Tag Archives: Public

Friday Night Funny: There’s probably no Dawkins showing up to debate Craig

There's Probably No Dawkins
There's Probably No Dawkins

Full story here. (H/T Apologetics 315)

Excerpt:

‘THERE’S PROBABLY NO DAWKINS’ SLOGAN FOR OXFORD BUSES
‘Reasonable Faith Tour’ with William Lane Craig Responds to Dawkins Boycott

A message with a familiar ring to it will be rolling out on the side of buses in Oxford from 10th of October. ‘There’s Probably No Dawkins. Now Stop Worrying and Enjoy Oct 25th at the Sheldonian Theatre’

The advertising campaign follows Richard Dawkins’ refusal to publicly debate the existence of God with philosopher William Lane Craig when he visits the UK in October. He has an open invitation to debate Craig at Oxford’s Sheldonian Theatre on 25th October.

The Oxford bus campaign echoes the 2009 London atheist bus advertisements: ‘There’s Probably No God. Now Stop Worrying And Enjoy Your Life.’

The ‘Reasonable Faith Tour’ organisers, supported by Premier Christian Radio, commissioned the advert, which will roll out on 30 buses in Oxford from 10th October for two weeks. ‘There’s Probably No Dawkins. Now Stop Worrying and Enjoy Oct 25th at the Sheldonian Theatre’ promotes this significant event.

BACKGROUND: William Lane Craig is Research Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology, California and is arguably the world’s foremost defender of historic Christianity. Widely respected among academic philosophers, he has debated with many leading atheists across the world, including Peter Atkins, Daniel Dennett, Anthony Flew, A.C.Grayling, Christopher Hitchens, Lewis Wolpert and most recently, Sam Harris.

Harris has described him as “the one Christian apologist who has put the fear of God into many of my fellow atheists.”

THE REFUSALS: Dawkins’ refusal to debate Craig highlights the lack of leading British Humanists prepared to debate him.

Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, and outspoken atheist and critic of religion, has refused four separate invitations to debate Craig, sent from The British Humanist Association, The Cambridge Debating Union, the Oxford Christian Union and Premier Christian Radio.

Dawkins’ refusal to debate led fellow Oxford academic Dr Daniel Came, who is an atheist himself, to write a letter to Dawkins stating that,“the absence of a debate with the foremost apologist for Christian theism is a glaring omission on your CV and is of course apt to be interpreted as cowardice on your part.”

[…]The Sheldonian evening will be chaired by an Oxford Professor of Philosophy, who is himself an atheist. The stage will be set for a debate or a lecture should Dawkins not show up. Craig intends to tackle the central arguments in Dawkins book before a panel of academics who will respond to his lecture, before questions are invited from the audience.

[…]An open invitation has been sent to Richard Dawkins to change his mind and debate with Craig in Oxford’s Sheldonian Theatre on October 25th. If he does not come, an empty chair will be placed on the stage, and will remain there.

How can you get tickets to the events? Look here:

I think this is a good reminder about why Christians should care about the economy. No government will ever fund ads like this, it’s up to us to do it. We should vote conservative so that we keep more of our own money for things like this that a secular left government will never fund. Always vote conservative, and save your money.

Just one more small thing for this Friday night’s fun.

Happy Friday!

UPDATE: If you would like to see Dawkins’ opponent in action, watch this debate between William Lane Craig and Christopher Hitchens:

This is what Dawkins is afraid will happen to him.

New House GOP bill de-funds Planned Parenthood

Rep. Denny Rehnberg
Rep. Denny Rehnberg

Story from Life News.

Excerpt:

The battle over yanking federal taxpayer funding of the Planned Parenthood abortion business is back in Congress as House Republicans have unveiled new legislation attempting to remove its Title X funding.

Republicans tried earlier this year to de-fund Planned Parenthood but Obama refused overtures from pro-life Speaker John Boehner to do so when Republicans and Democrats were working on ironing out legislation to fund the federal government. Obama eventually agreed to a compromise that allowed both the House and Senate to vote on a stand-alone bill de-funding Planned Parenthood and, while House Republicans approved their measure, Senate Democrats defeated it in the upper chamber.

[…]Now, Rep. Denny Rehberg of Montana, the chairman of the House Labor, Health, and Human Services Appropriations Subcommittee has introduced new legislation to fund the federal government that prohibits any funds going to Planned Parenthood unless the organization stops doing abortions.

“This bill is the result of the cumulative effort of members of the Subcommittee, and Americans I heard from at 81 listening sessions and in countless meetings in Washington and in Montana.  Now, it’s posted online for the only test that matters, and that’s the approval of the American people,” Rehberg said.

Naturally, the head abortionist is outraged – someone is taking away her dollars!

Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards issued a statement last week condemning the legislation.

“Eliminating funding for the Title X family planning program and prohibiting Planned Parenthood from providing preventive health care through federal programs will result in millions of women across the country losing access to basic primary and preventive health care,” Richards said.

The new bill also came under attack from both pro-abortion organizations and pro-abortion lawmakers.

“Another health-related provision prohibits any funding under the bill from going to any Planned Parenthood affiliate unless the organization promises not to perform abortions with non-federal funds,” Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, a pro-abortion Connecticut Democrat and a member of the subcommittee, groused. “The main effect would probably be to prohibit Medicaid patients from choosing to receive services such as contraception and cancer screenings from Planned Parenthood clinics.”

I listed Planned Parenthood AND the Democrats as being interested in the dollars. It’s a vicious circle. Planned Parenthood gets the dollars to kill the babies, and then they make campaign contributions to the Democrats who give them the taxpayer money. It’s all about the money. They kill babies for money. It’s a big business, and we subsidize it with our taxes.

Hon. Maurice Vellacott
Hon. Maurice Vellacott

And even in Canada, some Canadian conservatives are trying to push to de-fund Planned Parenthood.

Excerpt:

Two more Tory MPs are taking swipes at the International Planned Parenthood Foundation.

One claims the group conned the government when it applied for and got a federal grant of $6 million over three years.

Another is linking it to the sinister and long-discredited science of eugenics.

Saskatchewan MP Maurice Vellacott says the federation was deceitful in claiming that the money would only go to countries where abortion is illegal.

Alberta MP Leon Benoit wants to condemn the foundation over an award named for Margaret Sanger.

Sanger was a pioneer in planned parenthood who embraced a type of eugenics.

Saskatoon MP Brad Trost started the ball rolling earlier this week with a web post condemning the decision to fund the international family-planning group.

While the Prime Minister’s Office is adamant that abortion is not an issue for the Conservative government, it still seems to be a touchy subject for backbenchers.

The Planned Parenthood grant is a case in point.

Trost said in his web post that the government’s claim that the money would be used in countries that bar abortion is “hair-splitting.”

Vellacott said the federation is “trying to dupe” the government over abortion.

“Even in those countries where abortion is technically illegal, it’s naive to think that Canadian tax dollars are not being used to promote abortion,” he said in a news release.

Maurice Vellacott is my favorite Canadian MP. He is the Canadian-equivalent to Iain Duncan-Smith in the UK. And don’t think these guys aren’t good on fiscal issues – they are. They just are also good at social issues, which should go together anyway.

Related posts on Planned Parenthood

Where’s Dawkins? Debating or promoting his books to his gullible followers?

Where's Dawkins?
BirdieUpon asks: Where's Dawkins?

So the top defender of Christianity operating today is going to be doing a speaking/debating tour of the UK. The organizers have asked Richard Dawkins to come out and defend atheism, but Dawkins is not willing to discuss atheism with anyone who isn’t… already an atheist.

What is Dawkins doing instead of debating?

From BirdieUpon’s blog. (H/T Apologetics 315)

Excerpt:

Craig has not sought to debate Dawkins. He’s responded to invitations from independent organisations who have tried to set this up – in fact he’s never set up a single debate, himself, in his life!

Best of all, Dawkins will actually be spending October… self-promoting! He’ll be charging around the country and in TV studios plugging his new book The Magic of Reality: How We Know What’s Really True! In fact, Dawkins will be promoting it in the Royal Albert Hall on October 19th, while Craig is in Cambridge delivering a lecture on Stephen Hawking’s The Grand Design.

Dawkins’ calendar, on his website, indicates that October 25th (the night of Dawkins’ challenge to fill Oxford Sheldonian Theatre’s empty debating chair) is free for him. It also, however, mentions a movie-screening in New York, so one hopes Dawkins isn’t planning on fleeing the country!

William Lane Craig’s speaking and debating tour of the UK is almost upon us, and now might be a good time to review some of his debates.

Dr. Craig normally debates two topics: 1) Does God exist? and 2) Did Jesus rise from the dead?

Does God Exist?

For the question of God’s existence, he uses 5 arguments.

You can see them being used in this debate against Christopher Hitchens:

Did Jesus Rise from the dead?

For the question of Jesus’ resurrection, he uses 1 argument based on four “minimal facts”, which are all accepted by the majority of scholars.

You can see them being used in this debate against Bart Ehrman:

If you watch both of these, that should prepare you for the news of the UK debates when it comes out. The tour starts on October 17th and will go until October 26th. You can learn more about Dr. Craig from this radio interview that he just did on the Unbelievable radio show, with Justin Brierley.