“Is God the Source of Morality?”
Is it rational to ground right and wrong in commands issued by God?
Matthew Flannagan (left, affirmative) vs Raymond Bradley (right, negative)
University of Auckland, 2^nd of August 2010

Few subjects in philosophy are more interesting to me than the meta-ethical question of what makes any moral claims true. My particular area of interest is the question of whether or not moral facts can be grounded in a purely naturalistic view of reality. The topic of this debate therefore grabbed my interest as soon as it was announced – and this was in no small part due to the fact that one of the debate participants was my good friend Matthew Flannagan, who blogs at MandM. What follows is my summary and review of that debate. As someone with no duty whatsoever to not take a side in the debate, I’ll comment on the arguments as they unfold throughout the debate rather like one commentating a live boxing match. And now the opening bell rings.
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Matthew Flannagan and Raymond Bradley are to publicly debate the question: “Is God the Source of Morality?”

Venue: University of Auckland, in “The Centennial” 260 – 098 OGGB (the bottom level of the Business School) on 12 Grafton Rd, Auckland City.

Date/time: Monday 2 August from 7-9pm

The subject of the debate will be whether or not we can sensibly regard God as the source of moral truth. Raymond Bradley certainly doesn’t think so, and in the past I’ve comment on his arguments in that the Christian view of ethics results in a hopeless contradiction. As I said at the time, I think his objections were fundamentally flawed, so I’ll be interested to see what shape his argument takes in this exchange.

For those who can’t be at the debate, the footage will find its way online for all to see.

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In the wake of his debate with Dinesh D’Souza on whether or not the Christian God exists, John Loftus says that even if he didn’t win, he learned a lot. I asked him if, given his loss (as a few people see it – including Loftus I think) in this debate, he was still hoping to debate William Lane Craig, something he has wanted for a while. After all, I figured, although D’Souza is good at what he does, Craig is more qualified and experienced. John’s answer was bold enough: “I’m not afraid. I’ll debate any Christian any time. Are you game?”

For those who follow this blog, you may have just done a double take. At this blog I publicly offered to debate John Loftus, back in April 2009.  Being somewhat amused by this apparent challenge, I reminded John that he had already received such an offer from me but had not taken it up. Here’s what came next: “Glenn, what are you talking about? I have no recollection of this.”

I thought I’d do him the favour of jogging his memory. I have also pointed this out in the comments thread. Here is what transpired here in April 2009:
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On the 9th of February 2010 at the University of Illinois (Champagne-Urbana campus) Dinesh D’Souza debated John Joftus on the question “Does the Christian God Exist”?

There exists a broad consensus among those who I have read assessing the debate, whether Christian or sceptic (including John Loftus himself). I won’t tell you what that consensus is. By the time you’ve watched the debate, I won’t need to. Here’s part one of the debate. There are thirteen parts:

As you listen to this debate, bear a couple of things in mind. Firstly, D’Souza is a good presenter of arguments and I would take no credit from him. However, it’s not terribly controversial to say that he isn’t the most academically esteemed defender of Christianity out there. Someone like William Craig would take that title, and perhaps the title of the best public defender of Christianity as well. Bear in mind, in light of how you see this debate unfold, that John Loftus wants a public debate with William Lane Craig. For the sake of the Christian cause, I’d really like that to happen. But I doubt that it will. That would be like Ken Ham demanding that Richard Dawkins publicly debate him on Darwinism. It would be great for Darwinism, but it will never ever happen.

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Virtually all commentators, whether Christian or atheist (not all, but nearly all – and at the risk of sounding somewhat elitist, everyone who is in a position to know) who have heard/seen the debate between William Lane Craig and Christopher Hitchens have concluded that it wasn’t even close. Hitchens lost and lost clearly, and Craig’s arguments carried the day.

John Loftus agrees with this assessment. John runs the Debunking Christianity blog. He’s an atheist who once professed Christian faith, and he was a student of Bill Craig at one point. We’re not bosom buddies or anything, but I’ve had some dealings with him in the past, and while I think some of the arguments he might have sympathy for are pretty bad, and while I think some of the arguments he doesn’t care for are actually pretty good, and while I think he’s about as wrong as a person can be on the God question and on the significance of Christ, I actually kinda like the guy.

