Part 2 of the atheist debate is now online

May 10th, 2007 • 2 comments atheism, christianity, debate, tv

Just dug up the link http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=3160648 from abcnews.com — although it was buried in the site.

Although the overall debate was poor, this second part is on the whole a bit better. Both sides skirt the issues proposed to them but tried to still make some point that people may link to whatever they were asked. Here’s some interesting things I found that the Christians ignored:

(Ray wants to state there were no people before the Bible)

(Kirk’s bizarre denial of evolution)

(Kirk is completely floored when Brian asks him “How can you not walk a mile without taking one step at a time?” and has absolutely nothing to say in defense. Instead he asks for the question again and skips to macroevolution)

(someone posed the question about Communist states acting as atheists)

(Kirk says it’s love of their faith and people, that’s why they’re killed. It’s in the audience questions segment).

(Ray skirts the entire issue by talking about light/darkness and ends up agreeing with the original question posed to him and could not explain why other than saying “It’s not true”. Kirk fumbles.)

(Ray talks about suffering instead of directly addressing the question. Uses distraction tactics to hinge upon fear mongering. Ray also says to not use “suffering” as a rejection of God although it has no basis in the question)

What the atheists missed or ignored:

(they share a great number of similarities but this is Kelly’s area of “expertise”)

(and I mean any godhead figure)

(other Atheists have postulated on this as well)

(Martin made the most salient point about this earlier in the debate)

Everything I think they missed were either questions directly asked to them or inferred by the questions asked to them. Believe me, some of this crazy stuff I could never make up.

Atheist debate, part 2

May 10th, 2007 • atheism, christianity, debate, tv

After last night’s sad attempt at showing the debate on Nightline, ABC is airing the rest online today. It was supposed to be on abcnews.com at 1PM EDT although I did not find any direct links. It should be on abcnews.com/abcnewsnow at 2PM EDT. I will post a direct link to the player as soon as I find one.

Although, what was shown on TV was merely about 20 minutes of the 90 minute debate and what’s been shown online so far has been far less than 90 minutes as well. In total, I’ve seen less than an hour of footage so what happened to the other 30 to 40 minutes worth?

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.

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!

Thoughts on the ABC debate from last night

May 6th, 2007 • atheism, christianity, debate

I culled this first from Pharyngula and then from digg to get a rounded idea of other people’s thoughts.

What comes from the Dawkins forums is of no surprise but reading the comments from Pharyngula were interesting. Myself, like many others, think that Comfort’s argument is completely bizarre. In the banana video, Comfort goes on record to state that during the big bang, there was a bubbly fizzy brown liquid “created” and it just sat there…assumptively in the same spot. Then after millions of years, aluminum gathers around the fizzy brown liquid and somehow magically takes the form of our well known soda can. And if by “duh” moment, that can was then topped with a top and given a tab. Comfort then goes on to babble about how paint magically fell from the sky on to the can — and only the can — to paint it in now familiar colours. So is he saying that Coke and Pepsi have been around since the dawn of time? I’m flabbergasted. But no, this is his argument about atheists being “dumb” and non-intellectuals.

Comfort espouses that everything must have been created by someone — gee, that’s a deep statement. Buildings have builders (but not architects?), soda cans have soda can makers (does he know that robots make these cans?), paintings have painters, and so on and so forth. So during the debate when audience questions were fielded, I wonder why no one asked “If everything has a creator, does the Creator too have a Creator?”. I know I would have and would have gotten a great chuckle out of his rebuttal.

This is what is so many Christians think and they call non-theists crazy but I wonder if they will ever look in the mirror.

ABC Atheist debate update!

May 3rd, 2007 • 3 comments atheism, christianity, debate, tv

Remember my post a few days ago about the death match between Atheists and Christians? Well, I just got word about the debate between the blasphemychallenge.com guys and Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron. Here’s the official word from Mark Spence:

Thank you for requesting more information about the Atheist Debate
between “The Way of the Master ” co-hosts Kirk Cameron & Ray Comfort and
the www.blasphemychallenge.com founders/representatives.

ABC just confirmed that the debate is going to be at Calvary Baptist
Church in New York City on Saturday, May 5, 2007 @ 7:30pm (EST).

The full debate will air on www.abcnews.com on Wednesday, May 9, 2007 @
2:00pm (EST).
The Nightline piece will air that same night at 11:35 p.m. (your local
time)

For more information please go to:
http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=3130360&page=1

Most Commonly asked questions:
1. Is it open to the public? No. ABC was very strict about this.
Sorry, no exceptions.
2. How does one get a Media Pass? Contact Andr...@abc.com
3. Is it ok to show up outside the church to support? Yes.

**Please note the preceding information may change without notice by
ABC.

Woohoo!! Now I know when to set my DVR to record. I can imagine that abcnews.com will be getting a bit more traffic than normal on Wednesday.

Christians set to prove existence of God on national TV

April 30th, 2007 • 3 comments atheism, christianity, debate

Last week, Hemant got word that the guys from the banana video would be pitted against two Atheists for a live death match on ABC. Well, I wish it was a death match but instead it’s just a vocal debate.

Well, Digg finally caught up with the rest of the world and someone posted this. I’ve been planning to watch the online simulcast of the debate which should prove to be interesting from the Christian side for sure, I’m going to relish the insane things they say. I love this quota from Ray Comfort:

The Christian writer also noted that there is a genuine attack against Christian beliefs, more than other religions.

Gee, now why would that be? It might not be because Christian fundies make it their life-long goal to attack, demean, belittle, and otherwise hate upon those of other religions would it? It wouldn’t be because they make it an endeavour to convert people of other religions to Christianity by vehemently attacking the people’s original religion would it?

I foresee the end of this debate with the Atheists laughing and Comfort and Cameron hanging their heads in shame.