1. Comment #274104 by andraste77 on October 29, 2008 at 3:55 pm

I watched this elsewhere earlier this week.

Why is Turek so shouty? Shouty and irritating and not funny and screaching out the same old arguments that have been screached out and shot down a million times before. And they call RD strident...

Hitch demolished him, I thought. Maybe I'm biased because I agree with him.

Other Comments by andraste77

2. Comment #274107 by He'sAVeryNaughtyBoy on October 29, 2008 at 3:59 pm

I loved the way that Turek started so nice and wonderfuly engaging, then as his arguments were torn apart one by one he became more and more frustrated and started yelling the same tired arguments over and over. The Hitch is a class act.

Other Comments by He'sAVeryNaughtyBoy

3. Comment #274127 by LeeC on October 29, 2008 at 4:19 pm

Excellent - I just need to know how to download this to my ipod so I can watch it on the train.

Other Comments by LeeC

4. Comment #274140 by Spinoza on October 29, 2008 at 4:28 pm

I just think I know who banged it.

Epic fail.

Other Comments by Spinoza

5. Comment #274145 by DarwinsPitbull on October 29, 2008 at 4:35 pm

Spinoza:Comment #274140

Yea I actually felt a little uncomfortable when he said that. I wish someone would of made a cricket noise after that.

Other Comments by DarwinsPitbull

6. Comment #274148 by Gamma ut on October 29, 2008 at 4:41 pm

I watched this earlier this week too. I wasn't expecting much from Turek, but I got even less -- his arguments were the same old story, and not creative in the slightest. I instantly felt sorry for him though when he said it was his first public debate; he probably didn't have a clue what was about to be unleashed by the CH. Hasn't he heard of Youtube? :)

Also, loved the CH's response to the question about the meaning of life...

Priceless!

Other Comments by Gamma ut

7. Comment #274152 by notsobad on October 29, 2008 at 4:48 pm

Turek is an example of a more sophisticated but still deluded theist. You throw science at him, he will listen and study, but will eventually say, 'See that only reinforces what we were saying all along!.' Except it doesn't and his understanding and explanation of scientific facts is skewed towards his beliefs, not reality. His understanding of chemistry and biology was outright laughable.

He has no new arguments, because there are none and won't be any unless someone finds empirical evidence. And they were unable to do that for thousands of years.

Other Comments by notsobad

8. Comment #274161 by Muetze on October 29, 2008 at 4:56 pm

Oh please, not the second law of thermodynamics. This argument was used by Kend Hovind for God's sake! Somebody please explain to these people that the word entropy has nothing to do with painting your walls.

Other Comments by Muetze

9. Comment #274167 by qomak on October 29, 2008 at 5:03 pm

Poor guy ... he is ignorant and stupid.

Other Comments by qomak

10. Comment #274172 by Spinoza on October 29, 2008 at 5:15 pm

Please. Turek is not "more sophisticated". The man is not a philosopher. Not even close. He can't even argue the CLASSICAL philosophical arguments for theism properly... they are much "better" than he presents them.

For an example of a very slippery, fairly intelligent theistic philosopher debating a brilliant philosopher on this topic see: http://sitemaker.umich.edu/emcurley/craig-curley_debate

Other Comments by Spinoza

11. Comment #274173 by Bonzai on October 29, 2008 at 5:25 pm

Spinoza

Please. Turek is not "more sophisticated". The man is not a philosopher

I haven't watched the debate so can't say if Turek is sophisticated or not. But please, what makes you think that one has to be a philosopher to be "sophisticated"? Give me a break.

Other Comments by Bonzai

12. Comment #274176 by Don_Quix on October 29, 2008 at 5:28 pm

"He's carrying the cross of atheism..."

I know he may have meant that metaphorically (although I kind of doubt it), but...

*head in hands*

Other Comments by Don_Quix

13. Comment #274177 by Mark Jones on October 29, 2008 at 5:29 pm

Comment #274104 by andraste77

Why is Turek so shouty?

