Was Dillahunty RIGHT to RAGE-QUIT? | Debate Teacher Reacts

Mike Johnson's the new Speaker of the House of the United States. He's homophobic as all get out. He's argued to criminalize homosexuality.

We have to do what's good for human society and human flourishing. And if you don't call these strange lunatics something they obviously aren't, they might self -terminate.

So in order to avoid that, we need to make everybody on planet Earth lie to them. This is a problem. This guy's not serious.

And I'm leaving, James. If you want a refund. Well, good day, sir. And I'll cover your refund, Mr. Matt, did you call me a mat?

Did Dillahunty have a point? I swore that I was not going to do this.

I said flat out I would never again react to another Matt Dillahunty debate. I mean, the man refuses to be the debater that he's supposed to be on the debate stage.

He often takes off his debate hat. He puts on the hat of the judge or the audience in order to win. That makes these debates a waste of time.

So I said never again. Until today, I got a lot of emails and comments from all of you asking me to react to the latest

Dillahunty debate, where he basically rage quits and storms off the stage. So I'm going to do this one last time.

This is the last I swear. This is the last one against better judgment. So let's get right into it. If you're brand new here, my name is

Nate Sala, and this is Wise Disciple, where I'm helping you become the effective Christian that you are meant to be. Gone are the days where we can sit on the sidelines and let others do the work of the gospel.

We all need to get out there and make much of Christ in today's culture. But Jesus tells us we need to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves as we do it.

Before I jumped into the ministry, I was a high school debate teacher. And so I use my background to watch theology and apologetics debates and talk about who's really winning.

Make sure to like and subscribe to the channel if you have not already. That just helps me to get the message out to more and more people.

I greatly appreciate it. Thanks so much, James. And thanks, Andrew, for being here and all of you for showing up.

Humanism has as its focus the betterment of humanity in this life. While Christianity has as its focus adherence to a

God and the disposition of souls in an afterlife. Our best efforts. Oh, all right.

I'm not going to OK, just I'm going to let it play in this life are according to the Bible like filthy rag.

Our best attempts at righteousness and justice are portrayed as vile and disgusting when compared to a bumbling

God constantly failing to get his creation to love and respect him, while also prescribing the death penalty for nearly everything adult.

So this is Matt's opening statement. It looks like on the screen behind him. The title of this debate is will secular humanism beat

Christianity? That's a horrible resolution. OK, if you watch my videos before, resolutions should not be stated in the form of a question.

It makes the roles of each debater ambiguous unless they agree in some sense outside the debate as to who shoulders the burden of proof and things like that.

Also, just the way that it's worded, like beat Christianity based on what metric?

That's that's just too ambiguous. OK, and the problem then is you probably won't draw out the kind of clash that you could have if you would have stated the resolution much clearer.

Like imagine if the resolution was the Judeo -Christian model is the enemy of human flourishing in modern society.

There's probably a better way to say that. But you see how now it's much more clear who shoulders the burden of proof.

It's the one who takes the affirmative on that declarative statement. OK, and you can even see how the contentions and the argumentation now on both sides can take shape and draw out clash based on that kind of resolution.

Right. OK, so my prediction is these opening statements are going to be a bit of a hot mess.

Why? Well, because the resolution sucks. Free blasphemy, breaking the Sabbath, disobedient children, witchcraft, worshipping another god, not being a virgin on your wedding night.

Which is better for society? Well, I'd say the one that has human society as its focus and isn't so intent on killing humans for not buying into a specific doctrine.

So notice Dillahunty already has reframed the discussion. OK, he asked, which is better for society?

That's not what the title of the debate is. But that's how he's interpreting the resolution. That's how he just reframed it for the audience.

And that's presumably how he's going to formulate his contentions moving forward. He's going to argue in support of secular humanism.

Heaven and hell, if they were to exist, aren't human societies what a god thinks is unknown and irrelevant?

