Debate Teacher Reacts: William Lane Craig vs. Sam Harris

Dr. Harris just became the dog from up.

You know what I'm you right?

You remember this?

Oh, here's Harris, you know, the topic tonight is are the foundations of moral values natural or

supernatural now.

Here's something really interesting about that squirrel.

What is up everybody?

Welcome back to another debate teacher reacts video now.

I'm very glad to bring you another one so soon.

So here's what I'm trying to do.

I'm trying to Create a routine and that means a new debate teacher video every first

and third week of every month.

All right.

And so that's what I'm gonna try to hold to if you're brand new to this particular channel or series.

Welcome.

My name is Nate.

I'm the president of a Christian nonprofit organization called wise disciple and here at wise disciple.

We're all about living effectively as Christians in today's culture.

But before I jumped into ministry like 100 I actually taught debate at the high school

here in Las Vegas.

And so I figured hey, why not?

Take a look at apologetics debates from a debate teachers perspective.

I think it might be beneficial maybe raise the level of discourse in debates like these.

So that's what I intend to do tonight.

We are looking at the most viewed apologetics debate of all time on YouTube.

The most viewed of all time it has to be dr. Sam Harris versus dr. William Lane Craig

the God debate.

And so we're going to jump right in now as you know, if you've seen these in the past I love cross -examination because I think that

is key.

It's where you get to shine or suck really badly because it brings out clash.

But here's the thing there is no cross -examination in the debate between Harris and Craig.

So we're gonna do the next best thing.

I'm going to talk about some highlights from each interlocutors opening statement.

I'll probably show some of that and then I'd like to zoom in like a laser on rebuttal.

Because I think that's the next best thing.

So without further ado, let's jump right into the debate.

So look at the type look at the title here I put an asterisk next to morality because I couldn't fit the whole

title in so the full title according to the moderator is.

Are the foundations of moral values?

Natural or supernatural?

Okay now there's a bit of controversy with that because I think.

From the perspective of the audience they walked in assuming that the title of the topic was is good from God alright,

but the moderator then got up and said what he said, so.

That's the nature of the discussion now.

Let's go ahead and take a look at a couple of moments from dr. Craig's opening statement.

The question before us this evening then is what is the best?

Foundation for the existence of objective moral values and duties.

What grounds them.

What makes certain actions?

Objectively good or evil right or wrong.

In tonight's debate. I'm going to defend two basic contentions.

First if God exists, then we have a sound foundation for

objective moral values and duties.

And.

Second if God does not exist Then we do not have a sound foundation for

objective moral values and duties.

Theism provides a sound foundation for objective moral duties.

On a theistic view objective moral duties are constituted by God's commands.

God's moral nature is expressed in relation to us in the form of divine

commandments which constitute our moral duties or obligations.

Natural science tells us only what is.

Not what ought to be the case as philosopher Jerry Fodor has written.

Science is about facts not norms.

It might tell us how we are.

But it wouldn't tell us what is wrong with how we are.

So dr. Craig does a really great job of Making a couple of key arguments.

The first one is in favor of his view that objective values are supernatural in nature.

Objective obligations as well are supernatural in nature.

He also makes a couple of arguments and unpacks these in the area of attacking Harris's position that

Objective moral values and duties are natural in nature.

Let's go ahead and take a look at dr. Harris's opening.

I'm introducing two concepts.

Consciousness and well -being.

Now, let's start with consciousness.

This is not an arbitrary starting point.

Imagine the universe.

Devoid of the possibility of consciousness imagine the universe entirely constituted of rocks.

There's clearly no happiness or suffering in this universe.

There's no good or evil value judgments.

Don't apply for changes in the universe to matter.

They have to matter at least at least potentially to some conscious system.

What about well -being.

Well the well -being of conscious creatures and the link between that immorality may seem open to doubt but

it shouldn't.

Here's the only assumption you have to make.

Imagine the universe in which every conscious creature Suffers as much as it possibly as much as it possibly can

for as long as it can.

Okay, I call this the worst possible misery for everyone.