I think he's very nervous; it's his first formal debate, against a man who probably did it at school. He's quite breathless, and tries to be light-hearted and fails. I've done it myself when public speaking!

Of course, he also has some very bad arguments to present...

Other Comments by Mark Jones

14. Comment #274181 by alabasterocean on October 29, 2008 at 5:35 pm

Is it just me or do Hitchens debate drunkenstyle?

look at 63min when he talks about the age of humans. He has no idea what he is talking about :)
Debate before cocktailhour Mr Hitchens!

Other Comments by alabasterocean

15. Comment #274183 by Liveliest Crib on October 29, 2008 at 5:37 pm

10. Comment #274172 by Spinoza on October 29, 2008 at 5:15 pm:

Please. Turek is not "more sophisticated". The man is not a philosopher. Not even close. He can't even argue the CLASSICAL philosophical arguments for theism properly... they are much "better" than he presents them.

I agree. Completely.

About the only thing on which I thought Turek had a handle was that Hitchens was not actually countering his tired and insipid arguments when he was speaking. I do think that, until the cross-talk portion, Hitchens presented his own thoughts without regard to what Turek was saying.

And why should he have? Oh, I know that's what they were there to debate. But, seriously, every one of Turek's arguments are just the same old blather theists present as though no rebuttal has ever been uttered in history. It gets tiring to rebut them, only for the theists to repeat them later without regard to the rebuttal. Which is all they ever do.

The least Turek could have done was present them better.

Other Comments by Liveliest Crib

16. Comment #274184 by Ex~ on October 29, 2008 at 5:39 pm

His main argument is perhaps the must repugnant and distasteful argument of all.

He lists all these great mysteries, these great questions, and says "you have to answer all that, and if you can't answer all that convincingly, then theism is more reasonable."

What utter nonsense. It's like you have a canvas, and on one end you have Renoir with his paintbrush and pallet, and he's going away slowly at the canvas filling it up with beautiful art, and then the creationist runs in with his canvas, and he dumps a bucket of paint all over his canvas while yelling "GOD DUNNIT!" and proclaiming himself the winner of the race, and the better painter, because he has his canvas entirely filled and Renoir is taking his time.

It's the most repugnant, infantile, anti-intellectual argument, it's the "God of the gaps" argument. "Hey, look at all these questions I can answer simply by filling in "GOD DUNNIT" on the exam! My worldview wins because I can answer more questions more quickly!

In the end, the theist doesn't answer anything. He scream "Goddunit!" at the top of his lungs, and then, when the good secular scientist discovers how it really happened, and how there's nothing supernatural at all about some particular phenomenon, the theist quickly checks that off his list of GODDUNIT gaps like it never happened, and like it says nothing about the fundamental structure of his argument.

Other Comments by Ex~

17. Comment #274185 by SmartLX on October 29, 2008 at 5:41 pm

Ah, William Lane Craig. Yep, slippery is the word, Spinz.

As much as he annoys me, I've always wondered how he'd do in a debate against any of the Four Horsemen, after writing against them so often. He's never done it though; being a creationist it's probably against Dawkins's principles to touch him (and I read a quote where Dawkins hadn't even heard of Craig).

Other Comments by SmartLX

18. Comment #274186 by Don_Quix on October 29, 2008 at 5:43 pm

Turek's statements that "There was nothing before the Big Bang" and "The universe must have a supernatural origin" are things which are impossible to know at our current level of technological progress. For all we know there are other universes (or meta-universes) outside of our own universe, and the coming into being of our universe is a natural (repeat NATURAL) function of those universes. My point is, there aren't only two possibilities (some SUPERnatural...probably Christian...God created the universe, or the universe spontaneously created itself from nothing).

I'm not sure there is even such a thing as "nothing" that exists or exited outside of our universe, but that is another thing we can't know at our current level of technological progress.

Basically, this Turek guy seems to be throwing out a bunch of random unsupported statements regarding cosmology, and then concluding that this must mean God exists. It's quite annoying, and typical fundie nonsense. I don't know why Hitchens feels the need to debate such inexperienced debators. Hitchens is in a totally different class than this guy.