There's never been a secular humanist nation, either in a governmental form, which I'm not advocating for, or in a primary philosophical view over the majority of the population, which means we have to look at the ideals between these two positions.

Secular humanism has been around for 90 years. In 1933, the first secular humanist manifesto was published. It identified humanism as a religion with 15 points.

It was updated 40 years later in 1973 with a lot more information. And then it was incredibly shortened in 2003.

In addition to the manifestos, there are organizations like the Council for Secular Humanism, American Humanist, etc. In the first version of the manifesto, it's presented as a religious view where it acknowledges there's no supernatural guarantee of human value.

We advocate a heightened sense of personal life and a cooperative effort to promote social well -being.

The goal of humanism is a free and universal society in which people voluntarily and intelligently cooperate for the common good.

In the manifesto version 2, 40 years later, this includes a lot more information, short versions.

They begin by saying those who sign this disclaim that they are setting forth a binding credo.

This statement reaches for a vision in time that needs direction. We affirm a set of common principles that can serve as a basis for united action.

This isn't a to -do list or thou shalt or thou shalt not list. We're fine with religion's inspiration, but we're opposed to dogma and authoritarian views that place anything above human needs.

Religions don't pass the test of scientific evidence. The promises of immortal salvation or eternal damnation are illusory and harmful.

Ethics and moral values stem from human experience, and situational ethics stem from the human need and human interest.

Reason and intelligence are the most effective instruments we possess. We are not advocating for the use of scientific intelligence independent of or in opposition to emotion, for we believe in the cultivation of feeling and love.

There are a lot of problems with the humanist manifesto. If it wants to be taken seriously as a real document that can shape and direct human behaviors.

But the biggest one that I can see is it just defines nothing. When we talk about effective forms of communication, right?

We talk about debate even under that sort of broader category. We talk about clearly defining terms at the outset.

That's one of the first things that we have to put out there. The humanist manifesto does not do that.

It talks about things like well -being and the good life. But it fails to concretely define what any of those things mean or what they look like, or to concretely explain how to achieve those things.

And when you have a document like that, that is so ambiguously written, by the way, on purpose, OK, because by its own admission, the humanist manifesto is not trying to define a specific morality because it's not really about a specific morality at all.

And Dillahunty just mentioned that a moment ago. Well, then we cannot assume that when we remove the

Ten Commandments and the Judeo -Christian values and beliefs that founded our nation, that our society will not be affected by that switch, that it will just somehow improve and flourish over time.

I think the allure of the humanist manifesto for a lot of people is because of the fact that it stands on the back of Judeo -Christian values.

A lot of what the humanist manifesto says only makes sense because of Judeo -Christian values.

But when you remove that foundation and then enough generations are born over time that don't even know about those values, it's not that they don't even remember them.

They were never taught them at all, have no context for them. What you have left is a document that says clearly nothing.

And that's a recipe for disaster in the hands of the wrong people, especially. Individuals are precious and their dignity is affirmed.

This is important. Us, human beings, affirming the value of individuals and human beings is more powerful than a

God affirming it. And it's infinitely more powerful than a human claiming a

God affirms this, which is all we appear to have. The third version of the manifesto in a nutshell is so short.

Whether God exists or not, we have problems to solve. We have to do this without appeals to the supernatural entities or intervention.

We must utilize the best methods at our disposal. Reason and science seem to be the primary ones to assess reality and reach conclusions.

Justice, fairness, equality and autonomy are the primary goals. This life, not a hypothetical afterlife, is what we're trying to improve.

So what happens when religions control societies and governments, either legitimate or illegitimate? Well, conflicts with other societies and other governments may not have any reason to diplomatic solution.

Need only look to Gaza. But that's Islam and Judaism. Here we have Christianity as a primary and Christian nationalism.

Under secular humanism, you get to be a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim, gay, straight, socialist, capitalist.

You just don't get to impose those necessarily on others through acts of fiat. Not necessarily true with the religions in charge of the government.

