Debate Teacher Reacts: Mike Winger vs. Matt Dillahunty

Okay, I will agree because I just said that the death of Jesus has nothing to do with the resurrection. Apart from that it was necessary, but these are things.

The death of jesus has nothing to do with the resurrection apart from the fact that it's necessary. It's a necessary condition for him to resurrect that he died and if we have that fact, but it's totally irrelevant.

I don't know what you're doing bringing it up. Oh my god, he turned me into drax from guardians of the galaxy. What is up party people got another debate teacher reacts coming at you right now. Now if you're brand new to this particular series or channel, my name is nate.

I'm the president of an organization called wise disciple. We're actually a christian non-profit. We've been around for a little while. Our goal is to give you the tools that you need to live effectively as christians in today's culture.

And so before I jumped into ministry 100 I used to teach debate at the public high school level and so I figured why not draw from my background in Teaching debate and react to some of the apologetics debates that are floating around youtube.

And so that's what we're doing today's video is. By overwhelming majority, so you voted so thank you for that today I'm looking at mike winger versus matt dillahunty and the topic is is belief in the resurrection unreasonable.

Why the Debate Became a Crossfire on Evidence and Epistemology

So we're going to be looking at a particular segment of this debate that is close to crossfire. Crossfire I've said before is where it's at. I always teach my students that this is the area where they can Shine really quickly or suck really badly in the moment in real time.

And so i'm gonna go to a particular segment in this debate that is as close to that as possible. So let's go to it right now.

It sounded to me if I if I was to take everything you said and just kind of go back and listen and kind of Put it all into categories um, because it was very sort of Wandering in my opinion. Um, a lot of stuff was vague.

Um, what if what if what if but no not tying it to specific evidence not tying it to any of the details of the first Century other stuff was in my opinion bad analogies like comparing it to the doyle's fallacy.

Um that that I don't know if that's a real fallacy, but you know, sir. Arthur conan doyle had houdini telling him Hey, this is fake. It's just a trick. Don't believe it. He had every reason to doubt it.

Uh, whereas with the crucifixion that doesn't parallel. It's just not a parallel at all parallels to the cottingley fairies. Yeah, but that doesn't parallel to the resurrection. Is there a question here?

How so it's a claim of something paranormal and supernatural. That doyle accepted because he could not find a better explanation than that. It was real. Okay, but that's not the evidence for the resurrection.

This is what happened in your discussion with no evidence for the resurrection. There are claims. That's actually something i'd like to to Look at really quickly because that was I I heard you make there.

I heard you say that a few times in your Uh in your opening matt so claims versus evidence, would you mind defining those two like what's that distinction? Well so a claim is an assertion that something is such and so and evidence is.

Actually evidence that supports the fact that it's thus and so and so like and and mike was. A number of times I and I jotted down notes. There were a number of times where he would say like archaeological evidence.

Supports. It just sounds like he said claims or claims and evidence is evidence. But I don't think that really helped at all.

So this so if you were to have let's say that you have in the first century A description of the tomb and then we come back 2 000 years later We we dig in the area and we find that tombs don't exist in the area.

Nothing like it exists. And in fact the description of the tomb It seems like it couldn't even physically exist in the area of jerusalem at all. That would probably count as evidence against the tomb, right?

Yes, it would. So when we find a description of a tomb that fits the description the guy that's described as burying it it fits The the context it fits the archaeology that we discover. How does not this not count as corroborative evidence that this is more likely true than before we knew about it?

If I talk about how you gave me a million dollars and in 2 000 years somebody researches and find out there was no such thing as dollars Now that would be disconfirming evidence. But if they find out there were dollars now, the only thing that is evidence of is that I am speaking accurately about immaterial Tertiary facts about the time it doesn't tell them anything at all about whether or not you gave me a million dollars.

Of course people in their time are likely to describe the mundane. It would be absurd. It would it would actually be more miraculous to find out that they described a tomb that wasn't Likely or probable for the area than not.

This is already off on the wrong foot.

