April 24, 2024 • 32 mins
In this episode, Brian and Chad discuss the importance of listening to debates. This is a kind of PART 1, and part 2 will discuss specific debates.
Brian's seven reasons for listening to debates were: 1) Hearing the best defenders of each view, 2) Hearing actual arguments without interruptions, 3) Finding the cutting edge of the current debate, 4) Getting used to hearing opposing views without anxiety, 5) Seeing that Christianity can hold its own intellectually, 6) Observing how a cumulative case is made and critics' counters, and 7) Realizing the debate is just an entry point to a much deeper topic.
Throughout explaining his seven reasons, Brian and Chad discussed the value of debates utilizing good logic (logos), credibility (ethos), and emotional appeals (pathos). They noted how the best debates are well-moderated with clear time limits. Listening to debates can boost confidence in the Christian faith by seeing it withstand scrutiny. However, the debate is just the start in grasping the full depth of a topic which opens up avenues for further study.
================================
We appreciate your feedback.
If you’re on TWITTER, you can follow Chad @TBapologetics.
You can follow Brian @TheBrianAuten
And of course, you can follow @Apologetics315
If you have a question or comment for the podcast, record it and send it our way using www.speakpipe.com/Apologetics315 or you can email us at podcast@apologetics315.com
Brian's seven reasons for listening to debates were: 1) Hearing the best defenders of each view, 2) Hearing actual arguments without interruptions, 3) Finding the cutting edge of the current debate, 4) Getting used to hearing opposing views without anxiety, 5) Seeing that Christianity can hold its own intellectually, 6) Observing how a cumulative case is made and critics' counters, and 7) Realizing the debate is just an entry point to a much deeper topic.
Throughout explaining his seven reasons, Brian and Chad discussed the value of debates utilizing good logic (logos), credibility (ethos), and emotional appeals (pathos). They noted how the best debates are well-moderated with clear time limits. Listening to debates can boost confidence in the Christian faith by seeing it withstand scrutiny. However, the debate is just the start in grasping the full depth of a topic which opens up avenues for further study.
================================
We appreciate your feedback.
If you’re on TWITTER, you can follow Chad @TBapologetics.
You can follow Brian @TheBrianAuten
And of course, you can follow @Apologetics315
If you have a question or comment for the podcast, record it and send it our way using www.speakpipe.com/Apologetics315 or you can email us at podcast@apologetics315.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Hello, and welcome to the Apologeticsthree fifteen podcast with your hosts Brian Auden
and Chad Gross join us for conversationsand interviews on the topics of apologetics,
evangelism, and the Christian worldview.Can I have your watch when you are
dead? Hello, and welcome backto another episode of the Apologetics three to
(00:24):
fifteen podcast. And in a fewminutes we're going to be talking about our
topic of the day, which isdebates. Debates about the existence of God,
debates about apologetic issues, all thethings we like. And I'm going
to give you my seven reasons tolisten to debates. We're going to talk
about our favorite debates. Why arewe talking about debates? Are you some
(00:47):
sort of debate aficionado? Well,I do enjoy debates quite a bit.
And as soon as I became aChristian, I before well, I became
a Christian when I was twenty fivenow, and I really didn't read a
lot. And when I became whenI was looking into Christianity, I found
(01:08):
written debates. If you remember thatwebsite, it was like Leader you yeah,
Yes, And it had a numberof debate printed debates on it.
And I started reading a lot ofthose. A lot of those are William
Lane Craig debates, just because that'swhat I came across. I didn't know
much about him, and then onceI became a Christian and became more I
(01:30):
think efficient using the internet and stuffand more on it, I found all
these debates and I found them superhelpful. So I kind of see debates
as like my super Bowl when peopleget really excited about the big game.
I get really excited about upcoming debatesand really get a thrill and a rush
listening to them. So we gotan email from a listener named Jason,
(01:53):
and Jason, thank you so much, and he said this. He said,
for a future podcast, I wouldreally love the debate aficionado Chad.
Yeah, well, I will proudlywear that title. Thank you, to
share some of his best ever debatesand to recommend where I would start if
I wanted to check out some debates, I think instead of resorting to my
(02:14):
comfortable but ultimately useless late night prowrestling watching sessions, maybe in twenty twenty
four, watching listening to some unlighteningdebates would be a great life change.
So of course I completely support thatdecision, and we are here today to
bring you some of our favorite debates, not just my favorite debates. Yes,
(02:36):
well, and in a chad,I see that you're donning your monocle
as the officionado, and indeed Iam. Or you know, it's like,
you know, the like jewelers havethose little things they put up to
their eye, like oh yeah,oh yeah, yeah, I would love
to have one of those things.Like if a customer brings in a leaf
spring, Oh, you would lookso cool. Yeah, can you fix
(03:00):
this trailer spring? Sure? Letme just yeah, got it really close?
