Students flock to ETLC for God debate

" Dr PZ Myers, an associate professor at the University of Minnesota, wasted no time in dispelling the points raised by Durston."

Myers didn't dispel anything, he simply gave his view that religion or belief in the existence of God is silly. He didn't address any of Durston's main points. He said no historian takes the works of Josephus Flavius seriously and he, himself, hadn't even heard of him. The library is across campus Prof. Myers. I don't think Durston should have used all of the arguments
he made though.

Patrick, Myers never said he hadn't heard of Josephus. In fact, he directly pointed out that the (brief) reference to Jesus is, by scholarly consensus, very likely a later forgery. Even Lee Strobel (author of the book Campus for Christ was passing out) admits this, referring to it as an "early Christian interpolation". Durston dodged this by referring to a specific translation of Josephus which is almost universally rejected by historians and Biblical scholars alike.

That said, I do agree that Myers didn't address Durston's points, and that Durston evaded Myers' claims. Myers came for a science discussion (Durston's usual approach, check his other talks) while Durston reframed his argument logically. Logic isn't the same as science and the two talked past each other.

I, personally, would have found it more interesting were fact-checking present. Durston's opening remarks about atheist societies having a higher 20th century body count, for instance, was dead wrong -- his source clearly points out the defining factor is democracy (less = higher body count), and doesn't mention a thing about atheism. In other words, Durston's opening argument was deceptive, deliberately misleading, and (as Myers pointed out) guilty of the fallacy of poisoning the well. However, since no one had time to check his source during the debate, this lie was allowed to stand.

The real interesting segment was the Q&A session, which Kirsten was absent for and thus couldn't report. Myers kept his attitude roughly consistent with the debate -- for example, when a student asked him about the Cambrian Explosion, he openly laughed when the student thought the 15-million-year period ("slowest explosion ever") was only a thousand years long, and then explained why we would naturally expect an increase in biodiversity around that point. Durston, on the other hand, kept the same attitude but avoided virtually all the challenges to his points, even abandoning a few -- in response to my question, for instance, he admitted that genocide was ethical if God ordered it but he would use his own moral compass to judge if it was truly God doing so (a key point through his rebuttals was that objective morality exists and subjective morality is worthless and should be discarded; his answer rips his own position to shreds).

Thank you, Kirsten, for covering this; it's a shame the print Gateway had only a reference to this page here. (Addendum: Ian's right; your estimate of attendance was off by a factor of five.) The video will be up on YouTube soon; anyone who missed it can check it out when it arrives.

Durston deliberately avoided talking about a single point of biology because he knew Myers would be able to pound him on it. We were enticed by a promise for a debate on intelligent design and evolution and were treated to a debate in which Durston threw the whole event by talking about physics. Sneaky, but predictable coming from a fundamentalist.

Also, to the charming Anonymous who believes I'm going to burn in Hell: I don't care. Keep your vitriol to yourself; Jesus wouldn't approve.

"People who believe in nothing" is used above and is presumably meant to refer to people who do not believe in God. To not believe in God is not to belive in nothing. Quite the opposite. I do not believe in God. I do believe in everything I see around me here and now. I seek to live my life to the fullest, living for me and all the people I will come in contact in life. I like to think that that is everything. I believe in everything.

God, however, as far as all evidence available to me suggests, does not exist. Therefore, to believe in God is to believe in nothing. To live your life for God, or for his self-proclaimed son, is to live for nothing.

I was unfortunately unable to attend this debate. It sounds as if it must have been interesting. I hope that it led everyone in the audience to thoughfully and comprehensively question their own beliefs. I hope it helped them to think for themselves and make their own conclusions about their lives and the world around them.

A debate like this is a great example of what we are all doing as we determine what we believe about our existence. Hundreds of people heard the speakers. They all heard exactly the same thing, yet as these comments prove, everyone interpreted what they heard differently. That is exactly what happens as we examine evidence about Creation and Evolution. Two men can read the exact same Bible, and one Believes it is true while the other does not. The speed at which Niagara falls erodes in one year (if unobstructed by man made manipulation of it's flow) is a fact that is not up for debate, the conclusions one draws from that information however, are not facts, and you can debate that your conclusion is correct, but you can't prove it. I don't think a debate on this topic is pointless, but in order for it to be worthwhile, the topic needs to be very specific. "Transitional fossils", for example, or the implications behind the meaning of life for a theist vs. an atheist, but not both in one debate.