I only got in time to hear the Coup de grâce that was the slick show, it was painful to listen to and no doubt to experience it firsthand was probably times more frustrating, Human tolerance reaching that point at the end would give matt a nice scapegoat to save face to his base, all I could hear was someone who could not bear to have someone chime in like the norm in most conversation, complaining about it after doing it himself and then proceeding to do so after. (Even using such times to jump to conclusions, hijack the line of discussion and use it as opportunity to mount an attack.)

Matt Slick reminded me of Ted Haggard a bit...

Yeah I've seen that video I was trying to fine a real clip tho

During the show tho I could have sworn I was listening to Haggard. 

Download link to this shows?

I'm sorry to say I didn't hear the Matt Slick show.  However, given the history I've had with Slick I doubt it was very intellectually stimulating.  I debated with Matt when he first started up his website.  He relies heavily on the insults, ad hominems and censorship.  He isn't terribly bright or educated but there's no such requirement to be a bible thumping fundy.  Needless to say I'd love to hear it for the entertainment value.

Matt Slick got annoying and rude to the point where you hung up on him. that was pretty funny. all through the shows rook PWNed and once again the Rational Responders have succeeded!

Hi Brian, Kelly, Rook, & Mike: 

As one of the guests on your 02 June 2007 show---to discuss using the Socratic Method when talking to Christian proselytizers, and to discuss my book Dialogue with a Christian Proselytizer---I suppose I don't qualify as being an objective respondent to your question "What did you think of the shows recorded today (6-02-07)?"  

Still, I'd like to take advantage of this opportunity to re-phrase my reply to Kelly's question "Don't you think that accepting the premise of 'A Creator'---even for argument's sake---is the kiss of death for an atheist?" 

First, I need to acknowledge that yes, I am making a compromise here: I'm bypassing---or letting the theist slide on---the atheist-crucial issues of evolution and Intelligent Design. If an atheist could utter "Blasphemy!!" with a straight face, this might well be the occasion.  

But as is the nature with compromises, you not only give up something, you get something as well---and look at the four great benefits: 

(1)   IT ALLOWS ME TO USE THE SOCRATIC METHOD 

If I didn't accept (for argument's sake!) the premise that there's "A Creator," there's no way I could get the Christian himself to spell out all the signs that a religion was just made up by people. 

If I were to argue for atheism, EVERY religion is, by default, man-made. That would prevent me from being able to get the Christian to spell out what's "man-made" about non-Christian religions (and even fundamentalists can be rational when it comes to detecting logical flaws in faiths other than their own): (1) their stories contain inaccurate and earth-bound descriptions of the universe (stars that are tiny, a moon that shines its own light, a sun that orbits a flat and stationary earth, etc.) (2) they're pieced together from pre-existing religions, (3) their holy laws are often based on irrational prejudices and erroneous conclusions about cause and effect. With these arguments in place coming from the Christian's own mouth, I no longer have to argue with him: I can just apply his own skepticism while reviewing the Judeo-Christian Bible. 

(2)   IT ALLOWS ME TO TARGET THE REAL SOURCE OF HARM: THE SO-CALLED "REVEALED RELGIONS" 

As crucial as the issues of evolution and Intelligent Design may be, I feel that religion's greatest potential for harm comes not from the fuzzy belief that "there's some sort of Supernatural Creator, but S/He's greater than anything our theology can touch"---but from people's belief that they know the Divine Word: that Divinity wants the adulteress stoned to death, or wants the Untouchables to abide by the caste rules, or hates homosexuals, or wants women covered from head to toe and for men to have long beards ... and accordingly, that anyone who doesn't abide by God's rules is an enemy of God---thus there's no limit to what can be done when it comes to attempts to convert, punish, or destroy them.  Design-based Deists may be wrong, but their beliefs are rarely (if ever) dogmatic enough to cause any tragedies or horrors. 

(3)   IT ALLOWS ME TO REACH AN AUDIENCE THAT OTHERWISE MIGHT NOT LISTEN 

As I mentioned during the interview, I find that there are many people who grow up the idea of God firmly imbedded, yet they are troubled, as Kelly put it, by cognitive dissonance (e.g. "Why does 'The Word' of the All-Knowing Creator has so many errors—why didn't God know about the 160-million year reign of the dinosaurs?" and "Why does our Loving God show so much indifference to creature suffering?" ).