Mike Johnson's the new Speaker of the House of the United States. He's homophobic as all get out. He's argued to criminalize homosexuality.

Homosexuality, by the way, are U .S. citizens with specific rights that he wants to take away. Moreover, he advocates for gay conversion therapy, which is unscientific and torturous because he thinks he can help them pray the gay away and the gay can be eliminated.

He's not anti -gay. He just wants them to cease to exist as gay. They get to keep being human beings.

So as opening statements go, this isn't great. When you get out on the debate stage, you should, number one, begin by clearly defining key terms and phrases so that you can ensure clash with your opponent.

Clash is key. If you're not clashing, you're not debating. You should also clearly state your stance on the resolution, as well as list out some clear contentions.

I say clear because it has to be clear to the people that you're speaking to, the audience. OK? You need to list those clear contentions out in support of your stance.

If you don't do that, the audience is probably not going to be able to track all of the things that you're saying.

It just these things need to be clearly spelled out, OK? And you should be laying a framework so that the audience understands how to think through the debate through your eyes, so to speak, which is a key ingredient to winning debates because when the audience adopts your framework, you typically win.

Dillahunty right now is not he's not talking to the entire audience.

He's talking to Dillahunty fans at this point. He's talking to essentially himself. He immediately jumped into humanism is this and then

Christianity is this. Which one's better? And then he spends the majority of the time defining humanism. What he forgot to do is make real arguments against Christianity and in favor of humanism.

What he forgot to do is clearly define terms like human flourishing. Why? Because he's just talking to his own base.

I think he's just sort of presupposed these things and assume things. But he cannot do that.

What he also forgot to do is provide evidence that Christianity is deleterious to society in a manner that is not merely question begging from his position, but actually is supported by some kind of objective studies, objective sources.

OK, he didn't do these things because it just seems like he's talking to his own people. And that's a mistake. You need to talk to everyone in the room.

You're trying to convince the judge. In this case, the judge is the entire audience that your position is the correct one.

Now, he is talking about Mike Johnson, which would maybe count as evidence along these lines.

But he's doing it in a very highly misleading manner. Right. Is Johnson a Christian?

Yes. Did he write about LGBT in the past? Yes. But as a lawyer for Alliance Defending Freedom, not as a government official.

This all came out in the hearings when he was coming up as a speaker of the House. All of this, though,

Dillahunty does in order to suggest that Christian politicians legislate the Bible by fiat. And that is very misleading.

So this is not great. He thinks there's no right to sodomy. Privacy laws don't protect everything.

And he thinks that what sort of sex you have should be his to regulate. Sodomy, by the way, is anal or oral copulation, which

I have it on good authority. Heterosexual folks engage in as well. Twenty twenty two, he presented what was called the

Don't Say Gay Bill, outlawing any discussion of gender identity, sexual orientation or related subjects, which was incredibly problematic because.

Right, right. This is a perfect example. Is a bill right that don't say gay bill is a bill legislation by fiat.

No, he ignored the what the experts have to say about age appropriate content and how critical it is, especially for kids under 10, which was his target.

To have correct language in order to better report on and about sexual abuse.

His policy, if it had been implemented, would have made it more traumatic for kids and more difficult for them to out their abusers and easier for abusers to get away with it.

Happily, it failed. In 2015, he blamed abortions and the breakup of the nuclear family for school shootings.

He also says the teaching of evolution is to blame for mass shootings because we've taught a whole generation of couple generations now of Americans that there's no right or wrong, that it's about survival of the fittest.

And if you evolve from a primordial slime, what is that life of any sacred value? He wants student led prayer back in school.

So all of this is only a problem if you already agree with Dillahunty. That's the point that I'm trying to make.

What happens when you don't automatically agree with Dillahunty? What if you had to argue as a debater to those who do not agree with you?

How would you present your case? I propose it would not look like what

Dillahunty is doing right now. Speaker, are you OK with Islamic prayers, satanic prayers or just particular

Christian prayer? He's opposed to the separation of religion and government, sometimes called the separation of church and state.