The worst possible misery for everyone is bad.

Okay, if the word bad applies anywhere it applies here.

So here's my argument for moral truth in the context of science questions of right and wrong and good and evil

Depend upon minds and they depend upon the possibility of experience.

Minds are natural phenomena.

They depend upon the laws of nature in some way.

Okay.

Morality and human values therefore can be understood through science because in talking about these things

we are talking about all of the facts That influence the well -being of conscious creatures in

our case.

We're talking about genetics and neurobiology and psychology and sociology and economics.

A lot of this opening statement is a series of.

Anecdotes which are actually rhetorically persuasive.

I I think they're good to use when appropriate but then it's also a series of

commentaries really interspersed with with jabs at the Christian God

the the God of the Bible and Somewhere in there.

We have a couple of key things that I think are important to bear in mind.

Which is what we saw there are two concepts right consciousness and well -being.

These are the things that Dr. Harris deems as important and then the other thing is his argument

for moral truth in the context of science.

Those are the big ones so so far I'd say out of the two interlocutors the one who laid a better

framework in their opening statements as well as engaged more thoroughly with the topic question is

William Lane.

Craig Craig really goes by the book and Goes down the line provides those arguments provides the

arguments for his position against Harris.

Harris does give some kind of an argument for objective morality, but never fully unpacks it.

Instead he decided to provide those anecdotes and rhetorical, you know

persuasive forms of speech to fill out his opener.

But now we're gonna focus in on the rebuttals and we're gonna see if clash can truly take place.

You'll recall in my first speech that I said I was going to defend two basic contentions tonight.

First that if God exists, then we have a sound foundation for objective moral values and

duties.

First I explained that if God exists then objective moral values are grounded in the character

of God himself.

Who is essentially compassionate fair kind generous and so forth?

So this is exactly what Craig should do right here, especially coming out of Harris's opening

statement.

Which was largely without argument and just long and meandering.

Craig is going to bring the audience back on track.

He's got to lay that framework again and keep laying it over and over again.

Remind them about how to think through the debate how to adjudicate the debate.

The audience needs this help because whoever lays a better framework Most often ends up winning the debate in the

audience's minds here.

Dr.

Harris didn't have anything by way of disagreement to say, but I do want to clear up a possible confusion.

He represented this by saying that if Religion were not true then words

like good and evil right and wrong would have no meaning.

I'm not maintaining that.

That is to confuse moral.

Ontology with moral semantics, right.

The the phrase there if religion were not true.

Then words like good and evil and right and wrong would have no meaning.

I mean, that's really a more academic way of saying that the focus is not on whether an atheist

can know good and evil Right and wrong.

The focus is on whether an atheist can justify it.

Objectively if there is no God, that's what Craig is getting at moral ontology asks.

What is the foundation of objective moral values and duties?

Moral semantics asks What is the meaning of moral terms.

And I am not making any kind of semantical claim tonight that good? Means something

like commanded by God rather.

My concern is moral ontology.

What is the ground or the foundation of moral values and duties to give an illustration think of light?

Light is a certain visible range of the electromagnetic spectrum.

But obviously that isn't the meaning of the word Light.

People knew how to use the word light long before they discovered its physical nature.

And I might also add they certainly knew the difference between light and darkness.

Long before they understood the physics of light now in exactly the same way We can know the meaning

of moral terms like good and evil right and wrong.

And know the difference between good and evil without being aware that the good is grounded

in God.

Ontologically, so that is the position.

I'm defending tonight.

Is it moral values are grounded ontologically in God?

Yeah, second our moral duties are grounded by God's commandments, which are necessary reflections of his

nature.

Here the only response I detected from dr. Harris was to refer to the atrocities in the Hebrew

Bible.

But I think this is quite irrelevant tonight's discussion.

There are plenty of divine command theorists who are not Jews or Christians and place no

stock whatsoever in the Bible.

So this isn't an objection to divine command theory that I'm defending tonight, right?

There's there's nothing wrong with doing what dr. Craig is doing.

Okay for those of you out there.

They're like, well, hold on a second.