Defining Evidence and Challenging Logical Positivism

Okay, what needs to be immediately dealt with is dilla hunty's unique reductionistic definition of evidence. Okay, let me let me back up here when you go into a debate and both sides of a particular topic are supposed to be Argued it is imperative that both debaters share a common set of definitions of terms.

This is why you'll you'll you'll hear academics and philosophers say a lot like what do you mean by that? You know I mean because they're trying to clarify and if we can't clarify And get to a shared understanding of some basic terms and definitions then there's no point in communicating debate or otherwise.

All right, mike winger defines evidence the way that academics and regular folks do. Evidence is anything that supports a claim that increases its warrant. Okay, so that's like the tolman model. Um, but that means that there's all kinds of different evidence types of evidence physical evidence there's historical evidence eyewitness testimony.

Philosophical arguments are also evidence. They are all evidence nonetheless, and that's actually where the debate should be. Is this strong enough evidence or is it not? Dilla hunty's not doing any of that on the other hand.

He defines evidence only in one way that which can be demonstrated as he said I think in his opening statement, but that sounds like logical positivism. Logical positive is famously pushed. What's called a verification principle that only those things that can be empirically verified are the things that we should hold to.

And that are meaningful, um and those that we can't they should just be considered nonsense. That means historical evidence are now only claims, but that's not how scholars talk. That's not how historiography works.

Dilla hunty is already disagreeing with historical scholars and he has no expertise in this area to speak of. That right there needs to be immediately challenged. That's where winger needs to go in terms of crossfire.

Dilla hunty needs to justify his claims about evidence. Because if it's left unchallenged then he's probably just going to sit here the entire time and argue from his logical positivism.

Historical Evidence, the Gospels, and the Resurrection Case

It's theorized that these gospels were written. Three of the four are supposedly written outside palestine in your opinion. You take a late date. So you're saying that they were written, you know, 30 to 90.

I've heard you say 30 to 90 years later, which I never heard that late. But. Um, let's say that that's the case. They're in outside palestine yet. They seem to know details about the sanhedrin. Details about the empty tomb about the kinds of tombs details about the debates between the pharisees and sadducees.

Details like in john it records that um. There was a sycamore tree in jericho and those trees didn't didn't even grow outside of palestine in the area where they're where it's thought John was right.

So so my guess is winger is going to double down on the sufficiency of historical evidence for the resurrection. And dillard hunty is just going to get out his fly swatter and he's just going to bat him all away because he doesn't accept winger's definition of evidence.

Winger needs to change his strategy here. So what we do is we can take the claims and say hey. The gospels tell us that jesus was crucified. Uh that he was buried that the disciples were despondent and had lost hope.

Now when we look at other messianic movements of the time and we see that they all died as soon as the messiah character died. We go. Oh that corroborates the idea that the disciples were despondent at the time and we see in tacitus that.

It says that when christ was crucified that it had checked for the moment the following of christ and later it exploded. That also is a confirmatory detail. So. The only thing that's required to get over the networks The only thing that's required to get over that is for people to believe the story not the story to be true.

The story doesn't have to be true. In order to compel this what needs to happen is for people need to believe that the story is true. The problem I have with this is that these are just super vague generalities.

I want to hear you take these generalities. To the details around the death and resurrection of christ. No, what you're asking me to do is to prove facts wrong. Yeah, and it's in it's irrelevant as to whether or not I can do that.

As I said at the outset, these aren't vague things i'm talking about. What i'm talking about is not evidence against the resurrection. It is a demonstration of an epistemology that is sound and the resurrection claims do not rise to that level.

So again winger is making a strategic mistake here and he's letting dillahunty say a lot of silly foolish things. Um, it looks like winger wants to try to get dillahunty to engage with his arguments. But dillahunty is not going to do that, which actually means.

Technically dillahunty concedes the arguments that winger is making because he's not attempting to refute any of them. He's broadly dismissing them. That's not evidence. That's not evidence. Well, that means he already lost the debate when you do not argue against your opponent's contentions.

When you don't try and refute them in a debate you concede those contentions and you lose points. They're not debating. At this point mike winger brought a soccer ball to play a soccer game and Matt dillahunty brought a whistle to referee the game and he's going to tell you that.