Other Comments by Don_Quix

19. Comment #274191 by SmilingAtheist on October 29, 2008 at 5:54 pm

Can anyone provide a download of this? I can't view this online at work :(

Other Comments by SmilingAtheist

20. Comment #274197 by ab_initio on October 29, 2008 at 6:05 pm

I found my self quite frustrated with Hitchens at points, especially around the 85 minute mark where he just couldn't understand the question.

Turek was asking about how can objective morality exist and Hitchens made himself look stupid by not listening to Turek who was desperately trying to at least have his question understood.

I think Hitch was obviously on the drink before the debate, which normally is fine but this time it showed.

Greg.

Other Comments by ab_initio

21. Comment #274201 by OverUsedChewToy on October 29, 2008 at 6:07 pm

Other Comments by OverUsedChewToy

22. Comment #274209 by tomwb on October 29, 2008 at 6:23 pm

Turek was asking about how can objective morality exist

This frustrated me as well. Hitchens assumed that Turek was saying that morality comes from religion, whereas he was actually saying that it comes from God.

Hitchens argued the fact that morality is innate, but that was exactly Turek's point - he was asking how an innate moral sense can exist in a materialistic world.

I think this is a really interesting question, but very few people seem to give it much thought.

Perhaps Daniel Dennett has come closest to providing a satisfactory answer to this, but Turek dismisses Dennett out of hand.

Other Comments by tomwb

23. Comment #274210 by black wolf on October 29, 2008 at 6:24 pm

I don't know if Hitchens had had an apéritif or five.
But I agree to what ab_initio says in #20. Hitchens could simply have answered with consensual ethics and evolved moral behavior.
Of course, as Turek uses a lot of presuppositionalist argumentation about morality, logic and mathematics, he would have jumped to those, demanding an absolute standard instead of human consensus or empiricism.
To which the answer is also quite simple: since the necessity of an absolute standard as a presupposition has not and can not logically be established (circularity), and since the rules of logic are not a natural law but a human method, his question falls flat on its superfluous butt.

Other Comments by black wolf

24. Comment #274214 by black wolf on October 29, 2008 at 6:35 pm

tomwb,
actually Turek is looking for an answer as to how a materialistic/naturalistic worldview accounts for morality. He takes it as an unspoken fact, to which he was trying to get I assume, that there must necessarily be an absolute standard independent of human thought. If this is what he was after, he worded the question very poorly.
He doesn't say that a materialist can't have morality, he wants to establish the necessity of a universal, metaphysically absolute standard. His path of thinking is that through the right faith, we would follow this absolute standard which he asserts by implication is God's law.

Maybe Hitchens has caught that from previous arguments or otherwise and deliberately avoided it, because arguments like this one can go on forever and would eat up the debate time.

If Turek was looking for an evolutionary explanation of altruism down to the molecular level - he repeatedly used the term brain chemicals like a mantra - he was probably knowingly asking a question science hasn't fully answered yet. It's basically a Gish gallop strategy, throwing questions, mostly straw men, at the opponent with the assertion that he won't be able to answer them, and expecting detailed scientific answers for all of them. Any question not answered within the debate is a claimed victory in this childish debate strategy, complete with shifting the burden of proof.

Turek is full of bad science, bad theology, bad philosophy - and to the uninformed believer (at least to himself) that makes him a good apologist apparently.

Other Comments by black wolf

25. Comment #274217 by Don_Quix on October 29, 2008 at 6:46 pm

"What is the atheistic explanation for *random thing*???"

*Don't allow for any responses or ignore all responses*

"Therefore the Christian God exists!"

Other Comments by Don_Quix

26. Comment #274225 by Count von Count on October 29, 2008 at 6:57 pm

Spinoza-

Thanks for the article.

Everyone-

This gives me an idea. It's a bit of a challenge to all of you. We have all heard a plethora of bad arguments in favor of religion, but can anyone recommend some really good arguments for religion (preferably in article or video form)? Of course, I highly doubt any completely solid argument is possible (which is why I'm an atheist), but I am asking for an argument that, though it may have been found wrong in the end, was very subtle and not easy to refute without some deep thinking.