Loftus would like to debate Bill Craig at some point. I can’t see it happening any time soon, and that has to do with Bill’s general policy on debating former students (says Loftus), and to do with Loftus’s departure from the Christian faith, something that Craig finds tragic. But who knows, maybe sometghing will work out at some point. Time will tell. In the meantime, in the thread that I linked to above, I’ve made the offer that if John would like some shooting practice, I’d be happy to engage him in debate. Whether or not that will come to pass in any organised way remains to be seen, but here’s hoping. I’ve suggested the moral argument for theism as a possible topic, but I’m open to more general subjects like whether or not God exists.

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Reasonable Faith is the website centred around the apologetics work of William Lane Craig. I’ve subscribed to their regular email newsletter. You should too. If you had, you’d know that on the evening of Saturday the 4th of April (that’s Sunday afternoon, the 5th of April here in New Zealand), William Lane Craig will be debating Christopher Hitchens on the existence of God.

This is a break with tradition for Dr Craig, who in the past has only engaged in formal debates with people with a PhD. I guess Hitchens is sort of a folk hero for some internet atheists and due to his cult following (not unlike the following of Richard Dawkins – in fact the fan clubs may be one and the same), Craig has made an exception (but I could be wrong).

Click on the image above to link to the blog which has been set up specifically for the debate, which will double as a live webcast, so you can listen from home.

If this debate at all reflects the perceptions that seem to thrive online as well as my own observations, Craig will deliver his standard arguments, Hitchens will say little directly about them but will make use of plenty of humour, sarcasm and general ridicule of religion. I’m almost wondering what Craig will have to say in the later stages of the debate. But I could be surprised. Maybe Hitchens has done some preparation for this debate. We’ll find out tomorrow.

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For all those interested, here’s a debate that took place on September 9 2008 between Frank Turek of crossexamined.org and Christopher Hitchens, who has been getting the occasional mention here lately. The subject of the debate – what else: Does God Exist?

Enjoy.

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Recall that not all that long ago, I posted my review of a debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath. One of the points I made is as follows: Hitchens says that religion dissolves our duty to uphold the truth. Now as I said at the time, as a Christian the duty to uphold the truth makes perfect sense to me, and of course it’s a duty I take seriously. I raised the question, additionally, of why the truth about religion ought to matter to someone who is not a Christian but is an atheist. I noted the straw man attack on religious people as people who don’t care about truth, and then I said:

The second issue is perhaps the more interesting one, and it is one that, unfortunately, McGrath never picks up in his reply. What obligation, according to Hitchens, do we really have to “live and witness in truth?” What is the basis of this obligation? For example, if there were a peaceful religion that was false yet gave its members great happiness and hope until the day they die, is there anything wrong in believing in it, and is there any actual moral duty to persuade people to give it up? Hitchens certainly offers no clear reason for thinking that truth at all costs is a greater good than peace and happiness for the greatest number of people on earth

That seemed like a pretty clear point, right? Well, apparently not. here’s what a nameless “reluctant atheist” had to say:

[T]he debate is utterly superfluous, because whether or not religion is a “poison” or not, it has no bearing on any kind of claim religion has to truth: the debate is a red herring.

This is because – contrary to the claims (pdf) of Glenn Peoples – the truth does matter. Time and again, Peoples claims that it doesn’t matter what individuals believe in. But Dawkins is right to point out in the God Delusion that it insults us – indeed, degrades us – as human beings to believe in things merely for the purposes of comfort. We can do better than that.

Oh dear. it’s almost as though the author of those comments had set out to make the opposite point, given how obviously untrue his comments here are. Notice how many times he quotes me making this outlandish claim: Exactly zero times.

At the risk of boosting this person’s exposure, I’ve brought this up here, and I’ve also contacted the author of that blog and requested a retraction so that nobody can say I’m making these comments in secret. Let’s set the clock ticking and see how much this fellow cares about truth after all. This is day one, and counting.

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After many promises, I’ve finally gotten around to finshing my summary and review of the debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath.

It’s currently only in pdf Format, and you can find it here.

Comments are welcome.

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… OK, I didn’t technically forget, but I did let it slide.

My summary and review of the Hitchens/McGrath Debate will be done some time this week.

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