Dr. Craig has set up.

I think I mentioned this in the opener.

He set up his argument in such a simplified way that he's arguing from mere theism not

Christianity.

Okay, mere theism simply means belief in a God or gods, right?

Cuz polytheism could be multiple gods monotheism is one God, right?

So he's not arguing from Christianity proper.

He's zoomed out a few steps because what this does is it allows Craig to focus like a laser

on the relevant issues of Grounding objective morality.

That's the goal in a discussion like this.

You're trying to ground objective morality in something and not get bogged down about trying to defend

attacks that are ultimately non sequiturs.

I mean, they're you know, the the resurrection of Jesus, you know passages of the Bible that atheists don't like

by the way.

Do you see how in everyday situations people get lost down these rabbit holes all the time.

The conversations quickly devolve all the time.

Because of because of the topic being changed to something else Craig is looking to avoid all of that and stay on

track.

That's why he's taking this approach.

So we've not heard any objection to a theistic grounding for ethics if God does exist.

It's clear.

I think obvious even that we have a sound foundation for objective moral values and duties.

Now what if God does not exist?

Is there a sound foundation first of all for objective moral values?

Now here, dr. Harris said you don't need religion in order to have universal morality.

Again, that's a confusion.

Of course, you don't remember the Nazis for example could have won World War two and established

a Universal morality.

The issue isn't universality.

The issue is Objectivity and I'm maintaining that in the absence of God there isn't any

reason any explanation for the existence of objective moral values.

What Craig is talking about is the confusion between ontology and epistemology?

Okay, there's no question that morality exists in anyone's mind.

There is no question.

Everyone agrees that it does.

Okay, and that in all of us there is this feature that we experience in

ourselves and we call that morality.

All right, the debate is not over that the debate is over where it comes from.

Okay, I've used this analogy before but it's like dr. Craig and dr. Harris.

They're kind of stranded on a desert island and they're wandering through the forest there and then one day they discover a

refrigerator.

And it's filled with fresh delicious food.

Dr. Craig asked the question.

Well, where did all of this food come from?

That's the grounding question.

Okay, and dr. Harris responds by saying well you see I don't have any trouble seeing that there's food in this fridge

when a Christian Engages a skeptic.

It's as if the skeptic.

Here's the Christian saying without God you have no justification for Experiencing

morality and then they go.

Oh, no.

No, we all know what morality is.

You know, we don't need God to know what morality is and they talk right past the Christians and that's

just unfortunate.

Now here.

Dr. Harris, I think is guilty of misusing Terms like good and and

bad right and wrong in equivocal ways.

He will often use them in non moral senses.

For example, he'll say there are objectively good and bad moves in chess.

Now that's clearly not a moral use of the terms good and bad, right?

You just mean they're not apt to win or produce a winning strategy.

It's not evil what you've done.

And similarly in ordinary English We use the words good in man bad in a number of non moral ways.

For example, we say Notre Dame has a good team now.

We can hope it's an ethical team.

But that's not what's indicated by the win -loss record that that is a different meaning of good.

Or we say that's a good way To get yourself killed.

Or that's a good game plan.

You haven't really lived until your mother looks you in the eye and says, you know what?

That's a good way to get yourself killed.

Anybody else out there this it just me, huh?

All of these are non moral uses of the word good and dr Harris's contrast of

the good life and the bad life is not an ethical contrast Between a

morally good life and an evil life.

It's a contrast between a pleasurable life and a miserable life and there's no reason to identify

Pleasure misery with good and evil right especially on.

Atheism which is not to say that this should be summarily dismissed.

Okay, it just means.

If that's what dr. Harris is going to do then he needs to justify his unique usage of these terms.

But he doesn't do that in his opening.

He just assumes it and then he builds his case around that particular assumption on the next to last

page of his book.

Dr. Harris makes the telling admission that if People like rapists liars and thieves could

be just as happy as good people Then his moral landscape would no longer be

a moral Landscape rather it would just be a continuum of well -being

Whose peaks are occupied by good and bad people or evil people alike.

