Debate footage from abcnews.com

May 9th, 2007 • 2 comments atheism, christianity, debate, tv

Well, I watched the whole thing that was available from ABC and was less than amazed. If you’ve seen the teaser the RRS released, you’ve pretty much seen the whole thing. Both sides didn’t do very well in supporting their claims although, Comfort didn’t even manage to do what he claimed he could do. Cameron sat back most of the time and would chime in every so often but he was there to be exactly what he is: a name to draw people in.

Sapient and Kelly did OK but just as poorly at the same time. Kelly managed to be a better debater than Sapient but she too was offering little to their side. She did clearly get across some points that managed to stump both Comfort and Cameron but I could guess that any other Christian would have been able to spit out something in rebuttal. Sapient did manage to make both Cameron and Comfort speechless a few times with his very direct questioning. Overall, it was more of the same but in a widely accessible public forum for the masses to consume.

What was released today was only half of the debate and the rest should be online tomorrow according to ABC after Nightline airs with the same footage but should hopefully include more insightful clips. Since this was a 90 minute debate, I’m very interested in what we were not yet shown as the teaser from the RRS included segments from everything that was released today.

The debate is now airing

May 9th, 2007 • atheism, christianity, debate, tv

I finally dug up the somewhat buried link that’s directly to the player: http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=3156022

It’s split up into parts that will be used on Nightline so it makes me wonder just what they edited out.

The ABC debate is streaming soon

May 9th, 2007 • atheism, christianity, debate, tv

Looking around abcnews.com. The direct link should be here. Right now, there is a nearly 7 minute teaser from Nightline that will air later tonight. The full debate should be online shortly. The current teaser is giving a background of Cameron and the evangelism of the Way of The Master that both Cameron and Comfort put on.

I may do a live blogging but this may not occur due to work restraints. It’s funny to hear Comfort start off with his cola can argument that’s completely baseless.

New Four Stone Hearth

May 9th, 2007 • anthropology, archaeology, carnival

The new Four Stone is up at Anthropology 2.0. Let the archaeology and anthropology love begin!

ABC Atheist versus Christian debate teaser

May 9th, 2007 • atheism, christianity, debate, tv

I just watched the teaser video released by the Rational Response Squad, or RRS, over at Pharyngula. It’s 13 minutes of the 90 minutes that should be shown tomorrow on ABC. I’ll have to agree with PZ in the fact that Comfort and Cameron were pretty terrible but then, this is only 13 minutes of video that’s cherry picked from the entire debate making the RRS representatives look good. Although, they weren’t that great either.

A few other blogs have mentioned that they’re reading from prewritten materials so this throws the entire “debate” aspect out the window aside from the times where they’re asking the other side questions — thought it comes across as more of punches than questions. Just from this short video, Comfort did absolutely nothing to prove scientifically that the Christian God exists, he used his age old speech of “This is a painting, it must have a painter” as I wrote about a few days ago. The entire watchmaker theory proves very little of an ethereal guy in the sky. When asked very specific questions, there were times where neither Comfort nor Kirk could actually give an answer and even Martin Bashir was amazed by this, they could not answer simple questions that I’m sure other Christians would have belted out responses to.

I’m not going to entirely say that the Christian side of this was terrible, Sapient did a pretty bad job himself. His credibility goes down immediately since he’s dressed very casually at what is supposed to be a very serious affair but Kelly was looking rather cute in that dress. Aesthetics aside, Sapient fumbled here and there and misquoted some things but overall made valid points as did Kelly. Many of these Comfort and Cameron could not rebut. But Sapient did spend a good portion of the time reading from paper which gave off a monotone, boorish vibe which, to me, does not help his other shortcomings at all. But at least they acknowledge they didn’t do all that great on their own website. This is far more than Comfort did:

Just a quick note to let you know that the debate went wonderfully.

When I say “wonderfully” I have to qualify it. It was like an open air with an unreasonable and loud heckler. The “heckler” in this case wasn’t just the two atheists we were there to debate, but the fifty atheists in the audience. As per ABC’s stipulations, the audience was composed half-and-half : fifty Christians and fifty atheists. The Christians were very quiet and polite; the atheists weren’t. It was very apparant [sic] who was who in the audience. It seemed that no matter what we said, it was completely ignored by Brian and Kelly (the atheists) and then followed up with their anger, mockery, and insults. But as with a good open air, the heckler is simply a platform to speak to the crowd who is listening. In this case there is a crowd of millions who will hear clear, concise evidence for the existance [sic] of God. How incredible. So I am delighted, because of what we were able to say.

…

God bless,
Ray Comfort

(from Hemant)

He acts if there were never a moment where he and Cameron did not pulverize anything Brian or Kelly threw at him but the video shows otherwise. Calling the atheists “hecklers” doesn’t help his lacking credibility either.

The video is going to be streamed from ABC tomorrow at 2PM EDT so make sure you take your lunch at work then! I will!