By not threatening the theist's WHOLE worldview at once, I find that this removes much of the hostility that typically surfaces once the word "atheism" is uttered. And once there's hostility, it often just leads to an exchange in insults: people responding to attacks and counter-attacks on their pride, and the issues themselves disappear. With this hostility removed, such people may be more receptive to listening to arguments that the Judeo-Christian Bible---or any of the so-called Holy Scriptures, for that matter---is The Divine Word.

(I could dig a bit deeper on this subject, but it might be too detailed to be effective during a radio interview. Still, I'll include these further thoughts on "Why some people will NEVER grasp atheism" at the end of this post.)

(4) A BABY STEP TO ATHEISM 

To the hardcore atheists who feel that any compromise is pandering to the enemy, allow me to suggest that my method may be thought of as a "baby step" towards atheism.  For someone to go from being a firm Believer to becoming an Atheist . . . well, to borrow Richard Dawkins's analogy, that's like leaping from the bottom of Mount Improbable to the very top of the cliff in a single bound. It's highly unlikely, if not impossible: just as unlikely / impossible as it would be to go from being sightless to having a human eye in one giant evolutionary leap.  

But suppose instead of trying to leap thousands of feet up in the air to get to the cliff's top, you instead went around to the back of the mountain, where there was a gradual inclination? Given enough time, you could easily walk to the top---just as given enough time (billions of years), you can go from sightless bacteria to the human eye. And just as it may be impossible to go from being a Believer to an Atheist, it is possible to go from 

-  the Believer stage, to a 

-  Troubled-By-Cognitive-Dissonance Believer stage, to a

- Deist stage, to an 

- Atheist.  

I also feel that my Socratic approach will only work with Christians who are already at the Troubled-By-Cognitive-Dissonance Believer stage. The hardcore believers, to quote Stephen A. Gaines's observations of my Christian character in his May 27 Amazon review of my book, are "ferociously certain . . . determined to guide us, and utterly impervious to reason." 

Okay, that's it for how I think I should have organized my reply to your question.  

My final note on why I feel some people will NEVER grasp atheism is based on the introduction to The Blind Watchmaker, in which Richard Dawkins identifies the following three reasons:  

(1) Evolution itself sabotages the human capability to understand evolution: our intuitive judgment is equipped to understand processes that take seconds, minutes, months, and even decades---but we're not intuitively equipped to grasp processes that take billions of years. 

(2) Our human experience is that complex elegant design always comes from Designers, and the precise details of how complex design could have arisen from primeval simplicity is too difficult (and tedious) for most people to understand. 

(3) Especially when brought up with the idea that we were created in God's image, most people want to continue believing so. The thought that we're just mutated bacteria---that all life is just a fluke occurrence---is too damaging to many people's pride. 

Thanks again for the opportunity to be on your show,

- Todd Allen Gates

Author of Dialogue with a Christian Proselytizer

Todd, I absolutely agree with you in priciple. However, you did not have the displeasure of having a conversation with Matt Slick.

I know you are a proponent of the socratic method, but I don't think such a method can work on a hostile witness.

People tend to get what they give with us, and Matt wanted a fight. He was continually evasive, and it got to the point where if more than one person tried to talk to him at a time, he'd simply bitch about having to talk to more than one person at a time.

Persoanlly, I think we touched on this issue in your interview the same day which will air down the road. There are times, I think, where no amount of patience and socratic good will can save a discussion.

I'm certainly open to any constructive criticism you may have though, and if you could listen to the Matt Slick show and dissect the conversation a bit for us and tell us what we could have done to deal with a person like that, I'd LOVE it.

Keep in mind though, you didn't have to actually talk to this guy, and this guy was a first class bastard. We do our very best to keep things civil, but in the end, guest tend to get what they give us - we're only human.

 

Hi Mike,

Yes, I'm interested in hearing the Matt Slick show, and thanks for the offer to forward it to me. As for offering constructive criticism, I'll do my best---and I hope I'll have something to offer that will be worthy of doing another show on.