Snap.

Wait, is that true?

Hold on one second.

I mean it's later.

I just purchased the moral landscape on Kindle.

Okay, and I found what the quote is.

I believe it's on page 189.

Take a look at this.

It is also conceivable that a science of human flourishing could be possible and yet people

could be made equally Happy by very different moral quote -unquote moral impulses.

Perhaps there is no connection between being good and feeling good and therefore no connection between moral

behavior as Generally conceived and subjective well -being.

Now here it is in this case Rapists liars and thieves would experience the same

depth of happiness as the Saints.

However, if evil turned out to be as reliable a path to happiness as goodness is it would no longer

be an especially moral landscape.

Rather it would be a continuum of well -being upon which Saints and sinners would occupy

equivalent peaks.

Wow, I mean at least Harris is attempting to be consistent because that's a tough pill to

swallow.

If he's correct.

Okay if morality is dependent on minds as Harris has said and there is no good and evil in the original sense

that just these are Words that just referred to well -being in misery.

Then you have to accept that the rapist the liar that the psychopath the murderer the thief.

They are on the same moral level of Saints.

In my opinion, this is devastating.

It completely underwhelms the force of Harris's arguments that he was making the force of his presentation.

I mean imagine trying to make an argument that you know what you should be rich, but by rich I

don't mean lots of money and being rich could actually mean the same as poor now in the absence of

God.

What authority is there to issue moral commands or prohibitions?

There is none on atheism and therefore there are no moral imperatives for us to obey

in the absence of God.

There just isn't any sort of moral obligation or prohibition that characterizes our

lives in particular.

We're not morally obligated to promote the flourishing of conscious creatures.

So bingo and.

Any attempt at suggesting otherwise is committing the is -ought fallacy.

You know the is -ought fallacy basically goes like this just because reality is a certain way just because things are a

certain way doesn't Mean that they should be that way you see the problem.

You cannot derive an ought or an obligation from an is.

Science is only focused on describing what is Accurately, so to claim

that science gives us moral oughts is to commit the is -ought fallacy which on a side note I mean, it's really

interesting to me because as Americans we don't like the status quo, right?

Especially in the 21st century.

We are continuing to challenge the status quo.

Dr Harris doesn't seem to like the fact that most people in the world are religious.

Religious belief is the status quo, but that's exactly what the is -ought fallacy pushes the status quo

things are a certain way.

So they should be that way that's false.

And therefore it seems to me that atheism is simply.

Bereft of the adequate ontological foundations to establish the moral life.

I think dr. Craig needs to get a lot of points for saying the word bereft.

Look, this was by the book.

He engaged a lot of what dr. Harris said.

He didn't let a lot of things slip.

And he was prepared.

He had his notes.

He was paying attention.

This is textbook what it looks like for Rebuttal, so let's go ahead and see what dr. Harris does.

Ask yourselves.

What is wrong with spending eternity in hell?

Well, I'm told it's rather hot there for one.

Now happily, there's absolutely no evidence that the Christian hell exists.

And I think we should look at the consequences of believing In this framework this theistic framework

in this world and what these moral underpinnings actually would be.

Dr. Harris just became the dog from up.

You know what?

I'm you right?

You remember this.

So here's Harris, you know.

The topic tonight is are the foundations of moral values natural or supernatural.

Now, here's something really interesting about that squirrel.

If.

Dr. Harris wants to drag Christianity into this.

He's gonna have to provide some kind of good reason to do it because as dr Craig pointed out in the opener the topic does not

necessitate the focus on Christianity.

Okay, the topic necessitates an objective grounding for morality and all you atheists out there

that are saying to yourselves.

Well, no, but he actually does need to talk about Christianity.

You're not seeing past your own talking points right now because these rabbit trails that y 'all like to go down are Exactly

would keep you from wrestling with these specific issues in a robust fashion.

Nine million children.

Die every year before they reach the age of five.

The picture picture a an Asian tsunami of the sort we saw in 2004 that killed a quarter of a million people.

One of those every ten days killing children only under five.