The rules mike winger is playing by aren't good rules, but you see that's just not a debate anymore. Winger is debating dillahunty is trying to judge the debate. He's not the judge. He's supposed to wear one hat and that's the hat of the debater.

But dillahunty is trying to like wear multiple hats here. He doesn't get to make a claim that there is no evidence and then define evidence in a way that supports his claim. That's question begging. That's a fallacy and it's based on no justification whatsoever.

He has not justified his epistemology. He's not even trying to. He's just making the claim. My epistemology is sound.

Okay, if you say so when you come to epistemology, I think I think we're shifting gears now. We're no longer talking about the history. Verifying historical details is is it unreasonable? That is epistemology and that is absolutely all about epistemology, which is what this debate has to be about.

It's true. That's what this debate has to be about. It has to be about identifying matt dillahunty's flawed epistemology. But winger is not doing that and so he really needs to try to zoom in on that.

I presented two k a two-part case, right? My one part is hey, we have these non-miraculous Reasonably believable facts of history, right? And then the second case the second part is and I think the resurrection best explains it.

So you seem to be arguing against both sides. One side is you're arguing against the evidence itself in which case i'm trying to say generalities don't do it. We need details. And then you're also saying epistemologically that you can't conclude the resurrection because and this this sounds like circular reasoning because.

It's not circular. Prove it until you prove it. I'll reject the evidence that proves it because you have to prove it. But I won't allow evidence to prove the thing that i'm saying you can't prove it. It just seems circular.

No, sir. Circular reasoning is when the Conclusion is entailed in the premise and my conclusion is not the resurrection didn't occur or that supernatural can't occur my conclusion is that the resurrection hasn't met its burden of proof and the fact that it can't.

And when your.

Conclusion is that it hasn't met its burden of proof because you define evidence in a way that supports your claim. So you can make that conclusion that is going in a circle for somebody who is uh, Intelligent, he appears to be intelligent to me.

You don't see that like that is that's staring at you right in the face, by the way. Uh, matt dillahunty looks exactly like my uncle steve. Okay, so I say this with much love uncle steve matt dillahunty.

The Death of Jesus and Why It Matters for Resurrection Claims

So the death of jesus. Yeah.

Isn't in any way evidence for the resurrection? Yes. It's a required thing that he must have died before he's resurrected. The fact that he died as a relative.

Listen to this. Let me back that up the death of jesus. Yeah.

Isn't in any way evidence for the resurrection? Yes. It's a required thing that he must have died before he's resurrected but the fact that he died is irrelevant to whether or not he was actually resurrected.

The fact that he died is.

Totally irrelevant to his resurrection. Hello. If he was still alive and he wasn't dead Matt would say that that disconfirms the notion that he actually resurrected because resurrecting is coming from death to life.

But all of a sudden now matt says well the fact that he died which is the flip side of that coin Is totally irrelevant to his resurrection. You have to die in order to resurrect that has nothing to do with it.

But do you agree with that like do you agree that he was crucified under pod? I have no idea to me. This is largely a storybook that whose veracity cannot be verified. According I don't have any way to investigate this.

Sure there are no contemporary accounts. Not not even in the bible. There aren't contemporary accounts. We don't see the sort of things that we would expect. We don't see. Uh, you know the romans reporting on and it's not like we found a document that shows.

Hey. Here's the date. We crucified yeshua ben joseph. That that just doesn't exist. We don't we don't tend to hear about anybody else who saw zombies rise up and march on jerusalem. When the crucifixion occurred, we don't have any recordings of the sky growing dark or the temple veil splitting.

Those things have nothing to do with my case. That i'm talking about. Yes. Okay, I will agree because I just said that the death of jesus has nothing to do with the resurrection. You know apart from that it was necessary.

But these are things.

The death of jesus has nothing to do with the resurrection apart from the fact that it's necessary. It's a necessary condition for him to resurrect that he died and if we have that fact, but it's totally irrelevant.

