"William Lane Craig wins on points, and substance"
Source: http://briefingroom.typepad.com/the_briefing_room/2008/06/william-lane–1.html
I cruised along to the debate between Christian philosopher Bill Craig and NZ Rationalists’ Professor Bill Cooke tonight.
The first surprise was finding the lecture theatre empty, with a note advising a venue change because the room wasn’t big enough.
The second surprise was getting to the new lecture theatre, and only just being able to squeeze through the door and finding standing room only. You literally could not move, and the body heat in the upper reaches was incredible.
In front of me, hundreds had crammed into the theatre hoping to hear the clash of ideas.
While Craig kicked off with a 20 minute dissertation offering five logical proofs for the existence of God, behind me Auckland University security guards were threatening to shut down the theatre because the overcrowding was a “fire hazard”.
After Bill Cooke’s less than convincing response (basically, avoid the main arguments at all costs and obfuscate off on tangents), the debate was interrupted with an announcement that so heavy was the public demand to attend this debate that three lecture theatres had now been filled and one more was left to absorb all the overcrowding from the main auditorium – the other theatres were all taking a live video link of proceedings.
By my estimate, somewhere between 700 and 1000 people turned up for the event on a showery Auckland evening.
The debate will feature in the next Investigate.
More links:
http://fruitfulfaith.wordpress.com/2008/06/17/craig-cooke-debate-impressions/
http://mandmandmandm.blogspot.com/2008/06/battle-of-bills-review-of-craig-cooke.html
“William Lane Craig wins on points and substance”
Well isn’t that a surprise!! NOT
Perhaps Dr. Bill Cooke can make up for it in his debate on Thursday. As a philosopher who is familiar with Craig’s arguments he should know better than to not engage with Craig’s arguments. What a shame.
Though I’m not sure the language of ‘winning’ is helpful, I do agree with what I’d say is a general impression (even from atheists) that Cooke didn’t fully (or at all?) engage with Craig.
Paradoxically, Cooke’s failure (unwillingness?) to engage with Craig’s points caused the would-be debate to become precisely the ‘he said, she said’ banter he was supposedly trying to avoid…
Damian (himself an atheist) and I went together to the debate, and he also was disappointed at Cooke’s lack of engagement…
http://damian.peterson.net.nz/2008/06/18/bill-cooke-vs-william-lane-craig/
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