matt: I just listened to the loftus-dsouza debate and as a consequence left the william lane craig should debate john loftus group at facebook. I dont know what others here think, but I have never heard such terrible debating (loftus). dinesh dsouza is the most overrated and small-minded debater in the english speaking universe, as far as im concerned. his arguments are like cardboard cutout versions of anything william craig has to say, for one thing because he makes no effort to hide his cultural and ideological bigotry. (he actually claims with a straight face that christians invented empathy as a moral good. what an asshole.) loftus comes across as a well-meaning college student trying to argue with his professor. i dont understand why theres a movement to see him embarrass himself and atheism generally by publically confronting the Terminator of christian apologetics himself. soooo disappointing!

As entirely disappointing as it is to say this, I am in complete agreement with Matt. I am unwilling, after listening to this, to cast my name in the vote for Loftus to debate Mr. Craig. Naively, I was hoping, especially after becoming aware of the fervent almost zealous nature of Loftus pursuit of Craig, that this would not only be the introduction of a worthy gun-slinging atheist debate protagonist but that if this epic showdown took place, it would have the added poetry of it being the student who is finally able to best the theistic Samurai. Like I said; Naive.

Typically, I dont criticize without visiting some of the reasons for my criticism.

1) There are several themes Loftus runs with in this debate, they continually come up ineffectively and provide nothing of real substance. He opens up with one; essentially telling everyone that Dinesh is just brainwashed. Which, although true, isnt something that couldnt be slung right back at him as we all know theists to do as they believe we dont believe because we dont want culpability moral or otherwise, so therefore, weve brainwashed ourselves into disbelief. Fortunately, Dinesh doesnt pick up this thread and engage Loftus in playing a sort of merry-go-round styled No, youre the brainwashed one.. No, you are.. No, YOU are...

2) Another theme is his constant return to Well all the sects of these religions critique each other and theyre all right, effectively eliminating religion in front of our very eyes. This is repeated quite frequently in this debate and Im sure Ill have more to say about it later.

3) I was inconceivably shocked with his statement History is all in the mind. He quickly tried to cover his tracks by following that up with something like well, thats what some philosophers of history say, anyway. His reasoning, as it could be inferred from what he said just prior to this utterance, was basically that history writers can only write from their perspective so given what may be of that perspective, they may have rationale for remaining skeptical of something that actually happened. Yikes.

4)Generally, about his opening remarks, he is just all over the place. There is no introduction of his arguments he just shifts left and talks about Quantum fluctuation rendering the singularity at the inception of our universe not likely therefore removing the beginning of the universe theory out of the Christians favor then all of a sudden he shifts right and now were talking about Jesus not delivering his scriptural message well and thereby is responsible for all the religious wars in his name then if there is God, hes to blame for the tsunamis. Loftus, the opening statement is the only time you have to not scramble about trying to address all of your antagonists remarks. You should have complete lucidity at this point in the game. Perhaps collecting your thoughts at the outset and introducing your arguments with more clarity of mind, e.g.

Ok, our first batter up on the atheist lineup is going to be the evidential argument from evil, it goes like this:1) If there is an omniscient, omnipotent, all-loving God..

Our next argument is a quick rejoinder to the First Cause argument, which is something like this:1) Everything that begins to exist..

Instead of touching briefly on all of them, narrow your selection down to a few and expound on them in greater detail leaving Dinesh to either spend a huge chunk of his time rebutting you or, should he chose not to, being able in your first rebuttal to say Hey, remember that huge argument of the problem of evil looks like Dinesh agrees with me as he apparently has no reply.

5) Loftus, at a few points in the debate calls Dinesh something which must have been new to his huge ears: Charming. Dinesh Dsouza is not charming. He is an arrogant, unsophisticated, misleading to the point of purposefully deceiving bucket of fuck. He is good at appearing to have a legit reply to atheistic arguments which are so transparently fraught with specious reasoning and argumentative fallacies that they render him ineligible to be charming.

6) Ive actually taken the trouble to transcribe the next part because I didnt think people would believe me when I said I bet I could find the worst conceivable argument for the atheistic creation-scenario. This was in response to, and was in fact introduced as such by Loftus himself as, Now, Dinesh has asked me to give an account of the creation of the universe.

even though Im not a scientist, what I do know, is that scientists all agree that there was no cosmic singularity. Now I cant do the math. Uhh, I can not do Victor Stengers math. He has done the math. Uhh, ::clears throat:: But, he says, given the laws of nature, its a 60% chance that something should have happened, something should be there, something should exist. 60%. Given the laws of nature.

Yep. Word for word. You can hear this enlightening account of our origins at the 41:28 point. Prepare to be underwhelmed.

7) Loftus closing, opens with this gem: I guess things got heated a little bit.. but, uh, its you know, it doesnt have to be but it does. Illuminating. Loftus then spends more then his first minute of his five minute closing telling everyone that the real way to learn is from the books. I must say, I would feel a bit slapped in the face as someone who Ive paid to listen to tell me I should pay, instead, to read him. Im not saying hes wrong. You can certainly learn more from a 300 page dissection of theism then what collectively amounts to 35 or 40 minutes worth of lectures, but to use that time so inefficiently is irritating. How about using that time to effectively rebut one of Dineshs arguments? Or constructing one of your own against Christianity? A task youve been flown in and paid to do. He then spends the rest of his closing telling everyone they should just be agnostic because theyre agnostic/atheistic towards every other religion so basically, just be consistent. Have you read any other religions? No? Then you should just discard yours too. we deny scientology, we deny mormons, we deny muslims Im sorry, maybe Im being unfairly critical but who the hell has ever been converted after being told that line? Who, after being made to realize that they havent given fair intellectual treatment to greek mythology, has right then and there renounced Christ for good?

Loftus and Dsouza were very generous and permitted almost another hour of questioning following there closings.

Before I submit this rather harsh review of Loftus debating skills, I have to say, as I believe Ive stated before, Why I Became An Atheist was one of the best, most helpful books I read in the atheistic/agnostic/naturalist cannon of probably 20-30 books Ive read in the past 2 or 3 years. I enjoyed it thoroughly. Notes for future thoughts and arguments poured out of me while reading that book and I recommend and cite it in my own writing quite often. So maybe my resentment is as a result of placing so much FAITH in Mr Loftus as an author that I unfairly expected too much of him as a neophyte debater.

I do, with the utmost sincerity hope, that if you are reading this Mr Loftus (as I know you frequent this site) you take some note of how this looks to your fellow nonbelievers. Were relying on you, as one of the few out there headlining debates on our behalf. You know the crowd of people at your back are of an intellectual breed and as such, we demand the highest caliber arguments be offered in our defense. You clearly display a great deal of passion for these topics and Im hoping I can count on that to have you take better care to prepare your thoughts in the future. As well as to focus your arguments and speak with more clarity and precision. Look at your former mentor. He doesnt race through his speeches. He has a calm, very collected vibe and hardly repeats the same thing in a single debate whereas, a lot of what you said, you said in almost the same wording in multiple places (i.e. the religion cancels each other out argument).

Best,J.

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600+ Atheism vs. Theism Debates