But I'll also readily admit that many Believers---whether first-class bastards or not---are utterly impervious to reason. Those skilled in the art of Christian apologetics even claim they have logic on their side, and employ stunning mental backflips to justify their stances. Here are the top five no-win tactics of the Christian apologists I've encountered:

(1) Wildly flexible interpretations of biblical passages to explain why they don't "mean" what they clearly say.

(2) The evidence for God/Jesus CAN'T be too solid, or that would cancel your Free Will.

(3) Finite man can't comprehend the Infinite.

(4) The spiritual sensation is irrefutable proof, if only you'd open your heart.

(5) Satan is tricking you (planting fake fossils to fool you into believing in evolution, pre-plagiarized the Bible to make it LOOK like the Bible picked up many of its ideas & stories from pre-existing religions, etc.).

(These rationalizations, of course, could equally explain why all us "unfaithful" can't grasp the profound truths of Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, the Greek stories of Zeus & Co., and the Flying Spaghetti Monster.)

Two advantages I feel I've gained since organizing my arguments via the Socratic Method: (1) I feel I can help influence those who are already confused about their faith---whether Christian or New Age etc.---and (2) I feel I can stand my ground well enough against aggressive hardcore / rabid proselytizers. But can I influence this latter group? Well, so far my track record has been zero.

I met Ray Comfort after the Nightline debate, and oddly enough, we've exchanged a number of cordial emails. I've also sent him my book, he's sent me one of his, and he's sent me some soon-to-be-published literature of his for advance feedback (a pamphlet called "Why Christianity?" and an excerpt from his upcoming book The Atheist Delusion). My only influence on him is that he's now deeply concerned about my salvation!

Looking forward to the Matt Slick interview, and hope to appear on your show again soon. (And I wouldn't mind driving down to Philly next time, as I have friends in the area.)

Todd Allen Gates

Author of Dialogue with a Christian Proselytizer

 Thanks, and I tend to agree with your assessment, unfortunately.

Thanks.

I know that in an ideal world, we'd be able to simply ask one another questions and reach resolution, but honest to Thor, it is rare that we get people willing to even entertain questions.

Truth be told, it is always the professional apologists, the guys like Slick and Todd Friel that are simply unwilling to have a discussion.

I'm not sure that anything can be done with people like that, as you point out later in your post, but it would be helpful to have a bit of critique on how to handle people like that. Perhaps there was something we could have done early in the show to defuse the problem and salvage a reasonable discussion - perhaps not. It would be good to get a second opinion at any rate.

That's been my experience as well.

 LOL. To tell the honest truth, I do like Ray Comfort as a person. He is a nice guy, he has a decent sense of humor, and at the end of the day I do think he does what he does out of a geniune concern for others - however misguided it is. I'd gladly sit down and have dinner and a few beers and a civil conversation with him, and that's much more than I can say for most people in his line of work.

Cool, Slick show should be up soon. Any input you'd have would be valuable.

Cheers.

i haven't heard the show yet (get on it, please lol! ), but i have a suggestion:

 

pre-qualify the interviewee before the interview starts with things like, "hi, thanks for joining us to discuss with us about xyz. to be honest, we were a little apprehensive at first because we've heard rumors that so-and-so are unresponsive to the socratic method and they are more about pushing and demanding their beliefs rather than to have a civil discussion.  it's certainly a relief to realize that those are just rumors from just actually finally talking to you in person/over the phone." something roughly along those lines to pre-emptively pressure any thoughts of idiocy.

so, um, yeah, where is the download link for this show?

I listened to this debate as well, and I agree that it was frustrating, but apparently for different reasons. Slick's repeated calls for proof were in response to Kelly's assertion that it is irrational to believe in something without valid, empirical evidence to support that belief, yet during this debate, Kelly made several claims to knowledge for which she could provide no evidence whatsoever. I thought she seemed completely unprepared, and in general did very poorly against a mediocre apologist.

While I don't necessarily agree with Slick theologically, he did correctly identify Kelly's special pleading by pointing out that her sweeping statement that the Gospels are "made up" is a claim to knowledge for which she could provide no proof. Instead she seems to have excused herself from the same evidentiary rules that she demands of Slick (and all theists).

The Saint

First post Laffer!

When you get a chance, even though you've been a member for quite awhile, we'd love it if you'd hop over to General Conversation, Introductions and Humor and introduce yourself.