He thinks that the founders only wanted to protect the church from the state and didn't want to protect the state from the church, citing the notorious lying pseudo historian

David Barton to support this view. He definitely seeks to impose his views on others.

Now, some of you are saying, hang on. He's the speaker of the house. He's not the speaker of Christianity or that's not my type of Christianity.

Great. But what is your type? What's your type of Christianity like? Because there's a lot of them.

How is it better? And how can we make sure that we get your better version than the one that Mike Johnson wants?

He thinks his version is correct. So do you. Countless denominations without consensus. He's already got more power than my opponent has right now.

So I don't know, Andrew, at all. I don't know what what version Christianity is advocating for. I didn't bother to look him up. We literally just met, said hello as I sat down here.

That's a mistake. If at all possible, when you're going up against an opponent, you should probably know who you're going up against and you should probably do your research.

You should probably know what they're going to say and how they argue or else you're going to you're going to be surprised with what comes out of their mouth more often than not, which is probably where we're headed here and why he rage quitted in the first place.

His version of Christianity better? I really hope so, because it'd be hard to get a whole lot worse. But they point to the same book, they point to the same savior, the same history, liberal and moderate

Christians provide legitimacy and cover to hide the fundamentalists and to allow them to engage in Christian nationalism.

Secular humanism allows you to be a Christian right up until you try to oppose it on others.

And then you get to keep being a Christian. You don't get to practice it in the way where you're imposing it on others. You can pray, you go to church, you can tithe, you can worship, gather, share, discuss, convert, vote based on your values.

You can vote against your own best interest. I see people doing all the time. You can teach your kids your values under secular humanism.

The foundational principles of secular humanism solve conflicts with data, debate, and discussion instead of coercion, conversion, or conquest.

There is no coercion, conversion and conquest. Like, what is this in reference to? Is Dillahunty still talking about Christian politicians legislating by fiat?

So Christians don't discuss, debate, and pass laws like other politicians? Like, what is he even talking about?

Secular humanist, and no denomination of secular humanist that's ever required someone to believe something that is not empirically verifiable.

That's ever ordered the death of another person. That's ever ordered or acted to act or destroy property of any person or government.

That has ever overthrown a democracy to impose a secular humanist regime. That's ever been connected with terrorist cells and activities.

That's ever denied freedom of speech or expression. That's ever called for the deaths of people for criticizing.

That's ever denied freedom of speech. So when a conservative Christian speaker gets cancelled to speak in an event because of their views in previous speeches, and the folks that cancel them are clearly anti -religious, that somehow has nothing to do with secular humanism?

That's just a bunch of other secular people that belong in a different group, guys. So when Richard Dawkins, a couple of years ago, made some controversial comments about trans people, and the

American Humanist Society, the same society that wrote the Humanist Manifesto, censured him by taking away his title of Humanist of the

Year, that's an example of affirming freedom of speech, right guys? Got it. By the way, that really happened.

So you can look it up. ... secular humanism or any religious view that has ever advocated for or inspired suicide bombers or terrorist attacks.

Those things are simply not consistent in any way. Has Christianity advocated for...

What is the title of the debate? Will secular humanism beat Islam? Has Christianity advocated for suicide bombers to blow themselves up?

Like, what is he talking about? This isn't an argument against or a debate against Islam. This is against Christianity.

... with the core values of secular humanism. There is no threat to Christians, Jews, Muslims, Scientologists from secular humanism.

There might be from scientific skepticism and rationality if you're not able to actually demonstrate the truth of your claim.

But life, freedom, and an equitable relationship are the foundations of secular humanism.

There is no list of thou shalt not or thou shalts because we recognize that nearly every attempt at such a list fails at some point as we learn more about our world and about getting better at understanding the world better, about doing better, and being better in this life.

The goal of humanism is a free and universal society in which people voluntarily and intelligently cooperate for the common good.

If you have an objection to that or a better goal, what is it? Again, not a great opening from Dillahunty.