Richard mentioned in "The Four Horsemen" that for him, the argument about the so-called "finely tuned" cosmological constants had given him pause. As for myself, I wrestled for some time with a few of the statements by Alexander McGrath about the compassionate side of Christianity.

What about you? What arguments have you found difficult? After all, we get stronger by going up against the strongest, not the weakest.

Other Comments by Count von Count

27. Comment #274232 by notsobad on October 29, 2008 at 7:12 pm

Please. Turek is not "more sophisticated".

The religious standards are so low that I'd consider him more sophisticated than young-earth creationists or Fred Phelps and Jerry Falwell types.
But after watching the whole debate, I should have written less stupid.
His comparison of Bible miracles to uniqueness of every moment offended basic logic.

Other Comments by notsobad

28. Comment #274237 by Wosret on October 29, 2008 at 7:22 pm

I thought that Hitchens didn't get interesting until the question period. Only then did he start to turn on his characteristic charm and wit.

26. Comment #274225 by Count von Count

The concept of universal justice, eternal life, and supernatural powers. I find those very appealing on an emotional level.

There has never been an argument for theism that I didn't find absurd, or completely obliterated by the evidence on an intellectual level however.

Take Turek's proposition at the end of his "cosmological argument" (that revealed less knowledge in the field than I possess, and I possess very little). Pretend that his argument was coherent, and just take his proposition. "What is more likely, that a supernatural person caused the universe, or some natural physical event did?" (this isn't precisely how he put it, but I don't think it is a misrepresentation). I find the answer to that to be clear.

Other Comments by Wosret

29. Comment #274241 by phasmagigas on October 29, 2008 at 7:24 pm

Hitchens argued the fact that morality is innate, but that was exactly Turek's point - he was asking how an innate moral sense can exist in a materialistic world.

this is something ive not really thought about but living things will inevitably behave in some way, they may lie still all day or run across sand dunes etc, etc, we also have various behaviours and it seems that some of them (esp with our abstract thoughts) will be eventually determined as good (whatever that means) and that we label as moral over time. Wondering why they can exist in a materialistic universe is perhaps the same as saying 'why do we have blunt nails and teeth and tasty blood instead of razor sharp ones and acid for blood in a materialistic world" Animals may have a 'morality' as such from their own perspective, a wolf that ran through a pack and maimed individuals and killed cubs randomly could be deemed immoral and such behaviour would perhaps be stemmed by group attack (it is of course maladaptive for other reasons too and this stuff is widely discussed anyway)

Anyway im not sure why theists assume that in a godless universe that creatures should be whirling dervishes of destruction.

i know morals vary with cultures but generally im sure we are aware that day to day existence is a constant stream of moments balancing selfish and selfless acts and surely its easy to realise that a constantly whilrling dervish gets nowhere fast.

maybe im missing the point.

Other Comments by phasmagigas

30. Comment #274248 by notsobad on October 29, 2008 at 7:44 pm

look at 63min when he talks about the age of humans. He has no idea what he is talking about :)

Speaking of which, I recommend the following speech to everybody who wants to learn more or just recall what they have studied about human ancestry. It's also a good source for people, who haven't studied this before.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/spencer_wells_is_building_a_family_tree_for_all_humanity.html

Other Comments by notsobad

31. Comment #274249 by Ex~ on October 29, 2008 at 7:46 pm

The last part at around 89 minutes was absolutely hilarious.

Hitchens just cooly answers questions and goes off into musing analytical diversions, while Turek rabidly shouts at Hitchens that he's not allowing for morality.


Anyways, I don't think Hitchens sufficiently answered the question (I don't blame him, it's a stupid question), but what was being asked was this (I'll try to directly quote):

"How can there be any morality if it's just your opinion vs mine?"