Oh yeah, there's definitely microfractures inthe steel. Yeah. And you
know, dude, it wouldn't evenneed to have glass in it. It
could just like you just put itup to your eye and look through the
hole. But it would just makeyou look really cool. All right.
So I have concocted my seven reasonsyou should listen to debates. I'm going
(03:22):
to offer three that come to mymind as far as like debates that I
think are notable ones. I mean, I've listened to so many debates.
I enjoyed them all. Yeah,but you know, you know, Brian,
one of the things I realized whenI was compiling these was It's one
of those things where it's like ifsomebody said to me, who can you
name all your favorite hockey players,I would give you a list, and
(03:45):
then for like a week or twoI would be going, oh my gosh,
I forgot this guy, or ohmy gosh, I forgot this guy.
I feel the same way with thesedebates. Yeah, I'm sure that
I'm going to be adding to thelist. These are just the ones that
initially came to my mind. Andyou know what though, part of the
thing that makes the ones that wemay be selecting as favorites or wow,
that was a great debate, theycome out of the context of listening to
(04:11):
probably hundreds of debates by right absolutelyand to finding not only the ways that
people argue for their positions and tryto persuade or do it poorly, or
there's good interaction, there's bad interact. Some of these debates are like clown
shows. You know, if yougo to something like Modern Day Debate or
(04:32):
something, you might get one outof one hundred that is really great,
But the rest is it's just whatit is like pro wrestling, you know,
it is just like, Okay,now you're going to grab a chair
and start swinging in at any moment, it's just silly. But the proper
academic debates that are on university campusesor in hosted venues with people who really
(04:56):
know both sides, good representatives ofboth sides. Plus the people who are
coming and attending tend to be reallysold out into their sides as well.
They're all there to hear they're reallygood defenders defend their sides, and at
any rate, what makes some ofthese debates so great is they just rise
to the top and they show thatthis is really either great content or great
(05:20):
form or both, or great argumentsor you know what. Both These guys
were so cordial and they brought somethingwhere it wasn't just a conflict, it
was an interaction or a discussion,and it's like wow, everybody walked away
like honoring the other person and honoringthe exchange of ideas so that they can
be really great. Best ones canbe really great. But you only really
(05:43):
realize that if you have listened toa lot of debates. Yeah, I
was thinking as I was compiling mine, how interesting it was to me that
the reason I picked some of thevarious debates, some of the reasons were
quite different. In other words,something really valuable happened in one debate,
and then another debate I really pickedfor a completely different reason. And it
(06:06):
also got me thinking about the threeforms of persuasion that are helpful to keep
in mind when you're listening to adebate, known as logos, ethos,
and pathos. So logos is anappeal to an audience's reason, So this
is where you're building up logical arguments. This is where somebody like William Lane
Craig is very good at this,Jeffrey J. Lauder is very good at
(06:27):
this. But then you have ethos, This is an appeal to the speaker's
status or authority, and this makesthe audience more likely to trust them because
they can show themselves to be anauthority on the topic. And then of
course there's pathos, which appeals toemotions. And this is like you're trying
to make the audience feel angry orsympathetic, or invoke some kind of emotion
(06:50):
to get them on your side.And I think of someone like Christopher Hitchins
who was really good at that,and so those are also As I was
thinking about the debates I picked,it was just really interesting because some of
them are really strong kind of inthe logos arena, and then other ones
maybe in the pathos arena, Andso I thought that was really interesting too.
(07:11):
Yeah. I tend to think toothat the best persuaders are using all
three of those, and I thinkagreed, you know, and some of
our favorite debaters they truly I dothink William Lane greg embodies that. He
might be one of the strongest,you know, logical defenders, but he
doesn't rely solely on that. Ithink there's that ethos part where you just
(07:33):
trust his character and is you know, it's truly a man of integrity.
He never talks negatively of his opponents. He's always charitable. But then he
does appeal to emotion, and thismay be his weaker point is he doesn't
really go to try to pull onpeople's heart strings. But when you're talking
about stuff like his conversion story,you know why put your trust in Jesus.
(07:58):
He does offer his personal appeal.He shares his personal stories, and
he also you can't avoid it whenyou're talking about like the moral argument for
the existence of God, you've gotthat appeal to our intuition, our moral
intuitions and stuff. And so Ithink that you know, he does use
that as well to rightly invoke ourmoral outrage at certain things, because you
(08:24):
know, with certain examples, andI think that's that's completely proper use of
rhetoric in that context. But Ithink another thing I would want to touch
on is that some of the greatdebates are ones that are well moderated.
