It seemed more like a rock concert last night than a debate about the existence of God. The gym at Biola University in La Mirada featured a sold-out crowd that buzzed with excitement at the introductions of atheist Christopher Hitchens and Christian apologist Professor William Lane Craig.
And for two-and-a-half hours, the pair put on quite a show. Craig, a gifted speaker, mostly stuck to his five, well-researched bullet points meant to prove that the God of Christianity was real. Hitchens, as is his style, was more freewheeling with his arguments, mixing in humor and biting sarcasism to make his points.
I imagine the evangelical Christians in the audience believed their man Lane won the debate. And I’m sure that the atheists, agnostics and deitists gave the night to Hitchens. But to use a cliche, everyone in the gym was a winner. With no personal attacks, we got a smart, sometimes thrilling debate on life’s biggest matter.
P.S. I got to meet Hitchens just before he went on stage and give him a copy of my memoir, which he had endorsed. I told him to kick some ass, and he responded, “That’s what they are there for.” A nice moment I’ll always remember.
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6 responses so far ↓
1 Tim Stroud // Apr 6, 2009 at 10:56 am
Life’s biggest matter?
MY STARBUCKS IS CLOSING!
THAT is Life’s biggest matter!
:-t
2 breakerslion // Apr 7, 2009 at 5:02 am
Sounds like it was a little better than the usual, “God is real because the Bible says so, and who wrote the Bible? God! So there you are!”
3 Faith & Geekery | Faith & Geekery // Apr 7, 2009 at 7:46 am
[...] Hewitt, and he (like me) is skeptical of Newsweek’s position. He writes on his blog: When 4,000 jam the gym at Biola University to see a debate between William Lane Craig and Christopher Hit…(with thousands more in overflow rooms and remote broadcast sites), I suspect…that the [...]
4 D_Cole // Apr 7, 2009 at 7:46 am
I’m sure there were many people present who disagreed with Craig, but to say that Hitchens won the debate is laughable. Hitchens offered few well-reasoned arguments for athiesm and did very little to counter Craig’s 5 bullet point arguments (which he uses in every single debate on God’s existence). In addition, Hitchens wasted his cross-examination time with questions like, “If a baby was born in Palestine, would you rather it be a Muslim baby or an atheist baby?” I was hoping for more of a presence from Hitchens, but i was dissapointed that he felt like a no-show
5 KenL // Apr 7, 2009 at 11:30 pm
I also attended this event. If the atheists and agnostics in the audience concluded that Mr. Hitchens carried the night I don’t think they were paying attention. First, the question of the debate was “Does God Exist?”, not if Christianity is true. It seemed that Mr. Hitchens lost sight of that during the debate.
Mr. Hitchens, as best I could tell, provided no positive arguements for his views. His responses to the arguements laid out by Dr. Craig were meager or he dropped them entirely. He seemed to miss the point and misrepresent in some way three of the five arguements presented by Dr. Craig.
Mr. Hitchen’s primary thrust throughout the evening was pointing out the alleged evils resulting from religion in general and Christianity in particular, but he eventually agreed that the social impact of religion, good or bad, was irrelevant to the question of the debate. Further, Mr. Hitchens seems to think that religion is really evil and that one really ought not be religious and yet he provided no adaquate explaination on his view of how objective good or evil can exist.
I pre-ordered the debate DVD prior to the event. By the end of the evening I wished I had purchased a DVD of Dr. Craig against a better prepared opponent. As Dr. Craig mentioned in his closing remarks one should come to an event such as this prepared with arguements not just assertions. It was a blunt but fair criticism of Mr. Hitchens.
6 Tim Stroud // Apr 10, 2009 at 2:05 am
Debates exist to persuade. Persuasion does not neccessarily require argument.
(But arguments are SUCH mental fun!)
Hmmm, give me enough sex, drugs, money or vente caramel macchiatos and chances are that I shall join your side.
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