Well this is silly. We all have innate senses of morality, and we all share the same earth. Naturally there will have to be a collective morality developed. We all seem to agree that murder is wrong, and so our collective morality legislates against murder. Perhaps one person may come along and say "murder is right", well where does that come from? Why does he think that? Well, either its religion, or its insanity. Either way the collective must banish and annihilate him from their collective for violating the moral standard ennacted by the collective.

Naturally, this collective moral consciousness can always be improved upon, with rational thinking towards standards we can all approve and agree upon.


People like Turek imagine some magical universe where nobody agrees on anything moral, while simultaneously saying that "you know morality" and "it's written on your heart". Well yes, I know it, and yes, it's innate, and yes, it's written on all our "hearts", so to speak, but it wasn't written there by God, it was written there by social conditioning and evolution. And the reason we can say "this is wrong" and "this is right" and be saying more than mere opinion, is because we all share that same moral compass embedded within us.

Other Comments by Ex~

32. Comment #274257 by Ex~ on October 29, 2008 at 8:07 pm

Ugh, he keeps on with this nonsense, I just want to refute it again:

"What makes a moral action right in a materialist worldview? By what standard is it right or wrong?"

Well by what standard is "God's nature" right or wrong?

Is it moral because it's God's nature, or is it God's nature because it's moral?

If it's moral because it's God's nature, well then God could have a nature, for instance, that leads him to command the mass genocide of entire civilizations. Obviously that's not moral.

If it's God's nature because it's moral, well then God's nature merely confines itself to the limits of something outside itself. Thus, God's nature is not the ultimate basis of morality.


You see when you get into these objectivist arguments, they trip themselves up in their own fallacious reasoning.

Other Comments by Ex~

33. Comment #274267 by Fuller on October 29, 2008 at 8:23 pm

Anyways, I don't think Hitchens sufficiently answered the question (I don't blame him, it's a stupid question),

I think that's the point. Maybe Hitch deliberately chooses not to give the stupidest questions credibility by answering them, and instead uses the opportunity to encourage the audience to look at certain problems another way.

Otherwise he would just be giving the stock standard (however correct) responses to questions everyone's heard a thousand times.

He compliments the audience by assuming that they will recognise inanity when they here it.

Other Comments by Fuller

34. Comment #274268 by SteveO on October 29, 2008 at 8:24 pm

There were a couple of points where I was waiting for Hitchens to take a page from Dawkins' book and refute the claims of complexity inferring a designer, and evolution as a theory of sheer luck.

I think he might come off better if he were able to explain those concepts directly, but his way is effective as well.

I enjoyed watching Hitchens speak and was a little annoyed (as per usual) by hearing the same old ridiculous arguments put forth in a louder and more smug way over and over again by Turek.

Other Comments by SteveO

35. Comment #274271 by a tree with roots on October 29, 2008 at 8:33 pm

I think Sam Harris would be a better match for this Turek fellow with all his questions about how "chemicals" could possibly explain morality.
Actually, since the guy was so proud of his "scientific" arguments, I think Hitch was probably the least appropriate of our favourite debaters, because he let many of them go unanswered. I'm sure to him (as they were to me and many of us here) they were more than evidently misinterpretations of any number of theories and ideas, but some part of the audience were probably geniunely taken by the vaguely "sciencey" sound they had.

Other Comments by a tree with roots

36. Comment #274275 by j.mills on October 29, 2008 at 8:37 pm

Yah, following up what Ex~ is saying (loved the Renoir analogy btw), a response to this "objective morality" claim would be to demand to know what is and isn't objectively moral. Slavery for instance, or homosexuality, are they moral? The bible's answers are either unclear, or where they are clear they nonetheless divide even Christians.

I haven't actually watched Hitch in full flow before and his lazy yet articulate sang-frois is very impressive and a cunning oratorical weapon. Felt a bit sorry for Turek, who struck me as honest but inexperienced.

Other Comments by j.mills

37. Comment #274279 by Spinoza on October 29, 2008 at 9:05 pm

Just to clarify: When I said "He's not a philosopher." I was referring specifically to his being a debater on the theistic side of things.

