On Wednesday 26th October, 2011, Protestant apologist William Lane Craig debated Peter Atkins on the topic: Does God Exist? This
debate took place at the University of Manchester as part of the UK
Reasonable Faith Tour with William Lane Craig.
Quite frankly, it's as good a fight as I've seen any atheist put up against WLC.
Maggie Gallagher, President of The Institute for Marriage and Public Policy and Dale Carpenter, University of Minnesota Professor of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Law presented their views on the Same Sex Marriage Amendmentat the Murphy Institute's inaugural debate on public policy issues for the 2012 elections.
The Argument of the Month is a forum for Catholic Men to hear and discuss various apologetics topics. Well...I say apologetics, but it's not that narrow. Take, for example, these talks on Social Justice by famed Chestertonian Dale Ahlquist:
Naturally, they also have the standard mean-and-potatoes Sola Scriptura debates, Contra Modernism talks, etc. Go check them out for yourself -- well worth it.
Protestant apologist and iterate worker in the vineyard William Lane Craig had a recent debate with Stephen Law at Westminster Hall on the topic: Does God Exist?
I'm not exactly sold on the idea - in large part because it relies so heavily on the Fine Tuning argument (good article defending it here) and other such teleos based assertions. Personally, I think the Angelic Doctor did it better with his Five Ways - See ST I, Q2 Art. 3 or the Catholic Answers summary here.
Should Intelligent Design be taught as science? Stephen Barr, professor of physics at the University of Delaware (and First Things contributor), debates that question with Michael Behe, a professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University and senior fellow at the Discovery Institute.
You can listen to the audio or watch the video at the website of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute.
. Here's a real treat! Catholic apologist (and devoted geocentrist - lolwut?!?) Robert Sungenis debating "Dr." (lolwut again?!?) James White, elder at Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
I remember when I was first learning about Catholic doctrine. I got my hands on all of the James White debates I could because I wanted to find the truth and he seemed so...persuasive, I suppose. I've heard him debate a number of Catholics, a few Protestants and even some Muslims. I even exchanged a few e-mails with him (which he posted, in heavily edited, straw-man created form on his blog -- which still doesn't allow comments where one might challenge his mildly deceptive tactics).
The thing is, the more I learned about Catholic doctrine the less persuasive he became. I started to see where he was manipulating the debate by using ambiguous terms to distort or misrepresent Catholic teaching. I noticed his failure to answer direct questions. I even went so far as to document several of his errors and misrepresentations at the Catholic Answers forum. In my defense, it was Mr. White's idea -- he wanted people to substantiate their allegations. So I did.
ANYWHO...here are two debates, HT to Filipino Catholic. The first is on Calvinistic double predestination. The second is on the Bodily Assumption of Our Lady. Even though I find many of his comments frustrating now (he really should know better by this point), I still like listening to his debates. Hope you do, too. Enjoy!
Christopher Hitchens, famed atheist and one of my favorite debaters (for style, not substance), has cancer. You may have heard. If you would, please say a prayer or two for his conversion.
A friend of mine recently asked me to track down a "debate" he did with Bill Donohue, head of the Catholic League. Well...here's what I've got:
Atheist Christopher Hitchens and Catholic Dinesh D'Souza recently debated at the University oEf Notre Dame (GO IRISH!) and ND has kindly decided to stream the video online.
Long time friend of the show and content supplier Wild Bill Albrecht recently debated Turretinfan (a member of the Reformed Protestant camp and contributor at James White's Alpha & Omega Ministries site, home of the always disabled comments section) on the first and most significant Marian dogma: Mary the Mother of God. Check it thou out!
If it helps you to put a face to the name, here's a video Wild Bill made a couple years back:
Last Thursday at Wheaton, two members of the First Things family, board member Timothy George and contributor Francis Beckwith, debated the question, “Can you be Catholic and Evangelical?” A video of the debate can be found here.
In “Evangelicals and the Great Tradition” (Aug/Sept 2007), George discusses Beckwith’s return to the Catholic faith of his childhood from evangelicalism. (Beckwith is a former president of the Evangelical Theological Society.)