Not too dissimilar from everything else we've ever seen from him in the past, though. Am I wrong? Really, the only tangible evidence that he tried to provide, if I'm remembering this, are all of the

Mike Johnson anecdotes. And that's pretty much it. But you know what? Again, I mean, look at the resolution.

I almost don't blame him. I still don't know what the resolution even means. And so it makes sense to me that the very first Interlocutor's opening is going to be all over the place like this.

All right. Thank you so much for your introductory statement. We're going to hand it over to Andrew Wilson for 10 minutes. So thank you for being here,

Andrew. And the floor is yours. You're welcome. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Andrew Wilson.

I am the host of the one and only Crucible, the fastest growing debate channel on the internet,

James. I just, just in case you didn't know. Appreciate that very much.

Appreciate everybody being here. All of you are way too stodgy in this room. Very low energy.

Just wanted to let all of you know that. Ladies and gentlemen, of all pronouns, the

Z's, the Zers, the hims and hers. I would like to thank you for tuning in today for this exciting in -person conference on modern day debate.

My name is Andrew Wilson. There's a few ways this debate can go.

The topic is Christian ethics versus secular humanism, which, which has a better foundation.

The funny thing is I already won that topic because as Matt explained to Jay Dyer, he has no justification under the skeptical belief structure to give an accounting for any meta ethical presupposition he may have.

He just kind of grants himself stuff. He grants himself logic. He grants himself reason. He grants himself an entire worldview, even though he's using an unjustified starting position for it.

So I'm not honestly all that interested in doing the God not real dough debate because one, it's boring and two, it's also really boring.

It goes like. So he's not wrong. I mean, Dillahunty calls these things brute facts that he just begins with in order to make all of his proclamations against Christianity.

I've used the analogy of a Christian and an atheist walking in the middle of a deserted island searching for food and they happen upon in the middle of a dense, thick forest, a refrigerator that is filled with fresh food.

The atheist opens the fridge and just starts eating. The Christian says, where did this food come from?

And the atheist says, well, I don't need to answer that question as long as the food's just there to feed me. It's like that's, yeah, you can begin with all of these things if that's how you want to begin, but the

Christian is going to ask you at some point, what is the foundation? What is the grounding of the things that you are just presupposing in order to make these arguments in the first place?

And for a lot of us, including myself, it's an insufficient answer to simply say, well, these are just brute facts.

I just begin with these things, right? So, I mean, this guy, Andrew Wilson, he's, I like what he's doing so far.

He's talking about how the audience should be thinking through the resolution. Okay. Do you see that?

It can't be about metaphysical starting points because Dillahunty already lost that one. Hey, real quick, I'm so grateful that you're watching.

If I've earned the right to get your sub, I'd love it if you would just click the like and subscribe button. It would really help me to get the video out to more and more people.

I really do appreciate you. I don't see enough evidence and remain unconvinced there's a God, then I say, but you use a theistic worldview of justification like there is a

God to grant yourself logic and everything else. So instead of that, I'm just going to grant Matt's entire worldview.

Two thirds or more of the planet of this entire planet are all operating inside of a shared delusion that they were created by a sky daddy who loves him some slavery and murderousness.

He thinks it's funny to kind of cosmically with people. That's his deal, kind of his whole thing.

That's Matt's worldview. So now Matt's right. And the question becomes, should we let them to continue to believe in this nonsensical stone age madness, or do we stop them from engaging in it?

My contention is even if God isn't real at all, that people acting as though he is, is still superior to whatever nonsensical egalitarian worldview

Matt can come up with. See, Matt also just acts as though the things he believes are true. He believes he believes he believes and therefore acts as though logic is real.

I don't know if this guy's or maybe maybe he is. I was going to say,

I don't know if he's trolling Matt. But I don't see

Matt's name in the debate resolution. Do you? You know, will Christianity be or will secular humanism be

Christianity? Matt Dillahunty's name isn't up there. So I'm not sure why he's so focused on Matt other than to try to get

Matt to react to all of the poking. And maybe that's what the point is.

