Theologian Attempts Censorship After Losing Public Debate 943
RockDoctor writes "Theologian John Haught publicly debated prominent evolutionary scientist and atheist Jerry Coyne at the University of Kentucky back in October. Before the debate, both parties agreed to the debate being video-taped. Coyne is of the opinion that he convincingly won the debate over Haught. But we'll never know, because Haught, with the assistance of staff at the University of Kentucky, who sponsored the debate, is banning publication of the video of the event. They are even refusing to release the half of the debate containing Coyne's comments and questions."
Streisand Effect (Score:5, Informative)
Wait! It gets better! (Score:4, Informative)
From the update to TFA:
So not only is the guy refusing to release the record, but he's now threatening legal action because people are calling him names and being mean.
When your in a hole, rule #1 - stop digging.
Re:How could a creationist win a debate exactly? (Score:5, Informative)
Christianity offers a wide range of opinions (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What was the point of this exercise? (Score:5, Informative)
Occam's razor is concerned with the simplest explanation in the sense of making the least number of assumptions. Introducing God in to an argument tends to require a great number of unevidenced assumptions. A man getting struck by lightning twice in a year is normally quite unlikely. A naturalistic explanation may appear complicated by comparison to invoking the wrath of an angry god, but the latter requires far more assumptions.
Re:What was the point of this exercise? (Score:4, Informative)
Simpler than that is that God created us both just before you posted that, memories in place.
Simpler that *that* God created just me, and you don't even count, 10 seconds ago . . .
Pug
Lots 'o debates out there (Score:5, Informative)
In fact there's a bit of an obsession out in Atheist-land at beating one guy: William Lane Craig [commonsenseatheism.com], who is considered technically by many to be the top Christian debater... and arguably has never "lost" (sorry I really have to put that last word in quotes), as the linked Atheist site describes, despite going up against some serious popular intellectual heavyweights such as Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris. Famously, Dawkins recently backed out of a debate with him.
It's worth noting here, for anyone interested, this blog [blogspot.com] which does a pretty nice job of reviewing and rating many of these debates from an Agnostic perspective.
These debates generally are not specifically on evolution, but virtually all of them include it to greater and lesser degrees.
Re:What was the point of this exercise? (Score:3, Informative)
You seem to be presenting the "I don't believe either way" agnosticism. However, unless you believe in God, you are an atheist. Do you believe in God?
I don't know whether there is a god or not, nor do I particularly care.
On the other hand, an atheist believes that there is no god - again, I don't know whether there is a god or not, I don't particularly care either way, so I'm not an atheist.
So you are a lazy, spineless pompous atheist. "I don't believe in God, but I don't care enough to actually say that because it would be takings sides in a battle I don't care to associate with."
No, I don't hold a position at all on the existence/non-existence of a god. It is something I don't believe is knowable, and I have no faith either way.
If you think that you determine people what they believe, even when you've never met that person, then that's up to you. Doesn't make your determination correct though.
Re:What was the point of this exercise? (Score:4, Informative)
> Weird, I see imaginary friend as the simpler explanation
Not the same definition of "simpler". When discussing Occam's razor, "simpler" means "less things involved."
For instance, sun rises, could be due to motion of the Earth, could be due to the rotation of the Earth due to a guy who throws thunderbolts and lives on a mountain in Greece.
Occam's razor notes that the second of these two includes an extra factor that is not needed, and therefore is more likely to be wrong. Not wrong, but more likely. In the real world, "more likely" is a number very close to 100%
Re:Lots 'o debates out there (Score:4, Informative)
the Christian side "wins" most of these debates. The reason isn't necessarily that they Christian side is right, but that the Christian side generally has the better public debating skills: they dominate and frame the questions.
Not surprising. I know a couple people (remotely, friends of friends) who studied Theology - the amount of rhetorical and dialectical training that future priests receive has no competition. The only people who can hold a candle to them are those who either have a natural talent or have received special training. And by that I don't mean a week, you'd need a lot more than that, these guys receive years of training in writing their speeches and winning discussions.
Released (Score:4, Informative)
The videos have been released.
http://vimeo.com/31505142 [vimeo.com]