Okay, it's twenty twenty four thousand children a day a thousand an hour.

Seventeen or so a minute that means before I can get to the end of this sentence.

Some few children very likely will have died in terror and agony.

Think.

Think of the parents of these children.

Think of the fact that that most of these men and women believe in God and are praying at this

moment for their children to be spared and Their prayers will not be answered.

Okay, but according to dr. Craig, this is all part of God's plan.

When did dr. Craig and make that claim in this debate.

And if he didn't then why are you bringing this up any God who?

Would allow children by the millions to suffer and die in this way and their parents to grieve in this way

either can do nothing to help them or Doesn't care to he is therefore either impotent or evil.

And worse than that on dr Craig's view most of these people many of these people certainly

will be going to hell because they're praying to the wrong God.

Just think about that.

Okay through no fault of their own they were born into the wrong culture where they got the wrong theology and they

missed the revelation.

Okay, there are 1 .2 billion people in India at this moment.

Most of them are Hindus most of them therefore polytheists.

Okay in dr. Craig's universe no matter how good these people are They are doomed if you are

if you are praying to the monkey God Hanuman you are doomed.

You will be tortured in hell for eternity now.

Is there the slightest evidence for this?

No, it just says so in Mark 9 and Matthew 13 and Revelation 14.

Perhaps you'll remember from the Lord of the Rings.

It says when the elves die they go to Valinor.

But they can be reborn in Middle -earth.

I Say that just as a point of comparison.

So God created the cultural isolation of the Hindus.

Okay.

He engineered the circumstance of their deaths in ignorance of revelation and then he created the

penalty for this ignorance.

Which is an eternity of conscious torment in fire?

Okay, on the other hand on dr. Craig's account You're run -of -the -mill serial killer in America.

Okay, who spent his life raping and torturing children.

Need only come to God come to Jesus on death row and After a final meal of fried

chicken.

He's going to spend an eternity in heaven after death.

Okay, one thing should be crystal clear to you.

This vision of life has absolutely nothing to do with moral accountability.

So something good that Harris is doing is he's remaining even tempered even keeled.

He's staying calm.

He's speaking with confidence.

This goes a long way in establishing your ethos with the judges and with the audience.

It really comes down to the delineation of ethos pathos and logos.

Okay, so this is something that we've known for thousands of years.

In your time on the stage.

That's what you got to focus on right these aspects of persuasion need to be developed and on display as you speak

and Harrow's Harrow's.

Harris has the ethos part down and he's establishing pathos now by focusing on these emotionally

compelling examples.

Okay, these are all legitimate issues to discuss the but from a

Christian perspective.

They're all based on an incomplete and flawed understanding of the Christian worldview, but they're emotionally compelling.

I'm sure there are audience members that are resonating with what Harris is saying.

The problem is he's not engaging.

Dr Craig's presentation at all.

He's not engaging the topic of the debate.

Now.

What are you saying is?

Well, you know what.

Christianity Christianity Christianity?

Okay, and if he keeps going down this path, he's going to lose very badly.

We're told that God is loving and kind and just and intrinsically good.

But when someone like myself points out the odd rather obvious and compelling evidence that God is cruel and unjust

because he visits Suffering on innocent people of a scope and scale that would

would embarrass the most ambitious psychopath.

Okay, we're told that God is mysterious.

Okay, who can understand God's will?

Okay, and yet this is precisely This merely human understanding of God's will is

precisely what believers use to establish his goodness in the first place.

You know something good happens to a Christian some he feels some bliss while praying.

Or he sees some positive change in his life, and we're told that God is good.

Okay, but when children by the tens of thousands are torn from their parents arms and drowned.

We're told that God is mysterious.

This is how you play tennis without the net.

Okay, and I want to suggest to you It's a good line that it is not only tiresome when otherwise intelligent people speak this

way it is morally reprehensible.

How is it morally reprehensible on a system that admits that true good and evil

don't exist that ultimately good and evil are only scales of well -being and rapists and

Murderers who destroy innocent people's lives are on the same level of Saints.

I'm just curious.