There's clear time limits, there's cleartime limits, there's there's good rapport that's
built, there's good everybody knows whatto expect that, you know. It's
(08:48):
not like the person who's moderating ison the on one side or the other
and you know, saying weird remarksor stuff like that. And some when
when the moderator is horrible, itdoesn't matter. It's almost like you can
have two great debaters and the moderatorjust ruins it, you know, you
know, And speaking of being amoderator, and I'm just thinking here my
(09:11):
own experience, I've had the opportunityto moderate one debate, and my preparation
for the debate was to read bothof the opening statements because both of the
debaters sent them to me, andI'm also pretty sure that they exchanged them.
And this was between Tyler Villa whenhe was still a Christian and Ben
Watkins of real a theology. Andwhat struck me when I was moderating the
(09:35):
debate is when you watch someone moderateddebate, it looks like the easiest job
on the stage. It looks like, oh, they're not doing a lot
of the heavy lifting. But it'sactually a little more challenging than one thinks,
especially during What happened in the debateI moderated was that I was supposed
to use audience generated questions in thetime where the debaters would cross and one
(10:00):
another, and then I was supposedto ask them questions, but the audience
was relatively small, so I hadto come up with the questions kind of
on the fly. And so thatwas that was tricky. And I still
to this day remember a moment inthe debate as if I'm still sitting there.
That's how ingrained it is in mymemory of a question I wish I
would have asked Ben that I didn't, and I still think back to like,
(10:24):
why would I not ask him?That was like the golden opportunity.
So moderators don't have an easy jobeither, is my point. You remind
me of Larry the cameraman on GroundhogDay when he goes up to the girl
and he's like, you know,people think that I just get the camera
and pointed it stuff, But itis way more complicated than that. Oh
(10:45):
man, that's good stuff. Okay, So a few minutes ago I told
everybody that I was going to givethem my seven reasons to listen to debates,
and then we went off on atangent. We're still going to do
that. So seven reasons to listento debates, and we'll talk about them.
The first reason is that you herehopefully and I'm gonna use the word
hopefully in a lot of these,but let's just instead of me saying hopefully
(11:09):
you hear this, hopefully you're actuallygonna get good arguments, I'm going to
just say these are the best underthe best conditions, Right, These are
the These are what you're going thegood things you're getting to get out of
the debates. So you're gonna hearthe best defenders of each point of view,
so hopefully you will. And theidea here is that you can hear
a couple of people yamorin and yamorand back and forth about oh the Earth
(11:33):
is young, no, the earthis old old Earth, young Earth,
or it could be Calvinism or Arminianism. All right, this is mostly not
the bait debates we're talking about.Mostly it's atheism versus Christianity or some sort
of secular worldview. These are themost prevalent debates I think me and you
are interacting with, or the resurrectiondebates, things like that. Yes,
(11:54):
but when it comes to hearing thebest defenders, you don't want to hear
two people yam or you want tohear people who have they've written multiple books
on this subject, they have PhDsin the subject. They are ardent advocates,
and they are they've been doing thistheir whole life. They are the
(12:15):
authorities you want to hear, ifpossible, you want to hear the authorities
on this subject argue about this thing. So you don't want to amateurs.
And you're never going to get anythingout of amateur clown show debate hour except
just noise. That's my opinion.So a good reason to listen to debates
(12:35):
is so that you might hear thebest defenders of each point of view,
and you should tryly probably try toavoid the ones that you don't even you
know they have no credential, youknow what what I've seen, Yeah,
I do, and I think that'sa great point. But I've also seen,
Brian that those who know their topicreally well are more confident and less
(12:56):
defensive, which makes for a betterdiscussion. Oh yeah, yeah, And
so those who don't know the topicas well, or those amateurs that you're
talking about. I mean, everybodywho debates has to start with their first
debate, right, I understand that, but they should wade into that debate
having an expertise in their field.So the first one is you hear the
(13:18):
best defenders of these point of view. My second point is that you hear
actual arguments, hopefully without interruptions.So you know how if two people are
talking, or you hear people yammoring, yeah, you're having a discussion,
it's hard to parse out unless you'rea person who thinks in a logical way
in this sense where you're looking foractual arguments. If you hear a couple
(13:43):
of people having a deep conversation aboutthe subject, let's say it's evolution versus
intelligent design, that's a popular one. You hear two people talking about that
or having a discussion, you mightnot actually come away with arguments. You
might have been like, wow,they were all over the map on this
topic. But if you have aformal debate where there's opening statements, then
(14:03):
there's a second, secondary statements,there's cross examination and responses and things,
then you're going to actually hear.Hey, if there's persons making a case
for their position, how would theylay that out to persuade the hearer?