I don't know what you're doing bringing it up. Oh my god, he turned me into drax from guardians of the galaxy. By the way, let me go ahead and take a pause and just talk for a split second about who's winning crossfire at the moment.

It's a little difficult because like I said winger is not really doing the best that he could. Um, he is pursuing a particular strategy and it's you know I mean. This is what he prepped for he prepped to come in to talk.

About whether or not the evidence that he provides is strong enough to provide a good warrant. Um to make belief in the resurrection reasonable, okay. But dilla hunty didn't come to do that at all. Okay instead dilla hunty has brought his own epistemological method and dismissed everything winger said so winger really needs to zoom in on the epistemological method and make Matt justify it because he hasn't.

Winger is not doing a great job. On the other hand Matt has not taken any opportunity to try to refute anything that winger said. He's just trying to dismiss it outright. And he's saying that's not evidence.

That's not evidence. This is what good evidence is based on who he runs himself right up against experts in their field. I take it. He has no expertise to speak of in these areas. This is where winger should go and they don't because Matt hasn't really addressed these things and tried to refute winger's arguments in a substantive way.

Then that means that he has conceded all of winger's points, which technically means that winger has the advantage. But stylistically I think dilla hunty is kind of he's handling himself better than winger.

Because because the thing is what saul believed about jesus. Is what saul believed? It's not what's true. It's not what is reasonable to believe. It's not what is evidenced. And so during mike's opening when he talks about james the brother jesus believed because he saw the risen christ.

James never tells us that it's paul who tells us that. Paul is writing all this stuff and relaying all this information on behalf of third parties. Hey, he appeared to the 12. He appeared to the 500. He appeared to james.

Well, first of all, I have no evidence from any of those individuals who recited that this Attestation is accurate. And second of all even if I did we still have this problem. Of how do we establish that it's true just because somebody believed it you see how I said earlier.

That all dilla hunty is going to do is take out his fly swatter. If you do not deal with this he gets to keep repeating his claim over and over and over again. And that is that is a problem because then this turns into a long protracted discussion where the two people are not actually Talking to each other.

They're talking around each other.

This is this all I want to point out for the sake of the audience. Is that this is matt's private opinion here the way that matt is recharacterizing the history of it Is not the way historians look at it.

Why do you matt? Why do you think that historians do the work don't believe the bible who don't think that jesus rose. Who are not christians and even many who are atheists? Think that this counts as enemy attestation.

Do you think? That they do you that's just you telling me that they do. I have not seen. Do you think that they're just being dummies? Yes. If in fact if in fact they are saying here's the thing. It's this is really simple.

This is this shouldn't even be controversial. This is basic reasoning and skepticism. If I write a story and in that story I have a fact and I say and then mike came at me and made this accusation which attests to this fact.

That is not evidence that mike actually did that it is not a mike attestation.

It is me claiming what mike said. Mike winger needs to ask matt dillahunty what his background and expertise in historiography is for him to be able to disagree with Historians in this area and and just flat out call them wrong.

What's controversial is actually matt Doing this when he has no background or expertise in this area to speak of so what this appears to be is just armchair Skeptical critique wherein matt could sit back with a pipe and smoke it and just say I don't agree with any of those things.

Okay, have you done the hard work to learn about historiography? Enough to gain a level of understanding which I would assume would mean that you would need a degree in this area. Um to then dismiss it outright and say that that's all stupid.

When if historians are looking at this and saying well, that's an enemy attestation. They are simply wrong. Okay. Why Why and how are they doing it. Maybe because they grew up Uh in a culture that just accepted these things as true.

And so when they read the bible rather than saying oh, hey. This was written by an anonymous source and when he quotes somebody who seems supportive and yet is an enemy That must be the case because otherwise we'd have to say that this is a fictionalized account in a previous video.

Matt you. Were uh, if I remember correctly, I think I do uh use. Nobody should debate matt delahunty. This is a joke.

And it's a complete waste of time. It's two hours of hearing him talk foolishly. About a bunch of different kinds of things instead of actually debating a real topic and trying to refute it. So if you're watching this video and you have an opportunity to debate matt delahunty don't bother the conversation would be a complete waste of time.

