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

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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.

News

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

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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.

News

Inspector General finds that EPA climate science fails tests

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From the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Excerpt:

The Environmental Protection Agency’s Inspector General has found that the agency based its 2009 “Endangerment Finding” on a flawed and inadequate assessment of climate science.

The IG’s report, released today, provides support to claims by Senator James M. Inhofe, (R-Okla.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, CEI, and many others that the EPA’s justification for its decision to regulate greenhouse gas emissions using the Clean Air Act relied on politically-biased science that does not meet minimal federal Information Quality Act requirements for objectivity.

“The Inspector General’s report requested by Senator Inhofe is just the latest evidence that the EPA is relying on junk science, bending the rules, and ignoring its own procedures in order to do whatever the White House wants them to do,” said Myron Ebell, Director of CEI’s Center on Energy and Environment.  “Under President Obama, the EPA has become a lawless agency.”

“The EPA avoided rigorous peer review of its endangerment finding Technical Support Document by not classifying it as a ‘highly influential’ scientific document,” said Marlo Lewis, CEI Senior Fellow. “In fact, the TSD may be the most influential document claiming scientific content any U.S. government agency has ever produced. It is the scientific rationale for EPA’s audacious – and congressionally unauthorized – project to de-carbonize the U.S. economy.”

“The EPA failed – or refused – to comply with the legal standards required of federal agencies, standards that are crucial because of serious impact regulations can have on the economy,” said Christopher Horner, CEI Senior Fellow.

“This is not the first time an activist administration has been reprimanded for producing junk climate science,” Horner added.  “As a result of a lawsuit brought by CEI, Senator James Inhofe, and others, the Clinton/Gore administration put a disclaimer on the National Assessment on Climate Change that the report had not been subjected to the requirements of the Federal Information Quality Act.”

I notice that the EPA is one of 5 factors listed by John Hawkins in his recent post about the Obama administration’s war on job creators.

Excerpt:

3) The EPA: The EPA has been waging a one bureaucracy war against American business and capitalism for a long while, but it’s stepping up its attacks to draconian levels under the Obama Administration. The EPA is pushing new greenhouse gas rules that could cost “7.3 million jobs and add $32.2 billion annually in new regulatory costs.“ Additionally, although environmentalists have claimed it’s a “myth,” the EPA is indeed planning to tighten its standards for how much dust can be in the air to a level lower than you’d find in “an average windy day in Dodge City.” The EPA’s new rules on boilers would wipe out 18% of the workforce in the pulp and paper mills. If you’re a business owner in one of these industries and you see that the EPA is about to begin waging this sort of economic war against you, would you be creating any new jobs?

We need to be very skeptical of government-funded “research” that finds that more government is needed to control more of the private sector.