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 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

Oh 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 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 Whereas with the crucifixion that doesn't parallel.

It's just not a parallel at all parallels to the coddingly 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 or I heard you say that a few times in your Uh in your opening matt, so claims verse 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 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 are claims and evidence is evidence

But I don't think that really helped at all 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 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 uh 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?

Dillahunty'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 has 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

Dillahunty 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 Dillahunty 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

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 that works

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 dilahunty looks exactly like my uncle steve Okay, so I say this with much love uncle steve.

Matt dilahunty. 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 rel

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 a 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 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

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 uh 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 who 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 Now 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 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 Sure 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 on called 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 jinta 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 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 I cannot let you get this out. I can talk 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 um 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.

Okay 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 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 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 Format 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 hitchenss 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? uh, 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