Well, they would have to makearguments, and so you're going to hear
premises. They're going to hear anyreasons, and it's going to be laid
(14:26):
out, hopefully again hopefully in avery systematic, logical, formal way,
and with ethos, pathos and logos. You know they're going to use proper
rhetoric to do that and to persuadeyou. And you want to You want
to hear the best people laying thearguments out in the best possible way to
make their case, because you wantto hear I want to hear the best
(14:50):
possible case for atheism or whatever theposition is. I don't want to hear
some there's just no guy something silly. I want to know why do you
actually believe that? So in debateyou are able to hear that and hopefully
without interruptions. You got let's sayyou've got ten minutes for your opening statement
or whatever that time might be.That person not being interrupted, they have
(15:11):
the floor. You respect them.There's their time to make their case,
and that's great. Everybody gets openyou know, gets their time to make
their case. And I think that'sjust hugely valuable because you just don't get
that when everybody's just talking over eachother. You know, it's sort of
like a you know, talking headstylething on Fox News or whatever your TV
(15:37):
show is, you know, whereeverybody it's more about the big argument going
on, where everybody's talking over everybody. This is not helpful. You want
to hear arguments. Yeah, AndI'm also thinking too that that also harkens
back to the format of the debate. One of them you mentioned modern day
debate. One of the things thatI get frustrated on that channel about is
a lot of times the format iseach person gets it's a opening statement,
(16:02):
and then they open the floor toopen discussion. Then they take audience questions
and then they might do a closingThere's not a lot of time to rebut
in a formal way, and soall the points aren't really hit upon.
Where When you have a more formalformat, so for example, each one
gets a twenty minute opening statement,ten minute rebuttals, maybe a cross examination,
(16:25):
then a closing, you can geta little bit more content covered directly.
Reason number three. You find outwhere the cutting edge of the quote
debate is, hopefully, and whatI mean by that is that if you've
got the primary defenders of a positionlaying out their best arguments for their position,
(16:47):
you find out where the argument actuallyis. You know, to come
back to arguments that people are actuallyusing versus not the ones that are actually
persuasive and that people are still arguingover. That's a good place to learn
what are the actual arguments in use, not ones that have been retired,
(17:10):
because no, that is not agood argument. It's sort of been retired
or defeated or unpersuasive or useless incertain contexts. So I just maybe for
perennial arguments like the existence of God, maybe they don't shift overly much.
But other areas, like let's say, abortion debates, that's a great place
(17:34):
to find out where what people arearguing it might be way different now than
it was twenty years ago. Whatare the current debates because of the changes
in technology, changes in health care, changes in laws, stuff like that.
So now, if you're listening todebates, it'd be better to listen
to all the old ones, butlisten to the new ones, because like
(17:57):
the battlefield might have shifted its sortof terrain, you know, the landscape
has changed. So you want tofind out what is the cutting edge of
the current debate on this topic.So that's what I think is value about
valuable about debates, And that's yeah, and that means yeah, And as
you say that, I'm thinking about, for example, William Lane Craig's debate
with Alex Rosenberg, and Craig offeredthe moral argument, and Rosenberg got up
(18:22):
there and offered the youtha frod dilemma, as if as if that was some
new earth shattering argument and philosophy hadadvanced past the youth. It's like,
it's like you, it's just theonly thing you had a reference was like
some nineteen fifties textbook or like yeah, you know. And so even you
know, both believer and unbeliever asthey listen to that, we're kind of
(18:45):
thinking, well, how does Rosenbergnot know that that has been defeated,
at least especially the forum that hepresented in the debate. So that's an
example of even how philosophical thought advances. And you know, you got to
be on the cutting edge that anddebates help with that. Yeah, okay,
my point number four or why youshould be listening to debates, And
(19:06):
I steal this one from rentery Night. If he's listening, shout out.
So you get used to hearing theopposite point of view without getting scared,
nervous or anxious, and you geta thick skin. So I remember,
like certain topics before I was exposedto the other points of view, when
(19:29):
I would hear the other point ofview, I would be very nervous and
I would almost want to like turnthat off. No, don't even listen
to that, you know what Imean, because that's that's an unbeliever or
you know, this is a nonChristian atheist. Turn that off. Like
you know, there was a timewhen I was an ardent and only been
exposed to a Young Earth view,and when I would listen to, say,
(19:52):
podcasts from people who held an OldEarth view, I got disgusted and
wanted to just turn it off.Looking back, I'm glad that that's not
the case anymore. That if Idisagree with a different point of view,
I don't get nervous. I don'tget scared or anxious or upset or red
faced or something or like sweating,Like what would I say, I don't
(20:17):
know how to respond to this,or no, this is new information,
And I was like, no,I want to be exposed to as much
of the other point of view asI can in the proper dose for my
Christian maturity level. Obviously that sortof thing comes into play. But you
can't run and hide from the otherpoint of view. You want to be
familiar with it. Sort of likesilly example comes to mind, but when
(20:41):
soldiers are in basic training and they'refiring weapons over their heads and throwing smoke
bombs and getting them to do thingswith all kinds of stressful distractions, gets
them accustomed to being able to operatewithout getting distracted by oh, the heat
of the moment. So if I'mhaving a discussion with an unbeliever or something
(21:04):
or skeptic and I'm hearing things forthe first time, I don't want to
be in that position or this isthe first time I'm hearing an objection.
