: “Teach evolution, not creationism!” registered by the British Humanist Association. The issue relates to education and the way the subject of origins is handled. The organisations in the campaign are the British Humanist Association, the Association for Science Education, the British Science Association, the Campaign for Science & Engineering and Ekklesia. There are 30 individual signatories and most publicity has been given to Sir David Attenborough. The Daily Telegraph‘s report said that “The naturalist joined three Nobel laureates, the atheist Richard Dawkins and other leading scientists in calling on the government to tackle the “threat” of creationism.” What they want is “enforceable statutory guidance” that will allow legal sanctions to be taken if any publicly-funded school allows creationism or intelligent design to be presented as science.

[…]At this point, most normal people will wonder what all this fuss is about. Why this campaign – when the two prime examples are compatible with government guidelines? Why the apoplectic comments about “threats” and why are they insisting that teaching “that God created the world is dangerous and must be prevented by law”? To explain this, it is necessary to see the relevance of their demarcation arguments. They deem it vital to show that creationism and ID are delusions that belong outside science. They are not prepared to contemplate a situation where scientific arguments are used to falsify the evolution of molecules to man. Yet this is what they are faced with: arguments about information that allow design inferences to be made (as here and here); arguments about the fossil record that falsify gradualism (as here and here); arguments based on exquisite design rather than ‘tinkering’ design (as here and here), and so on.

The only way such discussions can be excluded from science is to redefine science. This is exactly what the humanists/atheists are seeking to do. This means that they are re-framing science so it fits their philosophical preconceptions. This results in them wanting to trample all over the academic freedom of people (teachers, parents, students, scientists) who do not share their philosophical stance. The ID community has drawn attention to these issues repeatedly, as in this past ARN blog. Here is a recent example from Dr Alastair Noble, Director of the Centre for Intelligent Design, UK.

“You might rule out an explanation which invokes intelligent mind because it does not fit within the ideological naturalism which is invading science. In that case you’re no longer doing science, but have adopted an overarching philosophy of nature into which you then try to fit the data – a faith position in effect. [. . .] If the science of origins cannot be debated freely, in schools or anywhere else, then it’s not creeping creationism we should be concerned about, but galloping intolerance.”

There’s much more that needs to be said. What is needed though is a wider debate. Until parents, educators and scientists generally see the practical importance of these issues, we face the prospect of a small elite group imposing its will on the majority by influencing policy-makers, journal editors and science organisations. We need academic freedom in schools, colleges and universities, but unless we stand against the thought-police, we have only ourselves to blame when we lose it.

So what’s really going on here?

Here’s what’s going on. When Christians stand up to defend God’s existence, we use reliable science, like the Big Bang theory and the fine-tuning argument and the origin of life and the Cambrian explosion and the habitability arguments (galactic, stellar and planetary). Atheists don’t use science to debate, they instead use the power of the police to stifle criticism of their view. Their worldview is built on a religious presupposition which cannot be proved: naturalism. Naturalism is the view that the natural world is not, in all areas, ever the product of a creative intelligence.

Is the religion of naturalism compatible with science?

According to the Secular Humanist Manifesto, atheism is committed to an eternally existing universe, (See the first item: “Religious humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not created.”). If something non-material brought all existing matter into being, that would be a supernatural cause, and atheists deny that anything supernatural exists. The standard Big Bang theory requires that all the matter in the universe come into being out of nothing. The Big Bang has been confirmed by experimental evidence such as redshift measurements, light element abundances and the cosmic microwave background radiation. This falsifies eternal models of the universe, which are required by atheist Scriptures.

So it’s really no surprise that the High Priests of atheism like Toynbee, Dawkins and Grayling want to run away from debates where science will be used by their opponents – they hate science. It falsifies their religion of naturalism.