Although then if that is his motivation, you can make the argument that that's inappropriate for a debater on the debate stage.

Maybe this is just a lack of experience in debating, you know, coming out.

And so he doesn't, you know, hasn't done this too many times and doesn't realize that you're not really you're supposed to keep it on the resolution.

You're not supposed to be focused too much on the person unless the person has actually written in some sense in a scholarly way that somehow brings him appropriately into the debate topic.

This is, I don't know what this is. Everything is real based on his presuppositional belief that they are real.

You see, human flourishing, the cornerstone of Matt's ideology and that of secular humanism is totally meaningless.

Flourishing by whose metric? From my perspective, for instance, attempting to lie to people who claim men.

So this is what I was saying a moment ago. When you speak so ambiguously in your document, the ambiguities can be defined and redefined into antithetical outcomes.

You have a problem, right? So somebody can claim that human flourishing means being pro -life.

And somebody can also claim at the same time that human flourishing means being pro -choice. That's the problem.

Well, one of the problems with the Humanist Manifesto. And so good for Andrew Wilson for pointing this out.

Can be women isn't human flourishing. From Matt's perspective, it is. Why? Why should the collective of humanity lie and say men can get pregnant?

Why should they say that men can have periods? Things which are categorically and obviously false.

That preserving homosexuality in society is good for human flourishing, even though they are reproductive dead ends.

And that Western society and egalitarianism is superior to those evil theist society, even though the

Western nations can't even reproduce their own populations, but instead have to replace their population with foreigners from those theist nations that can reproduce.

So notice the argument now. It's not that God exists and therefore because of his word, we should reject

LGBT activity. The Christian has conceded that God does not exist for the purposes of this discussion and is now adopting more of an evolutionary perspective.

If human flourishing is defined by humanity's survival, then Dillahunty still has a problem with his specific views with regard to LGBT.

Let's start with a basic societal question recently asked of the West, who has now embraced a scientific and non -theistic approach to governing.

Super basic question every kindergartner knows. If you don't believe me, go watch Kindergarten Cop.

The question posed to the Western nation is, can a man be a woman? To the question of if a man could be a woman, they say the answer is yes.

And the way we will decree they can be a woman is by simply saying that woman now means male.

Problem solved. Thank you, secular humanists. Thank you so much. Nope, not kidding.

Why you ask would people be this over the top stupid? Well, it's simple.

The good is the good, man. We have to do what's good for human society and human flourishing. And if you don't call these deranged lunatics something they obviously aren't, they might self -terminate.

So in order to avoid that, we need to make everybody on planet Earth lie to them. This is a problem.

So the Christian was doing a somewhat solid job and then he went and said this.

There's two reasons why this is a problem. First, rudeness can lose a ballot, even for the best debaters.

So the unspoken rule in the debate stage is don't be a jerk. Don't risk obscuring the arguments with offensive statements.

And the fact is, it's just not necessary for the purposes of this discussion on the debate stage, considering all of the things that need to happen, especially who you're talking to, you're appealing to a broad audience, presumably.

It's not necessary to call trans folks deranged lunatics. In other words, it's not necessary to explain why they're trans.

And all that does is it risks making people upset in the audience.

And when they're upset, they're not listening to your argument. The other issue is, this man says he's a

Christian. Then he should act like it. The Apostle Paul clearly says in 1 Corinthians 5 that it's not our business to judge outsiders.

But in actuality, we should temper our words with love, and we should speak the truth in love so that when nonbelievers try to slander us and speak evil against us, they will see our good deeds and glorify

God. That's 1 Peter 2. I take it that this is probably where Dillahunty begins to rage quit.

This is human flurry. Just redefine it and pretend it's true.

How laughably absurd this worldview is. Matt will often say, I remain unconvinced.