I've never even heard of this before. I don't want to say I don't
want to be in the position whereI'm like trying to think on my feet.
I want to be in the positionlike, oh, okay, sounds
like they're going down this road,sounds like they might be pulling out uthafro
(21:26):
in a minute. Yeah okay.And basically from a like a chess point
of view, you'd be like,Okay, they might be doing this movie,
they might be doing that move.I've seen both of these. I
know how I may respond to eitherone of these things, and I'm my
heart rate is still you know,sixty two beats per minute or whatever.
You know. So back to restatingnumber four. You get used to hearing
(21:49):
the opposite point of view without gettingscared, numbers or anxious, and you
get a thick skin. You're notscared of hearing people objecting or calling names
or you know, disagreeing. You'relike, okay, great, yeah,
let's talk about it. Yeah.And then I find too that as I
listened to more and more debates andI was able to see how the Christian
(22:10):
faith held up under scrutiny, ifyou will, that helped my confidence and
my faith grow, and it alsomade me. It put a desire within
me to want to learn those argumentsas well, so that I could have
a case of my own. Andyou've kind of segued into my number five,
which is you learn that Christianity canhold its own intellectually against the topics
(22:34):
critics. Oh yeah, and thatgives you confidence that should boost your faith
when you're like, wow, youknow what, of all the debates I've
listened to, I don't really hearChristianity getting smacked down too much and looking
foolish. It's more like, youknow, oftentimes it's like the rational view,
the thought out view. Now youmight not agree with it, but
(22:56):
you can't deny that it's rational,thoughtful, intellectual, whereas many times the
opposing view can be caustic, emotional, kind of snarky, sort of gives
you a negative impression. So Ifind my confidence boosted when I'm listening to
(23:17):
debates. Yeah, in least listenersthink we're being unfair, please refer back
to Brian's point number one. We'retalking about when you hear the best defenders
here. So, of course,if someone's saying, thinking, well,
I saw that debate between so andso and so and so, and the
Christian got smeared, or they lookedlike a fool, or they were unkind.
(23:41):
We're of course admitting that those areout there. But that's why Brian
starts with we're talking about when youlisten to the best defenders. Yeah,
and you know, two people canwalk away from the same debate completely still
convinced that their own position and thinkingof the side lost. So I'm not
I'm not saying that's not the caseas far as holding a view, but
(24:03):
I do think if someone's fair andcharitable, they have to I do think
that they should admit that the Christiandefender often, Hey, they are coming
across, they are bringing arguments,they are bringing evidence, they are bringing
reasoned responses. So if debit happensto be is Christianity reasonable, they win
(24:26):
very easily. Yeah, debates do. Debates do various type types of work,
right, I'm thinking, for example, you said two people can listen
to the same debate and have adifferent response or still walk away not having
their mind changed. But also debatescan open your mind. So I'm thinking
of when I listened the first timeto Chris Date, who we just had
(24:48):
on the podcast talking about conditional immortalitydebate Phil Fernandez on the topic of annihilationism
or eternal conscious torment. Well,when I listened to that debate, I
was in the eternal conscious torment camphard and found I think I probably would
have labeled conditional immortality as anti biblicalpossibly. And when I got done watching
(25:12):
that debate, I can't say Ichanged my mind, but I walked away
going, Wow, there's a lotmore to that view than I had imagined.
And I've got to wrestle with this, and so that's valuable in and
of itself. Yeah, you know, with debates like that, it makes
me go, okay, this,this person making this case is a is
(25:33):
a really good defender and case maker. Who's the best casemaker on the other
side? Because I want to hearthem. I want to hear the best
arguments. I don't want to Idon't want to hear ones that I'm not
even convinced of it, Like,can you know packed up Jane Jay Warner
Wallis is old podcast name, pleaseconvince me, you know, I'm like,
there's kind of a cool idea there, or yeah, I want to
(25:56):
be I want to be persuaded thata view is true, so that I
can embrace what I believe is true. You don't want to be like,
oh I me me just keep believingway I'm believing. I'm like, no,
if I'm wrong, I really wantto know, not out of the
idea of well I might be wrong, so I better not hold this.
I want to be like confident inmy view being shifted one way or another.
(26:18):
It's like, oh, okay,well, if this isn't true,
let me change you know, yes, okay, so number six and then
we're gonna give you guys a breakfor a coffee. So number six.