Not quite familiar with the medical research that's gone into this content specifically about the death of christ the blood water being poured out. I don't know. Am I familiar with the medical research on the blood of christ?

There is none. It's I. I think you're purposely marginalizing what I just said. I I'm trying to understand it. Okay. So when jesus was pierced blood and water poured out. And this used to have one of two causes either the pericardium around the heart was pierced.

In which case blood and water would pour out or jesus had died through the typical way. Someone dies on the cross asphyxiation and then the uh, the water in the lungs was gathering as a result after his death.

So the piercing would have confirmed it and I mean the purpose of the piercing would be to confirm it. It would be to get blood and water to pour out to make sure the guy was dead. Yeah, and this is a prime example of what I objected to in the opening the way that you go about phrasing things is and I apologize but Consider and i've already been uncalled on the carpet for zombies.

Sloppy. Because when you ask me about are you familiar with the medical research? Involved with the piercing of christ. The answer is there is none. If instead it would be do you understand what the reason for that might have been or what the explanations for why there might?

Have been blood and water. Yes, of course. I've heard about those things and it would not have been that remarkable. It reminds me There is a authoritarian.

Paternalistic Uh style here that I think dillahunty trades on whether he does this on purpose or not. Um, he even is looking down his nose literally, um at his interlocutor. And It builds ethos because when you speak with an authoritative tone, I mean people Who are swayed by that will go?

Oh, he knows what he's talking about. And so when I correct you because when you said medical evidence like But what was the you wasted? Precious seconds in order to like just answer the question, but I am intentionally.

Precise and pedantic when I can be. Because I understand that the sloppy phrasing is what allows us to smuggle in things. It's what allows us to say. Oh, well, there's all this evidence when what we're really talking about is mundane things that are that just are hey.

This occurred in this time period crucifixion was real stabbing was real. Yeah, I know all that. There's something I really want to get after which is has nothing to do with evidence. And I think it's actually at the core of matt's objections.

Matt. I've watched every video I could find of yours. Talk about his epistemology. Talk about his epistemology legitimately. Sorry. On your atheist debates project your interactions on atheists and your debates with guys like junta and like hona and all that.

So let's suppose that jesus did what you suggested and he came right now today. And he was killed in an electric chair and scientifically confirmed that he was dead and then he came back to life. Would you then believe god exists and that jesus god had raised jesus from the dead?

No, a very cleverly crafted question. No would I believe that jesus was now alive again? Yes, and that was the thing that I was going to conclude my my opening with was even if we establish the resurrection.

We still don't know why or how it happened. That is an explanation that has to come secondary that. This you're right this does get to the core here because if if jesus had done the things That I said would be the best way to demonstrate it.

Would i'm not even sure that that would necessarily be sufficient to convince me of a resurrection. It may be. When I say that i'm not sure what would convince me i'm being honest and i'm not saying nothing would convince me.

If he doesn't know what rises to a certain level that passes his Criteria for his particular epistemological method How does he know that he hasn't seen it? I take it he because of his positivism. He is somebody who touts the scientific method.

Well, the scientific method one of the fundamental components of that is falsifiability so Can he falsify his own methodology? And if the answer is he can't then what?

What is he doing to me of a resurrection? Maybe possibly probably even very likely had I had access to that actual evidence and rather than just reporting to that evidence. But my reason for raising that wasn't to show that that uh.

That this would also be unbelievable or this would be what would be believable. It's to show that god picked a time to do this. Where none of that is available?

And that is stupid. Yeah, but what is that? None of what? He doesn't know what would count as evidence so if god literally came down now. Let's say jesus didn't show up 2 000 years ago. Jesus showed up now started his three-year ministry performed miracles.

Matt dillahunty is what he's going to explain these things away as some kind of naturalistic phenomenon because his criteria Does away with the supernatural altogether and he doesn't even know what would count as evidence for? a supernatural divine being anyway.

That's what he just said. So then what what does it mean that well god did it at a time where it can't be verified? You have set the bar so high that it could never be verified.