What I actually meant was that there are philosophers who are theists who can argue for theism in a vastly more sophisticated manner, so that so far as we could measure it, he is intellectually equivalent to Kirk Cameron.

Nothing this man said was interesting, it was bad rehashings of arguments EVERY undergraduate philosophy student studies over and over and over... no educated theist would argue as badly as this man has.

Other Comments by Spinoza

38. Comment #274281 by Don_Quix on October 29, 2008 at 9:10 pm

Oh I finally got to Turek showing his true colors:

"Humanism according to who? Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin!!??11"

Yet more typical creationist garbage/talking points. I am so sick of this, and I am shocked no one has commented on it yet.

Other Comments by Don_Quix

39. Comment #274282 by Don_Quix on October 29, 2008 at 9:16 pm

Also an "innate moral sense" is self evident in humanity because we are here. We are moral because if we weren't moral we would not be here.

If a hundred thousand years ago our ancestors refused to help or killed all of their own family/tribal members because they were selfish, rather than being relatively helpful and altruistic towards one another, none of us would be here talking about this right now.

Our "innate morality" is a result of our evolution, not of religion.

Hitchens should have asked Turek where he thinks the innate morality of a star in the process of going supernova comes from...while it sterilizes multiple other star systems...possibly with billions of sentient organisms just like us...within dozens of light years of it.

But then, we all know what Turek's answer would be. Anything God does (the Christian one, of course) is moral by definition. GREAT LEADER CAN DO NO WRONG!

Other Comments by Don_Quix

40. Comment #274284 by Spinoza on October 29, 2008 at 9:26 pm

I like pre-raphaelite paintings...

I also like puppies and being nice and when people are nice to me.

What has God got to do with any of that?

QED.

Other Comments by Spinoza

41. Comment #274286 by EvidenceOnly on October 29, 2008 at 9:44 pm

Frank Turek's doctorate obviously is devoid of any scientific content.

- The selfish gene, The blind watchmaker, The God delusion, Unweaving the rainbow (Richard Dawkins)
- God, the failed hypothesis (Victor Stenger)
- God's problem, Misquoting Jesus (Bart Ehrman)

are solid books this born-again ignoramus has never read or understood.

They totally shred Turek's silly arguments.

Turek starts with the certainty that there is a god and then distorts all arguments against a god to try to fit his conclusion sprinkled with out of context quotations.

Same old, same old.

Other Comments by EvidenceOnly

42. Comment #274291 by William Kaiser on October 29, 2008 at 10:07 pm

I am so bored with these "debates." They find stupider and stupider people to argue with Hitch and the rest.

I think now that Richard Dawkins is retiring, he should offer touring debates with him as the moderator. Professor Dawkins could announce at the beginning of each debate that the theist arguments are verbatim quotes from "real" debates.

But.... forget about having the typical morons arguing for the theist side. Have someone like Ricky Gervais do the religious nutter character. He could use all the standard arguments, he wouldn't even have to exaggerate. He's excellent at playing a dim-witted fool. ;-)

People of diminished capacity will believe that it is a real debate. It will be hilarious when their fellow nutters, who have a few more IQ points, tell them that the debate was not real!

It might actually teach a few people who side with the theist arguments how weak the arguments actually are.

Just a thought. :-)

WK

Other Comments by William Kaiser

43. Comment #274296 by FaithInReason on October 29, 2008 at 10:45 pm

I'm kind of dissapointed in Hitchens. I really think he aught to restrain himself from direct insults and try to get to the core of things. Both are discussing above the real questions.

What reason do you have for presuming that we need to have a creator to exist - could we not just always exist, etc?

Hitchens does make a very valid point, though he did perhaps not stress it enough: Why should we presume more than we know - why do we make up an explenation when we can agree that we just don't know yet.

It also dissapointed me that Hitchens does not get what Turek is asking, but keep pounding on organised religion istead of getting to the core. I think that Richard could've done a better job, but obviously, R can't do every debate out there.

Hitchens is a great intellectual, that I think we all can agree on, but I do think that he is somewhat lacking in empathy for people at a distance from him. A gleaming example of this is when he says religion is Evil. Evil is an expression that I hope we will read about in the historybooks one day.

