Hitchens-Dembski Debate

[ydoaPs]

Dembski got pwned so hard the host of the debate filed DCMA claims against every trace of it on youtube. Here is a vid describing the opening statement. It too was filed against and deleted, so it has been mirrored by several people:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ir7B4xM75I8

[Marat]

People tend to forget that the first great atheism debate was actually fought not on the ground of creationism vs. evolution but on the topic of whether the world was really just around 6000 years old as the Bible claimed or whether it was in fact much older as the geological record indicated. Religion lost that first debate with science -- which it once thought it had to win in order to survive as a valid belief system -- so decisively that it has since then moved on to the new territory of evolution, hoping that in a more complex field it might have a better chance to confuse people.

 

But in a way all these debates between science and religion are silly distractions from the main point, since religious belief openly admits that it asserts the existence of supernatural beings and forces, so what does it matter whether science can prove that some of religion's assertions are indeed supernatural since they are not grounded in empirical reality? Christians say that Moses commanded the Sun to stop moving in the sky relative to the Earth and parted the Red Sea, both of which are just as confused (the Earth moves relative to the Sun in our solar system, not the other way around as Moses believed) or impossible as evolution being untrue, yet the science-religion debate never concerns itself with these issues. Since the existence of an infinitely kind, wise, and powerful being is contradicted by the existence of a world in which bad things happen for which human evil cannot rationally be blamed, why is there so much fuss about a relatively small point such as whether the creation myth is consistent with biology?

 

You either start off believing in things supernatural, as religious people do, or you start off believing only in a positivistic approach to reality, as non-theists do, and there is no contact between the opposing premises of either approach to human experience. Atheism can claim only two clear advantages: One is that atheists reason consistently, since their most general beliefs about the universe and their most specific assumptions in dealing with the tasks of everyday reality accept the same positivistic premises of ordinary empirical analysis. The other is that there are no internal tensions -- such as the conflict between a powerful and good God who created everything and and evil world -- in their vision of reality.

[ydoaPs]

Hey, cypress, I saw that you disliked the OP. Is there reasoning behind it? Did you find the analysis given by the video to be inaccurate, or what?

[cypress]

I found your representation of the topic and your analysis to be of poor quality. I was not rating the video.

[ydoaPs]

I found your representation of the topic and your analysis to be of poor quality. I was not rating the video.

How, was my analysis incorrect? Demski got destoryed. After that, Prestonwood Baptist Church filed false DCMA claims to remove all traces of the debate. There are a few vids here and there, though. It's not the whole thing, but it's enough to see that Demski was the clear loser.

[cypress]

Reputation involves opinion. I said I found your post and analysis to be poor quality, that is not the same as incorrect. I'm done here.

 

Use personal message if you want to speak about this more.

[ydoaPs]

Reputation involves opinion. I said I found your post and analysis to be poor quality, that is not the same as incorrect. I'm done here.

 

Use personal message if you want to speak about this more.

Poor quality implies that it was incorrect.

[john5746]

I do agree that Hitchens won the debate, but I doubt if the host feels the same. Maybe they planned to make some money of this or something. Or maybe there were other videos with dubbing, etc. and they decided to just wipe them all. Not sure I would jump to the conclusion that they are afraid people will see it.

[imatfaal]

http://www.dailyhitchens.com/2010/11/hitchens-dembski-debate-nov-2010-1-of.html

 

I presume that the other sections are also available at the same source if you wish to watch.