I mean, let's let's say for argument's sake there is a moral problem with God.

If there is are We really gonna sit here and try to use.

Dr. Harris's moral system to judge God.

I don't think we can so what's probably happening here is dr. Harris.

He heard dr Craig in his opening statement talked about and Selms perfect being theology essentially,

which is Anselm says God is by definition the greatest conceivable being and therefore the highest

good or whatever that you know.

I mean and good meaning perfect and moral goodness, right.

If God is all the Omni's then he is also perfectly good, but that doesn't automatically smuggle in the

concepts of.

Hell of.

The gospel, you know or anything like that and because dr Harris he can find no

reason to you know, based on his own presuppositions that a God would allow Well -being to be

challenged at all.

This God cannot be good.

This God is morally reprehensible.

Once again, there's a couple problems here with focusing on Christianity number one.

The debate topic was not about Christianity it was about finding a Foundation a Grounding for

objective moral values and obligations.

Okay.

And the second problem with this is like if you're gonna engage Christianity, then you should probably fully

represent Christianity not Incompletely inadequately ignorantly as far as I can tell.

Represent Christian views and then try to present them.

I mean this is straw manning.

This is really this is really awful and the more time that dr Harris spends on these kinds of things and the less time

he spends actually engaging. Dr Craig's presentation or even his rebuttal it means that he's going to lose this whole thing.

Dr Harris needs to get back on track really quick.

And if God is good and loving and just and kind and he wanted to guide us morally with a book Why

give us a book that supports slavery?

Why give us a book that admonishes us to kill people for imaginary crimes like witchcraft?

Now, of course, there's a way of not taking these questions to heart.

According to dr. Craig's divine command theory God is not bound by moral duties.

God doesn't have to be good.

Whatever he commands is good.

So when he commands that the Israelites to slaughter the Amalekites that behavior becomes

intrinsically good because he commanded it.

Okay.

Well here well being offered.

I'm glad he raised that's interesting.

So now he's engaging.

Dr.

Craig's view on divine command theory.

This still isn't exactly what dr. Craig was talking about in his in his presentation.

But at least it's connected somehow.

He's now talked about something connected to the opening statement.

So, let's see where this goes the issue of psychopathy.

We're being offered a psychopathic and psychotic Moral attitude.

It's psychotic because this is completely delusional.

There's no reason to believe that we live in a universe ruled by an invisible monster Yahweh

but it is.

It is Psychopathic because this is a total detachment from from the

well -being of human beings it this so easily Rationalizes the slaughter of children.

Okay, just that just think about the Muslims At this moment who are blowing themselves up

Convinced that they are agents of God's will.

There is absolutely nothing that dr Craig can can say against their behavior in moral

terms.

Apart from his own faith -based claim that they're praying to the wrong God.

If they had the right God what they were doing would be good on divine command theory.

Now I'm obviously not saying that all the dr. Craig or all religious people are psychopaths and psychotics.

But this to me is the is the true horror of religion.

It allows perfectly decent and sane people to believe by the billions

What only lunatics could believe on their own, okay, what's the topic again?

Does anybody remember what the topic is.

Is anyone here in the auditorium familiar with the topic?

Will Harris ever fully engage the topic at some point in any meaningful sense.

Buehler Buehler?

If you wake up tomorrow morning Thinking that saying a few Latin words over your pancakes is going to turn

them into the body of Elvis Presley.

Okay, you have lost your mind.

Okay, but if you think more or less the same thing about a cracker and the body of Jesus you're just a Catholic.

It's a good line, and I'm not the first person to notice That it's a it's a very

strange sort of loving God who would make salvation depend on Believing in him on bad

evidence if you lived 2 ,000 years ago.

There was evidence galore.

I mean he was just performing miracles, but apparently he got tired of being so helpful.

Okay, and so now we all inherit this very heavy burden of the doctrines implausibility and

And and the effort to square it With what we now know about the cosmos and we and what we know about the

all -too -human origins of Scripture becomes more and more difficult.

Okay, and it's not just the generic God that dr. Craig is recommending.

