“Hitchens Beats Blair in Religion Debate.” Well, I guess that settles that! Let’s get God’s tombstone ready! Oh, wait, what? You say Hitchens himself was “sorely defeated” by “the most fearsome and effective” (or is that “interesting but stupid“?) William Lane Craig? And Richard Dawkins is rude? Is that a point for God or for Jesus? Who’s keeping score?
I said before that two years of debate class, along with philosophy, made school worthwhile for me. Arguments can certainly be fun and informative. But I swear by the severed schlong of Osiris, I don’t understand why cheerleaders for either side put so much stock in these debates. We’ve all seen examples of clever sophists getting the rhetorical better of someone who doesn’t excel at having to think on their feet, and while I don’t agree with the old saw about not being able to reason someone out of a position they didn’t reason their way into in the first place, it is true that most believers, even if backed into a logical corner, will toss the old “gut faith” smoke grenade and make their getaway.
I went through a very brief phase of reading these sorts of pro-and-con arguments over God’s existence, but the sudden onset of narcolepsy put an end to that. Not to mention my conviction that in the absence of any sort of immortal soul, the Big Fella’s existence or lack thereof is rendered irrelevant.