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The Debate

So, for those of you who went to the Craig/Avalos Debate, what did you think? What were your reactions? I didn’t go, but I listened to the recording of it, as well as all of Dr. Craig’s seminars. I also have taken three of Avalos’s classes (one of which wasn’t actually taught by him, but it was his material).

I’m thinking of writing an article for the Articles section, and would be interested in your thoughts.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 20th, 2004 at 9:27 amand is filed under Matt's External Brain. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

5 Responses to “The Debate”

  1. paul said on: February 20th, 2004 at 9:58 am

    I don’t remember that debate any more. You should have asked me the day after. :(

  2. Ochuk said on: February 20th, 2004 at 3:28 pm

    Dr. Craig is awesome. He is a very intelligent appologist. I would look forward to the article.

  3. Melissa said on: February 20th, 2004 at 6:14 pm

    I went to the event, but I can hardly call it a debate. I went with the expectation of hearing a good academic debate on the topic of the resurrection of Christ. Instead what I saw was two hours of personal attacks from both sides. I have seen more professionalism in a Junior High school debate then I did watching Dr. Craig and Dr. Avalos.

    I was particularly disappointed by Dr. Craig. I felt that where he was presenting the Christian side of the argument on the resurrection of Christ, I felt that he did a very poor job of being Christ like during his presentation. As a professing Christian, I hold him to a higher standard of personal conduct then I do Dr. Avalos. I believe that not only do we Christians have the responsibility to spread the message of God, but to do it in a way that brings honor to our Lord.

  4. Matt said on: February 21st, 2004 at 12:18 am

    Thanks for the comments melissa. I’d be interested to hear what, specifically, you were referring to?

    I feel that the debate suffered more from the “two ships passing in the night” syndrome (neither really addressing the question at hand, Avalos to a greater extent than Craig) rather than personal attacks, though I can see how one could get that feeling…

  5. Melissa said on: February 23rd, 2004 at 7:28 pm

    My thoughts, Part 2

    I felt that the first 5 minutes of the debate set the tone for the rest of the debate. Dr Craig spent that time outlining how his opponent, Dr. Avalos, was unethical in prior debates. However Dr. Craig didn’t just mention it, he dwelled on it. I felt that it was irrelevant to the topic of the resurrection of Christ and only really served to slander Dr. Avalos’s character. I don’t know, maybe Dr. Avalos is a jerk, but i felt that Dr. Craig’s pointing it out in the first minutes of the debate was preemptive and unprofessional.

    I do think there was some “ships passing in the night” going on. I didn’t feel that they really rebutted each other’s points.

    I do believe that the burden of proof was on Dr. Craig not Dr. Avalos. I don’t know if faith in God (and the resurrection of Christ) can be defended logically. I believe that the strongest arguments for the existence of God (and the resurrection of Christ) fall into a subjective realm of our own hearts.

    Maybe I’ve just have a unique outlook on the debate as I spent the first 25 years of my life being atheists/weak agnostic and am looking at spending the next three years of my life in seminary.

    Oh well, those are just my thoughts.

    Peace of Christ be with you -Melissa