See how a case for a positioncan be made cumulatively, and how critics
try to counter it, often resortingto nitpicking. So so what I mean
(26:41):
by this is that I think ithelps me, over the course of time,
has helped me to see different waysa case for a position can be
made, not just using appeals topersonal experience or randomly plucking out a examples
and illustrations or stuff, but saying, oh, well, you know what,
(27:04):
I believe Christianity is true, andI have got three or four arguments
here that I find persuasive. Nowthere are many more, but here are
three. Sure, I think that'sa great way to say, introduce someone
to the idea they if you're talkingto someone having a discussion, to be
able to say, you know,I think there's a lot of reasons that
(27:25):
this position is true. There aremany arguments. I think that there are
five or six strong ones, butlet's talk about two or three, you
know, And I think that knowingbeing familiar with the range of ways that
a case can be made for positionand making that known, saying oh,
(27:45):
there's a lot of ways I couldmake my case, but here are two
or three I like and let meshare that. It kind of gives the
person you're talking to the idea that, oh, wow, there must be
a lot to be said here otherthan well, I think it's true because
Jesus changed my life. Nothing wrongwith that. But if you're making an
(28:07):
intellectual case persuading someone because oh thisis I think there's reasons for this to
be true, rather than I workedfor you, well, you know you're
on keto and I don't agree withKeto either. You're a scientologist, so
at any rate, So the ideahere is, when you're watching debates,
(28:29):
you can see how cumulative case canbe made. You can sort of construct
and put together a selection of argumentsthat you find persuasive and build your own
case. So if William Lane Craigmight be trots out his five arguments or
whatever in a debate, and Imight like two or three of those,
might grab them. I'm going touse that because I like it. Here's
I'm going to modify it. Iknow someone else who makes his case a
(28:52):
different moral argument. I'm going tograb that because I like that better.
And I'm thinking to myself, ifI'm in the position to make a case,
I've got these tools I've gleaned fromthese different people I've listened to,
and I'm gonna make my own tool, get my own utility belt. Okay,
ready for number seven? I amindeed. Number seven is that you
find out that the debate is waydeeper than the debate. So when I
(29:17):
say debate in the first sense,I mean the topic, like the debate
over the existence of God, isway deeper than the debate you just listen
to. This is just maybe theforward battlefront. There's way more to be
learned. So it's like, oh, here's a good starting point for about
three or four books I could startreading on this topic. You know what
I'm saying. Yes, the samewith oh well I just told my view
(29:42):
on abortion because of this. Well, go and listen to a debate and
you realize, okay, here's theforward battle front, and it represents miles
and miles more battlefront behind each sortof different argument that may have been brought,
and there's way more to the topicthen you can imagine if you haven't
(30:02):
gone down that road. So that'swhat debates do, is they just they're
like this big front gate to ahuge estate, and it's like, okay,
this is just the introduction to thistopic. If you go down this
rabbit hole, there's this huge landscapeof this really deep subject topic and it
(30:22):
goes in many different directions. SoI think it's just a way to broaden
your knowledge and through exposure to thebest thinkers. Yeah, and this is
evidenced when debaters will often say somethingalong the lines of I can only scratch
the surface here, but I wouldencourage you to check out my work,
or I would encourage you to checkout scholar x's new book, because they
(30:48):
realize that you can only scratch thesurface and get into a you can only
go so deep in a debate context. Yeah right, So that's my seven
reasons. And on that note,listeners, this is only the beginning of
our discussion of debate. There's moreto come where we were talking about actual
debates that have really influenced us andimpressed us and that we want to recommend
(31:10):
to you. So see you onthe other side. See you on the
other side, Ray, Thanks forlistening to the podcast. If you have
a question you'd like us to address, or just a message for us feedback
good or bad, you can eitheremail us at podcast at apologetics three fifteen
dot com or leave a voice messagefor us using speak pipe. Just go
(31:30):
to speakpipe dot com slash apologetics threefifteen to leave us a message. And
remember, if you include a Ghostbuster'squote in your question, we guarantee that
we'll read it on the podcast.We also ensure up to fifty percent better
quality answers. Also, if you'veenjoyed today's podcast, please leave a review
in iTunes or the podcast platform meetyour choice, and please share this episode
(31:52):
with a friend if you've found ituseful. Remember you can find lots of
Apologetics resources at apologeticspreefifteen dot com,along with show notes for today's episode.
Find Chad's apologetic stuff over at TruthbombApologetics. That's truthbomb dot blogspot dot com.
This has been Brian Aughton and ChadGross for the Apologetics three fifteen podcast,
and thanks for listening.
Hello, and welcome to the Apologeticsthree fifteen podcast with your hosts Brian Auden
and Chad Gross join us for conversationsand interviews on the topics of apologetics,
evangelism, and the Christian worldview.Can I have your watch when you are
dead? Hello, and welcome backto another episode of the Apologetics three to
(00:24):
fifteen podcast. And in a fewminutes we're going to be talking about our
topic of the day, which isdebates. Debates about the existence of God,
debates about apologetic issues, all thethings we like. And I'm going
to give you my seven reasons tolisten to debates. We're going to talk
about our favorite debates. Why arewe talking about debates? Are you some
(00:47):
sort of debate aficionado? Well,I do enjoy debates quite a bit.
