UPDATE 12/10: I'm told that the Gordon-Carrier debate has been cancelled and may be rescheduled for another date.
Palgrave Macmillan announces a Cyber Week Sale until December 3. Good time to pick up that copy of Aristotle on Method and Metaphysics you’ve been pining for.
Palgrave Macmillan announces a Cyber Week Sale until December 3. Good time to pick up that copy of Aristotle on Method and Metaphysics you’ve been pining for.
Readers in
the Los Angeles area might be interested to know that there will be a debate on
December 13 at 7 pm between Catholic writer Timothy Gordon and atheist
Richard Carrier, at St. Therese Catholic Church in Alhambra.
Okay, that debate is gonna be a classic.
ReplyDeletePlease let that debate be recorded!
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, most popular atheist debates are done all wrong (I do not mean high level debates such as Feser and Oppy, et al). The typical atheist "debater" is not really interested in the nuance of the subject; he's merely interested in sneering wit (Krauss, Dillihunty, etc). The theist should just grant the atheist position and then reduce to the absurd: the atheist can't be arguing for anything true because whatever he thinks is merely a particle movement. His pretense that the molecules in his brain are capable of objective, abstract evaluation is a delusion, a mere particle movement. All the atheist is doing is creating meaningless, purposeless sound waves, his pretense to the contrary is a delusion. His opponents think what they think because of the chemical properties in their brains. They are not "wrong" because "wrong" doesn't exist--or at the very least is merely an attempt at dominance over others. Yet even the belief that one can evaluate the question objectively is a regress of delusions--more meaningless particle movements--causing the atheist to retreat into the pretended (and inevitable) safety of claiming that atheism isn't a positive thing but merely acknowledging a lack of evidence.
ReplyDeleteThe atheist populizers often say that if God were true, there would be no need to prove it. Actually, if atheism were true there would be no one capable of debating it.
Carrier is on a whole other level of badness.
DeleteEssentially no serious new testament historian - even the more atheist ones deny that Jesus lived. Some deny Kind David or Moses lived but even those acknowledge that Jesus died and was crucified. The principal example is Bart Ehrman, who very much holds the new testament is not reliable but still holds that Jesus lived and died on the cross.
New testament scholars who deny Jesus lived are like WWII scholars who deny the holocaust occurred: they are a small fringe group with very erroneous idea.
Also note that Carrier is not a New Testament scholar. He has a phD in ancient history (but that's pretty much it, his work is basically on the internet, no real post-doctoral scholarship) and his focus was history of science in the ancient world.
His books, latest one even if published by Oxford Press was met by extreme criticism even by atheists (including Ehrman) and is riddled with errors and bad arguments.
Debates are good when two thinkers are good and go there to debate in good faith. Carrier is neither good nor is interested in arguing in good faith.
Hi Ed! Speaking of Tim Gordon, did you happen to listen to his debate with Trent Horn on the Death Penalty? Both parties reference you.
ReplyDeleteSeeGee: the death penalty revision was the breaking point for me on Francis. There simply is no way to square that circle. I do have my disagreements with Gordon on other issues, but he did a good job proving the case in this debate. To give him the benefit of the doubt, Trent Horn seems to not understand the argument against him and seems to be falsely equating the prudential judgement to use the death penalty with the justification of the death penalty in principle.
DeleteFeser has covered the issue exhaustively and the arguments are solid. Opponents seem to always--as Horn does in this debate--resort to a weird ultramontinism that seeks to stop the argument by merely saying that if you don't unquestionably follow the words of the pope--even when those words are irrational and incoherent--you are "acting like a Protestant". If one needs to resort to advocating this sort of fideism in order to avoid a rational argument, one has a vision of Catholicism that a poor replacement for the real thing.
I might add that for an organization like Catholic Answers to surrender sound reasoning in exchange for Francis worship cast doubt on the integrity of the organization and, unfortunately, Catholic apologetics in general.
DeleteIMNHSO, the debate is not only a waste of time, but even imprudent. Mr. Carrier is an intellectual fraud, dishonest and a known public perv; staging a debate with him is to give him the public recognition he does not deserve.
ReplyDeleteEven within the community his smell is odious:
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmGbw0WGhWM
Only $10 for Aristotle on Method and Metaphysics! Just ordered my copy. Thanks!!
ReplyDeleteDebating Richard Carrier is like debating a Holocaust denier. Carrier holds a position that no scholar in the field of New Testament studies / History holds except fora few fringe elements... and by comparison it's like the fringe WWII scholars who deny the holocaust.
ReplyDeleteFrankly it's best to ignore crackpots like Carrier.