It is the is God the Father and Jesus the Son.

Okay, Christianity on dr. Craig's account is the true moral wealth of the world.

Well, I hate to Break it to you here at Notre Dame, but Christianity

is a cult of human sacrifice.

Christianity is not a religion that sell that that repute or repudiates

human sacrifice.

It is a religion that celebrates a Single human sacrifice as though it were effective.

God so loved the world that he gave his only son.

John three six right.

God's son was a human idea of course.

Jesus suffered the crucifixion so that none need suffer hell except those those

billions in India and.

Billions like them throughout history.

Can we call the police that the topic is missing.

It ran away from Harris.

I I don't know.

I I'm I'm starting to lose my cool I'm starting to lose my patience here

because I mean is he ever going to like get to.

Anything related to the topic here, okay, this is this is this is.

Let's stride.

This doctrine is a stride.

A contemptible history of scientific ignorance and religious barbarism.

We come from people who used to bury children in under the foundations of new buildings

as Offerings to their imaginary gods.

I mean just think about that there in vast numbers of societies People would

bury children in post holes.

People like ourselves thinking that this would prevent an invisible being from knocking down their buildings.

Harris is doing the same thing that Hitchens did.

That other other guys like these guys continue to do today.

It's not about the topic at all.

Just get me in a room and put me on stage and I'm going to pee all over Christianity and if

people Resonate with my pee, you know, then I won the debate somehow, you know, if they like

the smell of my pee then that's it.

That's all I got for those of you out there that are applauding Harris and you think that he's dealing

significant blows to Craig.

He's not he's embarrassing himself.

He's standing in front of academics At a major university who know better because they're trained in these

areas and he's embarrassing himself.

Because he refuses to spend even five seconds on His position defending and

unpacking his position on engaging.

Dr. Craig's presentation anything that dr Craig actually said in this debate.

This is just a waste of time.

It's this is what's so frustrating.

It's it's all a waste of time.

This could have been a lively debate.

You know on this particular issue Atheists and skeptics still have no reason to defend

Harris's view.

Why.

Because he never gave one instead he decided to take a pee all over the stage.

Well, you know what guys this was very difficult to determine a winner.

I mean both guys were extremely well prepared and they were ready to defend their view.

Oh, wait a second.

What's that?

The opposite is true.

Okay, you're right.

Of course only one person came to the stage and in this video to debate and that was William Lane Craig.

He went by the book.

He laid a great framework so that the audience would understand and adjudicate the debate for themselves.

And he kept laying it every time he get back up there.

He kept laying a framework.

He provided an argument for objective morality that should be grounded in God.

He provided arguments for why Harris's naturalistic view is insufficient.

He even pointed out something that I find incredibly devastating.

For Harris's particular view because Harris himself admits that his own view his own moral system.

Places rapists liars and thieves on the same level as Saints which makes it very difficult for me to

understand Harris's righteous indignation when he gets up and he tries to display moral outrage against

Christianity.

What's sad is the issues that dr. Harris brought up about real suffering?

And about these things these issues are legitimate and they should be discussed.

But not by Harris who doesn't understand like the Christian worldview at all.

And he strawmans it all day long and then provides a moral system that cannot judge anything to be good or

evil.

Because it's not even talking about good and evil.

What a waste of a good opportunity because Harris got up and did essentially nothing to engage the

topic or dr. Craig's presentation.

He clearly lost the debate.

So go look at the other rebuttal segments.

I took a look at them.

They did not fair much better.

For Harris, dr. Craig is clearly the winner of this debate.

Why don't you go take a look at the debate yourself the fuller debate?

I've left the link in the show notes and you tell me who you think won the debate.

If you think Harris won the Debate you're gonna have to tell me why.

Because my god that was awful.

But also if you have an idea about what apologetics debate I should take a look at in the future I'm creating a list and I'm looking to knock those

off as I go on with every new video.

So let me know in the comments below as always I hope this raises the level of discourse in your neck of the woods

as you get out there and you talk about these issues.

But in the meantime, I will say bye for now.