And as soon as I became aChristian, I before well, I became
a Christian when I was twenty fivenow, and I really didn't read a
lot. And when I became whenI was looking into Christianity, I found
(01:08):
written debates. If you remember thatwebsite, it was like Leader you yeah,
Yes, And it had a numberof debate printed debates on it.
And I started reading a lot ofthose. A lot of those are William
Lane Craig debates, just because that'swhat I came across. I didn't know
much about him, and then onceI became a Christian and became more I
(01:30):
think efficient using the internet and stuffand more on it, I found all
these debates and I found them superhelpful. So I kind of see debates
as like my super Bowl when peopleget really excited about the big game.
I get really excited about upcoming debatesand really get a thrill and a rush
listening to them. So we gotan email from a listener named Jason,
(01:53):
and Jason, thank you so much, and he said this. He said,
for a future podcast, I wouldreally love the debate aficionado Chad.
Yeah, well, I will proudlywear that title. Thank you, to
share some of his best ever debatesand to recommend where I would start if
I wanted to check out some debates, I think instead of resorting to my
(02:14):
comfortable but ultimately useless late night prowrestling watching sessions, maybe in twenty twenty
four, watching listening to some unlighteningdebates would be a great life change.
So of course I completely support thatdecision, and we are here today to
bring you some of our favorite debates, not just my favorite debates. Yes,
(02:36):
well, and in a chad,I see that you're donning your monocle
as the officionado, and indeed Iam. Or you know, it's like,
you know, the like jewelers havethose little things they put up to
their eye, like oh yeah,oh yeah, yeah, I would love
to have one of those things.Like if a customer brings in a leaf
spring, Oh, you would lookso cool. Yeah, can you fix
(03:00):
this trailer spring? Sure? Letme just yeah, got it really close?
Oh yeah, there's definitely microfractures inthe steel. Yeah. And you
know, dude, it wouldn't evenneed to have glass in it. It
could just like you just put itup to your eye and look through the
hole. But it would just makeyou look really cool. All right.
So I have concocted my seven reasonsyou should listen to debates. I'm going
(03:22):
to offer three that come to mymind as far as like debates that I
think are notable ones. I mean, I've listened to so many debates.
I enjoyed them all. Yeah,but you know, you know, Brian,
one of the things I realized whenI was compiling these was It's one
of those things where it's like ifsomebody said to me, who can you
name all your favorite hockey players,I would give you a list, and
(03:45):
then for like a week or twoI would be going, oh my gosh,
I forgot this guy, or ohmy gosh, I forgot this guy.
I feel the same way with thesedebates. Yeah, I'm sure that
I'm going to be adding to thelist. These are just the ones that
initially came to my mind. Andyou know what though, part of the
thing that makes the ones that wemay be selecting as favorites or wow,
that was a great debate, theycome out of the context of listening to
(04:11):
probably hundreds of debates by right absolutelyand to finding not only the ways that
people argue for their positions and tryto persuade or do it poorly, or
there's good interaction, there's bad interact. Some of these debates are like clown
shows. You know, if yougo to something like Modern Day Debate or
(04:32):
something, you might get one outof one hundred that is really great,
But the rest is it's just whatit is like pro wrestling, you know,
it is just like, Okay,now you're going to grab a chair
and start swinging in at any moment, it's just silly. But the proper
academic debates that are on university campusesor in hosted venues with people who really
(04:56):
know both sides, good representatives ofboth sides. Plus the people who are
coming and attending tend to be reallysold out into their sides as well.
They're all there to hear they're reallygood defenders defend their sides, and at
any rate, what makes some ofthese debates so great is they just rise
to the top and they show thatthis is really either great content or great
(05:20):
form or both, or great argumentsor you know what. Both These guys
were so cordial and they brought somethingwhere it wasn't just a conflict, it
was an interaction or a discussion,and it's like wow, everybody walked away
like honoring the other person and honoringthe exchange of ideas so that they can
be really great. Best ones canbe really great. But you only really
(05:43):
realize that if you have listened toa lot of debates. Yeah, I
was thinking as I was compiling mine, how interesting it was to me that
the reason I picked some of thevarious debates, some of the reasons were
quite different. In other words,something really valuable happened in one debate,
and then another debate I really pickedfor a completely different reason. And it
(06:06):
also got me thinking about the threeforms of persuasion that are helpful to keep
in mind when you're listening to adebate, known as logos, ethos,
and pathos. So logos is anappeal to an audience's reason, So this
is where you're building up logical arguments. This is where somebody like William Lane
Craig is very good at this,Jeffrey J. Lauder is very good at
(06:27):
this. But then you have ethos, This is an appeal to the speaker's
status or authority, and this makesthe audience more likely to trust them because
they can show themselves to be anauthority on the topic. And then of
course there's pathos, which appeals toemotions. And this is like you're trying
to make the audience feel angry orsympathetic, or invoke some kind of emotion
(06:50):
to get them on your side.And I think of someone like Christopher Hitchins
who was really good at that,and so those are also As I was
thinking about the debates I picked,it was just really interesting because some of
them are really strong kind of inthe logos arena, and then other ones
maybe in the pathos arena, Andso I thought that was really interesting too.
