I dunno. I, for one, haven't tried. Other things in my life that matter more right now, like paying my bills and making sure my family is ok.

But I tell you what! Why don't you ask them to stop by? I know I, for one, would be happy to chat w/them here.

Well it is really about reaching a large number and variety of people. These "easy targets" are the ones who brainwash and hold the most people. I would say the majority aren't that interested in high-level debates. If they don't understand it, the arguments won't reach them.

You have to fight fire at the base.

Probably not. I think you need to have an invisible friend to join that club. As Dawkins puts it, I wouldn't know the first thing about the fineries of the emperor's many invisible garments.

They could take a shot a shot at writing in to the site if they like. Membership here is going up, as far as I can see. How are they doing at the invisible friend table?

Spumoni, RRS has an open invitation to any and all top notch apologists.  I've personally tried to get big wigs to do text debates with me, and nobody has ever gotten back to me.  The funny thing is, when you start talking to most apologists, they won't accept a debate invitation if it eliminates things like he-said-she-said and audience approval.

The bottom line is, only the bottom of the barrel are dumb enough to expose the weakness of their position.  The smart apologists know better.

Having said that, you can quote me on this:

RRS openly challenges any sufficiently top notch apologist (approved personally by spumoni) to a moderated text debate, either on this site or on a neutral site, provided there is a guarantee of no tampering with previous posts in any way, and that the full text will be available to the public for free, and can be reprinted by RRS in full on our website.

Happy?

There are at least a dozen members here who could take that challenge alone, so all of us against any or all of that group at once would be a slaughter. Just slaughter. I have yet to see an apologist argument that doesn't get shut down in a couple of posts. I'd say "bring it", but it wouldn't be much of a challenge, frankly.

If you want "scholars", we have plenty of them here at RRS, FYI.

I don't consider a degree in theology to be a *real* degree and would give the owner of such a thing the total contempt and disrespect he or she deserves.

I mean, we only have experts in philosophy, psychology, mathematics, evolutionary biology, sociobiology, sociology, symbolic logic, cosmology, physics, astrophysics, contemporary history, ancient history, anthropology, and (ahem) theology.

What could someone with one of those amazing seminary degrees have to worry about?

Ok, in all seriousness, spumoni, we wouldn't expect any apologist to debate fifty different people.  If any of your incredibly awesome god-experts wants to come here, we'll heavily moderate the thread, deleting anything that is not from one of the agreed upon debate participants.

And here I thought you wanted to talk about god.

Zing.

Yeah, I don't respect you enough to respond in earnest.

              Here's a thing you need to consider spumoni. The general Christian public is who the R.R.S. is targeting. This includes the scholars, the whack jobs, and the average Joes. Considering this, who out of these three classes has the highest amount of members? There are few scholars, as you pugnaciously noted. There are a few more whack jobs than scholars. While the average Joe's drastically tip the membership scale. So consider the R.R.S. targeting the community at large, but only getting responses from the highest member class.

             Does the R.R.S. only getting responses from the most likely class of Christians to respond say anything about the R.R.S.'s capability? No.

             Does the R.R.S. viciously attacking traditional arguments more often than newer (arguably) arguments suggest that R.R.S. is limited in their willingness to challenge newer (arguably) Christian ideas and arguments? No. Why?

             Well, the answer Mr. Spumoni is similar to all the other answers when asking a question about the general Christian public: the general Christian public does not know about the new (arguably) Christian ideas and arguments. And why is this? Because most of the Christian public is either too lazy or too confident to research new ideas and arguments for their belief system. I know this for a fact. Personal experience and observations I've made here and in real life is my evidence. Complacency is the word of the day Mr. Spumoni. Say it with me, com-pla-cen-cy.

             So, in summation, why is the R.R.S. seeming to always attack the bottom of the barrel? Because the general Christian public adheres to the bottom of the barrel Christian ideas and arguments.

             Trust me when I say this, the R.R.S. salivates at the idea of debating a scholarly Christian opponent. Perhaps something you should consider is this Spumoni, how do you know that the scholars would fair any better than the average Joe? Do you know that they hold keys? Do you know that their ideas will hold up to intense scrutiny under the eyes of a critical and intelligent opponent? The R.R.S. may or may not be up to this challenge. But, they are not afraid to try. So you should ask yourself Spumoni, are the Christian scholars whom you mentioned ready to tackle logic and critical, unforgiving reason? I would love to ask them that myself. Big claims in big books don't count as much as big claims gone under the microscope of your peers.

 Huh. Should I have said "rocked" to make it any clearer? "Spanked" perhaps? What part of "schooled" wasn't crystal?

Yeah... and check this out...

There goes your argument, too.  I think you just got spanked by one of your own, kiddo.

Here's what it seems like to me.  A real debate format is unappealing to you guys because you'd rather have someone come in and jump them like some kind of gang. Strength in numbers right?  Honestly I'm no big fan of Cameron or Comfort but they simply outdid you in the format.  That tells me something.  Sure, anyone can call in and get heckled by fifty people and it seems like a thrashing.  When its put on the line in an objective setting something changes?  Why is that?

Um, I'll do it. Just me and all [six] of those guys. Just me.

I'm just about the least qualified member of the site, so they should have absolutely no fear of me. I'm the bottom of the barrel here (as you put it), and I could take them, simply because there's nothing new under the sun in the way of arguments.

Bring them by, or let me know where I can engage them in debate.

[edit: you mentioned six guys, not four. Meh - bring them all]

It's those Christian spectacles.  Comes with an impenetrable aura of perfection around those folks they venerate.

It even comes with its own audio - variations of "I'm no big fan of X but <fawning statement goes here>"

Loc, you're forgetting... spumoni is a theist.  That means he gets to ignore any evidence he wants so he gets to be right.

Reading Spumoni's responses to his debunked arguments is making me flashback to gradeschool chants of "I  know you are, but what am I."

Any suggestions? The novelty of the arguments is getting a little thin in here, and I'd like to try a couple of new moves.

Perhaps you can tell us, in your own words, why those people are any better than the average person posting here?  Why do you feel that they are better at arguing for a god?

Of course, this guy is long gone but its interesting that people assume that someone is better at defining god. Isn't the Pope the best or someone who has had a revelation after drinkin' and druggin' too much?  Hell, I know a guy who missed being in an accident with a drunk driver who went on to kill 3 other people (the drunk driver, not him). This was his revelation that god existed and wanted something out of him.  Sure, the other people could go fuck themselves, but THIS guy was important!

How can Moreland (hack), Plantigna (hack), etc compete with that!?