The Debate

So I went to a debate recently called “Good Without God”. Present were an atheist, a minister, and rabbi Sendrow. It was an interesting debate. The format was as follows:

– Each debator received 15 minutes to state their overall position

– Each debator received 5 minutes to rebut the other debators

– Each debator received 5 minutes to answer Q / A (5 minutes per question selected. Questions were written on index cards and sent to the front).

– Each debator was given (10/15?) minutes to conclude.

I had a few problems with the way this worked. First off all, 15 minutes is a LONG time. Too many topics were covered by each speaker for any of the other speakers to really address. As an idle listener in the crowd, I often forgot most of the points that each of the speakers brought up. It would have been better for them to have spoken in maybe 5 minute intervals with 5 minutes to rebut, or something similar.

Questions came from the crowd, and were anonymous. Honestly, it felt like the atheist had setup many of his constituents to send in specific questions for him to answer. Questions that weren’t really related to the debate, but were about his overall stance on various topics. I wasn’t interested in his thoughts on Heaven, Hell, and Evolution. That’s not what the debate was about.

The atheist was a somewhat well-versed debator / speaker. I identified a few tricks / techniques that he used on the audience, that I hope everyone else was smart enough to recognize.

1. He used a story involving saving a baby. Was the story true? I honestly doubt it. I think it was meant to stir up emotion to further his point. You bring in saving a baby from a fall, and that evokes an emotional response, not a logical one.

2. He quoted statistics, without really providing proof. He offered statistics, and just expected everyone to just accept them as being true.

3. He would sometimes sum-up and say that one or both of the other speakers had agreed with him on various points, when in fact, they had not. This one was quite tricky to pick up on.

4. He used one or two, what I like to call, logic bombs. Things that are thought out ahead of time, that are difficult to reason your way out of without sufficient time to consider them. Very tricky if you’re not ready for it.

Overall, I was disappointed by the debate. No one argued whether the source of all goodness stemmed from God, which is what I thought the debate was going to be about. Everyone did agree that it was possible to be a good person and lead a good life without being religious at all. In fact, for the most part, I’m still confused as to what was actually being debated.

Anyway, here are some pictures of the very large and pretty church that it was held in.

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