Would you say this? Um, if I was you I would let me see i'm gonna be i'm gonna be matt dillahunty for a second. Tell me if i'm saying it right you failed last time, but we'll get there. Um, I I think you demonstrated that you wouldn't that no evidence effectively doesn't matter but we'll put it this way.

No, no, no, no, can you conceive. Oh my god, you know. Let me just get this out. No, I I cannot let you get this out. You talked for like two minutes. I said one sentence interrupt interrupting me. Yes, because your sentence was to accuse me of evidence doesn't matter by the way.

You are taught as a debater on a on a formal debate platform. Do not show emotion. Do not get angry do not get rattled by your opponent because it's actually unprofessional. I think matt uses his anger as part of his tool set in a debate which is to You know look down his nose at people to act very authoritarian and take a very authoritarian tone and be even angry.

When he doesn't like what people say because there is an emotional force. That's that's behind that that can be rhetorically persuasive for some people. Especially people that can't really follow the arguments exactly and realize that what matt dilahunty is saying is foolish.

This is really unprofessional and I said it's before. Uh, nobody should debate matt dilahunty. It's a complete waste of time. You could literally do anything else and that would be a better use of your time.

This isn't your show man. You gotta let me talk.

I don't have to stay is what i'm saying. Would you stop characterizing me as if evidence doesn't matter when what i've said to you? Is that evidence is all that matters and the evidence for your claim does not rise to the level of reasonableness? in my estimation.

Is there any conceivable evidence in your mind? That would give you the resurrection of christ and god did it. Is there any conceivable evidence? Here we go. I have no idea as i've said umpteen times and as you paraphrased me at the beginning what that evidence would be.

Which is completely irrelevant. Because i'm not saying that I can't be convinced. I'm saying I don't know what would convince me. But what i'm also saying is what has convinced other people. Is not a good standard of evidence because it does not exclude competing claims.

Okay. I've had enough of this debate.

Who Won the Debate and Why the Reactions Frustrated the Speaker

Uh, look, uh dilahunty came into this debate. Wearing multiple hats but to sort of focus on what it would take to convince dilahunty at the end there. It doesn't matter. A debater is not supposed to be convinced.

And I mean that's not their job is supposed to make arguments and the audience is supposed to be convinced. And so really this has given the effect of this debate for matt to just have like three different hats.

And he's just basically been putting him on and taking others off. So on the one hand he's a debater when it's useful to him. But then when he gets pressed a little bit he takes his debater hat off and he puts on his judge hat.

Well, that's not evidence and I can just dismiss that away because that's not evidence. It doesn't rise to my level in of epistemological standards. And then you can take that hat off and then put a audience hat on and say well I'm not convinced at the end of the day because and I don't even know what it would take me to convince me.

Wow, i'll tell you what this debate was really frustrating and it was frustrating because I could see that mike winger Did a lot of prep and he came to have a particular kind of debate. Dilahunty was not interested in debate.

He came in as a rhetorician in the style of a christopher hitchenss. And if you've seen the other videos with christopher hitchens against his other christian interlocutors christopher hitchens would never Actually substantively try to refute any of the arguments that the christians made.

Which means that he automatically lost the debates and so did dilahunty and dilahunty it's not even it's like he's not even aware. That that's what happened because dilahunty did not substantively address any of the arguments that winger made.

Well, then that means that he automatically loses and then this exercise in crossfire was just an exercise in frustration because dilahunty was trying to wear all these multiple hats and I'm sure winger at the end of it was tremendously frustrated.

Winger won the debate, but probably not by a whole lot. I mean really what it boiled down to was the fact that matt Dilahunty did not substantively address any of winger's arguments, but maybe you should take a look at the fuller debate.

I'm going to leave the link to it in the show notes below and you tell me who do you think won the debate? Let me know in the comments if you want me to React to a specific debate. Let me also know that in the comments below I really hope that this blessed you somehow and that you have some more tools to be able to get out there and evaluate arguments on your own and Engage others for christ, but in the meantime, i'm going to take a break and i'll return with another one real soon.

And I will say bye for now.