Following in the same vein as my last post, here are some debates about the existence of God featuring Antony Flew. I'm posting them because I've heard of Flew but I've never heard Flew. Here's about all I know (taken from his Wikipedia page):
Flew was a strong advocate of atheism, arguing that one should presuppose atheism until evidence of a God surfaces. He has also criticised the idea of life after death,[1] the free will defence to the problem of evil, and the meaningfulness of the concept of God.[2] However, in 2004 he stated an allegiance to deism,[3] and later wrote the book There is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind, with contributions from Roy Abraham Varghese.
So let's see what made him the forerunner of the New Atheist movement, shall we?
So I happened on an atheist audio debate site that has 400+ debates between theists and atheists, including several by my favorite atheist debater Christopher Hitchens. It's just so hard not to like the guy. Of the debates of his I've heard, the 2007 one with Catholic Dinesh D'Souza is my favorite (for entertainment purposes only) -- though I hear the debate between Hitchens and Protestant William Lane Craig (not listed below) at Biola earlier this year was the best in content and form. I'm still looking for that one.
But without further ado, here are the links to the Hitchens debates:
Last night some Catholics (including my family and I) and some Protestants from different Protestant traditions attended Professor Lawrence Feingold's lecture titled "St. Paul on Justification". The lecture was fantastic. The audio (as an mp3 file) can be downloadedhere. ... Justification is the fundamental issue that has divided Protestants and Catholics for almost 500 years. In order to be reconciled in the full communion Christ wants His disciples to show to the world, we need to reach agreement on this subject. And that means that we first need to listen and understand each other on this subject. Here's an opportunity to do just that.
Filipino Catholic, a frequent tipster here at Sonitus Sanctus, sent me a link to the following debate. I listened to it and then forgot about it. Thankfully, FC reminded me that I didn't share. That said, here ya' go:
William "Wild Bill" Albrecht wrote in and let me know about a recent debate of his with TurretinFan from Alpha and Omega Ministries (the patristically dishonest "ministry" of the Right Reverend Reformed Baptist Bishop James "Dr." White). Rock and roll! I love debates and I love the Blessed Virgin (Hi Mom!) -- how could this get better?!? Wild Bill writes:
This is the first in a number of debates we have planned. We will be debating the MARIAN DOGMAS very soon, you can announce that also if you'd like. Those will be much longer. Each DOGMA will be roughly about 2 and a half hours long and we will start debating that in July,
UPDATE: Find Wild Bill Albrecht's last debate here.
Commentary from an unrelated (and untrustworthy?) source:
A debate between well known Christian Apologists Dinesh D'souza and atheist Peter singer on a wide range of topics touching on God's existence problem of evil and suffering etc.
I must say i was very disappointed by dinesh's performance on this debate.Peter singer's arguments were nothing new.The classical arguments against God's existence.mainly focusing on the problem of evil. Dinesh seemed not to have a proper grasp on the counter arguments of the problem of evil,and he did miserably in defending his position on the matter.
Dinesh did not even use the free will defense by alvin plantinga to properly argue against the problem of evil.Even at one time saying that he did not know why there is evil and suffering.
Peter singer in my own view,was ok.In fact he's a very "mild" atheist. But dinesh did not capitalize on the opportunity.Instead he opened his speech on a totally unrelated topic about the problems of atheism,the injustices of former atheists,and the dangers of eliminating religion from society.I agree with some of his points,but that was not the topic of discussion.The topic was on God's existence and he should have started off with arguments in support of this position first.
When the question time from the audience reached,D'souza answered well,but at times strayed off the topic of the questions asked.He sometimes had very long answers to the questions.
Peter singer,well,there is really nothing much i can say about him,he wasn't exceptional,he was not the crowd's favorite.Compared to very loud Christopher Hitchens,the vial spitting Richard dawkins and other prominent atheists,Peter singer was rather dull.
In conclusion,Peter Singer was more on point than Dinesh.Peter failed to account for the source of moraliy in an atheistic worldview.Dinesh failed to substatially mount good arguments for God's existence.
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"Faith then cometh by hearing; and hearing by the word of Christ."
Rom 10:17(DRV)
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This blog is dedicated to bringing you free orthodox Catholic audio. If you have a tip or would like to report a broken link, please e-mail me by clicking the link above.
"Faith then cometh by hearing; and hearing by the word of Christ."
Rom 10:17(DRV)