Well, Matt, I'm also going to use your standard. I need for you to 100 % convince me beyond a shadow of a doubt that males can have babies.

What's the answer going to be? No, Andrew, you big stupid. Males can't have babies. Men can have babies.

Because we just defined man to include females, dummy. Well, Matt, I remain unconvinced.

I'd like Matt to convince me that if you are a male and you are having sex with another male, which would not be allowed in my version of a secular humanist worldview, how is it that you're not just basically having sex with a guy with a wig on?

I really want to know the answer to that question. Not just me, but all rational people who aren't lunatics also want to know why it's ma 'am isn't a complete and total crock of garbage.

Because I remain unconvinced that it isn't a total lie and that these people don't just pervert the language to include their own perversions and then add human flourishing at the end.

Matt has said he wouldn't— So, Wilson, like I said, started off well, and then he took his car and went right over into a ditch.

He's lost the thread here. It was supposed to be about survival. If we're considering human flourishing while rejecting that God exists, well, then human flourishing should be more akin to survival of the species, okay?

And now he's just focused on men calling themselves women and getting into the bedroom and what do you call a man who wears a wig and what is that called when you get into the bed with a man who wears a wig?

Make sure you call them ma 'am. He's lost the thread. And I wonder again, what is the motivation here?

Is he trying to poke Matt on purpose or is this just ignorance with regard to debate because he hasn't done this a whole lot of times?

I don't know what's going on. But he needs to rein this in. This is really bad. —make a law stopping nine -year -olds from having sex with each other.

Not kidding. Now, I know this is going to sound a little bit totalitarian, but I would in fact create laws that made it a crime for a nine -year -old to have sex with their nine -year -old.

I would hold the parents criminally liable for allowing this to happen in my evil authoritarian society where I don't even let nine -year -olds have sex or the parents go straight to jail for negligence.

Now, I think that's better for human flourishing. I think maybe parents would be far less likely to let their nine -year -olds do that if they went to jail.

Stupid me. Next, I would in my authoritarian society decree that all simulated sex acts in public were criminal offenses and would make sure that all people went to prison for the crime of indecency, which doesn't assist with human flourishing.

And I'd like to know why I'm wrong. Secular humanism can basically be whatever the hell you want it to be.

It doesn't really need the principle of freedom or the starting axiom of freedom and peace in order to postulate whatever it wants.

It's sloganeering. They're slogans. They don't mean anything. Okay, why do nine -year -olds need to be able to have sex in order to advance humanity?

Why do we need to lie about a person's sex in order to advance humanity? Why are these things necessary for human flourishing?

Why are decency laws bad? Why would Christian ethics stop flourishing when the theist mandate is to reproduce and the secular mandate is let's just all have sex and have fun, bro?

That sounds way worse for human flourishing. In fact, I would say not reproducing is the worst possible thing for human flourishing because if there's no humans, how do you flourish?

So, I guess in essence, step one, I remain unconvinced. Step two, I need to be convinced so I'm no longer unconvinced.

And step three, but God not real doe doesn't matter here. I've already granted it to still demonstrate just how stupid this ideology actually is.

With that, I'll yield my time and I'm happy to get into it. Yeah, he's looking over to see how

Dillahunty has taken all of this, I'm sure. So, that was also not great.

While it was definitely more clearly framed and there were some contentions that I could see in the opener as compared to Dillahunty's opener,

Wilson violated the rules of professionalism in debate and was unnecessarily offensive, even cursing on stage.

I mean, I get it. This is not a formal debate like you would see at the national level, but still, that was, and the poking too,

I don't know. That was difficult to watch. As a Christian, it's even doubly difficult to watch.

William Lane Craig told me once, whenever he's about to get up on the debate stage, one of the goals that he has is to represent

Christ to the best of his ability. I struggle to see how this man did that just now.

Hey, James, I just sent you a message. All right. We are going to kick it into an open discussion.

So, 50 minutes and let's kick it. No, I don't think so. I'm not going to sit here and dignify the preparation that I went through and what people were here for.