Evil is a very wrong way to overly simplify some actions, when we instead can get to the core of the problems that face them and say that it's indoctrination, irrationallity or ignorance, but never evil for evil's sake.

Other Comments by FaithInReason

44. Comment #274297 by debacles on October 29, 2008 at 10:53 pm

Is this a joke? No, really. This is ridiculous. He doesnt have enough faith to believe that cells are so complicated? He doesnt have enough brain to understand that!

This is sad. We shouldnt acknowledge this level of dumb.

Other Comments by debacles

45. Comment #274307 by DKPetersen on October 29, 2008 at 11:48 pm

I had to stop every so often and take a break on this one, as I could not sit through the entire thing at once.

I found Turek likable enough, for a christian blowhard. I just could not stand the constant argument Turek was making about morals not being mandated by "oxygen molecules" so therefore a materialist could not explain morality. I could not endure the fact that he was constantly allowed to argue from his assumption that there is an objective morality that exists outside of human society, and that he was further allowed to use this assumption as an argument for god's existence. The only reason this really bothered me is that he repeated this nonsense several times, without much opposition. I wish Hitch would have explained the shifting moral zeitgeist to this guy.

Other Comments by DKPetersen

46. Comment #274313 by mmurray on October 30, 2008 at 12:17 am

We all seem to agree that murder is wrong, and so our collective morality legislates against murder. Perhaps one person may come along and say "murder is right", well where does that come from?

Actually we allow murder in certain situations -- we just call it something else like capital punishment or necessary act of war or collateral damage or self-defence. I would have thought we behave as you would expect chimps to behave: we are altruistic and empathic to the chimps in our band and we are pretty suspicious of anyone we define as `others'.

Michael

Other Comments by mmurray

47. Comment #274314 by Laurie Fraser on October 30, 2008 at 12:25 am

I really wish Hitchens wouldn't get on the turps before he engages in these debates. He starts to lose his way in a few of his statements. Still, quite agreeable demolishing a phony like this idiot.

Other Comments by Laurie Fraser

48. Comment #274318 by Animavore on October 30, 2008 at 12:48 am

Can't wait to get home and see this. Sounds promising from the first 5 posts. Don't want to read anymore it'll spoil my appetite.

The Hitch is a legend.

Other Comments by Animavore

49. Comment #274320 by Broshiesq on October 30, 2008 at 1:00 am

Jesus christ, did I hear that right? The guy's got a fucking doctorate in apologetics from southern evangelical seminary? I think the moderator had to stifle a laugh reading that CV. Well it should come in handy, as his was the sorriest display I've ever seen of someone's supposed putting forth an argument for the existence of god. Crap, I can't believe he allowed himself to be recorded in public, how pathetically embarrassing. How uncomfortable must it have been for those having to sit through that? His "argument" was instead a laundry list of conclusory statements (all a variation of "godditit" or “god exists”), combined with quotes from non-theists! ripped (off) out of context, and peppered with seriously lame attempts at humor (followed by silence so thick I could have heard the tobacco in Hitchens' smoke burn it he'd had one going - and it looked like he needed one). And Hitch nailed him on the fact that he couldn't even admit that he believes because of faith. Oh no, the Dr. bases his beliefs on the scientific evidence: uhh, nitrogen, heat death, uhhh, benzene molecule, mathematics, chemicals. Beyond the biological explanation, how a total dipshit like this could have three kids confounds me. This did not merit posting.

Other Comments by Broshiesq

50. Comment #274324 by halbard101 on October 30, 2008 at 1:24 am

Aghhhhhhhh, Turek started ok, but once he got into his quote mining of scientists I just wanted to FF>>. It's also getting annoying how he SHOUTS THE END OF HIS SENTENCES.

I'm just hoping the hitch isn't too drunk to shoot down these arguments, because a lot of what he's talking about is pure bollocks. "Why do people laugh at creationists" by Thunderfoot on youtube springs to mind.

Other Comments by halbard101