You're so indignant. Keep interrupting me. I am. Okay. You're so indignant. Would the moderator like to step in so that I can finish?

Please, Matt. How dare someone have an opposing worldview? I'm not going to sit here and dignify what was supposed to be a debate about Christianity versus secular humanism, which one's better for the world.

Yes. With someone who clearly showed up with an agenda that has nothing to do with that. Someone who refers to trans people as deranged lunatics who will self -terminate, if you dare to question them.

How am I wrong, Matt? Someone who misrepresents a quote from a debate where I said

I wouldn't make a law about nine year olds having sex being legal with respect to the nine year olds, not that I was in any way in favor of it and that I was actually opposed to it, which

I addressed during that debate. But moreover, this is not remotely an honest interaction on the front of whether or not secular humanism is valuable.

Because this, when he presented his position here, has nothing to do with secular humanism.

From the get -go, it's all about me. Matt thinks. Matt thinks. Matt thinks. I'm given what

Matt thinks. What Matt thinks. What Matt thinks. Matt's position. I came in with the secular humanist manifesto.

I came in with positions that aren't merely my position.

Oh, well, as long as multiple people hold the position. This guy's not serious and I'm leaving. James, if you want a refund. Well, good day, sir.

And I'll cover your refund, Mr. Matt. He just said he'd cover my refund. I would cover his refund.

No, no, no, no.

I'm not going to dignify a debate with someone who walked in to trash talk people and be smug and all of the things that he's being right now.

He's already said he will cover my expense. You don't have anything to worry about. This debate is over. Goodbye. Goodbye.

Did you did you did you call me a Matt? Well, you and your husband have a good day, man.

Have a wonderful day, Matt. Wow. Yeah.

Boy, did did Dillahunty have a point? I think he was picking up on something that is legitimate.

And that's two things. His interlocutors offensive posturing. Right. So the unnecessary and offensive language that his opponent used to poke

Matt and then to also describe LGBT people. It's just not necessary to ascribe motive to other people in this kind of an exchange.

Are the LGBT confused and suffering and in need of our help? Absolutely. And we have our marching orders as Christians from God's word to to provide the ultimate solution to the gospel message.

But in this kind of a debate setting, when you present yourself the way this person did, Andrew Wilson, you undermine your argument and you should not go out of your way to make folks in the audience walk away saying, boy, that Christian was a jerk.

But also. Dillahunty, I think, noticed that his opponent just lost the thread for several minutes and just started going after LGBT folks instead of tracking along the ultimate point, which is about the manifesto's inability to define human flourishing.

That is a legitimate argument against it. OK, but his opponent just lost his way there.

Right. Having said all of that. Was Dillahunty justified in walking off the stage?

No, I don't think so. All things considered, he should have just stayed and pushed through the cross -examination or whatever that next segment was supposed to be.

He should have remained calm and professional and try to highlight the flaws in his opponent's case, even the flaws in the way that his opponent was presenting himself, and then let the audience decide whose position is better.

Right. When when he walked away like that, it just looks like he can't control his emotions, which is interesting because I thought that one of the values of being a secular humanist is debate and discussion, being able to wrestle with these things.

And yet now, Matt, by his actions, shows that he does not want to debate certain things and does not want to discuss certain things.

There's another irony layer to this as well. I'm sure Dillahunty has done this to other people. Right. He's used offensive and volatile language towards his opponents.

And now I guess he got a taste of his own medicine. But it should not have been from a

Christian. You know, letting Matt taste his own medicine, that's not

Christianity. Christianity is not tit for tat. You did this, so I do it right back to you.

You punch me, so I punch back twice as hard. That's not Christianity. So once again, here we are.

Another debate that was kind of a waste of time, ultimately. Right.

Another Matt Dillahunty debate. Nothing productive happened other than we learned, I guess, what not to do.

Amen. Okay, now it's your turn. What did you think of this debate? Was Dillahunty justified in walking off the stage?

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