(07:11):
Yeah. I tend to think toothat the best persuaders are using all
three of those, and I thinkagreed, you know, and some of
our favorite debaters they truly I dothink William Lane greg embodies that. He
might be one of the strongest,you know, logical defenders, but he
doesn't rely solely on that. Ithink there's that ethos part where you just
(07:33):
trust his character and is you know, it's truly a man of integrity.
He never talks negatively of his opponents. He's always charitable. But then he
does appeal to emotion, and thismay be his weaker point is he doesn't
really go to try to pull onpeople's heart strings. But when you're talking
about stuff like his conversion story,you know why put your trust in Jesus.
(07:58):
He does offer his personal appeal.He shares his personal stories, and
he also you can't avoid it whenyou're talking about like the moral argument for
the existence of God, you've gotthat appeal to our intuition, our moral
intuitions and stuff. And so Ithink that you know, he does use
that as well to rightly invoke ourmoral outrage at certain things, because you
(08:24):
know, with certain examples, andI think that's that's completely proper use of
rhetoric in that context. But Ithink another thing I would want to touch
on is that some of the greatdebates are ones that are well moderated.
There's clear time limits, there's cleartime limits, there's there's good rapport that's
built, there's good everybody knows whatto expect that, you know. It's
(08:48):
not like the person who's moderating ison the on one side or the other
and you know, saying weird remarksor stuff like that. And some when
when the moderator is horrible, itdoesn't matter. It's almost like you can
have two great debaters and the moderatorjust ruins it, you know, you
know, And speaking of being amoderator, and I'm just thinking here my
(09:11):
own experience, I've had the opportunityto moderate one debate, and my preparation
for the debate was to read bothof the opening statements because both of the
debaters sent them to me, andI'm also pretty sure that they exchanged them.
And this was between Tyler Villa whenhe was still a Christian and Ben
Watkins of real a theology. Andwhat struck me when I was moderating the
(09:35):
debate is when you watch someone moderateddebate, it looks like the easiest job
on the stage. It looks like, oh, they're not doing a lot
of the heavy lifting. But it'sactually a little more challenging than one thinks,
especially during What happened in the debateI moderated was that I was supposed
to use audience generated questions in thetime where the debaters would cross and one
(10:00):
another, and then I was supposedto ask them questions, but the audience
was relatively small, so I hadto come up with the questions kind of
on the fly. And so thatwas that was tricky. And I still
to this day remember a moment inthe debate as if I'm still sitting there.
That's how ingrained it is in mymemory of a question I wish I
would have asked Ben that I didn't, and I still think back to like,
(10:24):
why would I not ask him?That was like the golden opportunity.
So moderators don't have an easy jobeither, is my point. You remind
me of Larry the cameraman on GroundhogDay when he goes up to the girl
and he's like, you know,people think that I just get the camera
and pointed it stuff, But itis way more complicated than that. Oh
(10:45):
man, that's good stuff. Okay, So a few minutes ago I told
everybody that I was going to givethem my seven reasons to listen to debates,
and then we went off on atangent. We're still going to do
that. So seven reasons to listento debates, and we'll talk about them.
The first reason is that you herehopefully and I'm gonna use the word
hopefully in a lot of these,but let's just instead of me saying hopefully
(11:09):
you hear this, hopefully you're actuallygonna get good arguments, I'm going to
just say these are the best underthe best conditions, Right, These are
the These are what you're going thegood things you're getting to get out of
the debates. So you're gonna hearthe best defenders of each point of view,
so hopefully you will. And theidea here is that you can hear
a couple of people yamorin and yamorand back and forth about oh the Earth
(11:33):
is young, no, the earthis old old Earth, young Earth,
or it could be Calvinism or Arminianism. All right, this is mostly not
the bait debates we're talking about.Mostly it's atheism versus Christianity or some sort
of secular worldview. These are themost prevalent debates I think me and you
are interacting with, or the resurrectiondebates, things like that. Yes,
(11:54):
but when it comes to hearing thebest defenders, you don't want to hear
two people yam or you want tohear people who have they've written multiple books
on this subject, they have PhDsin the subject. They are ardent advocates,
and they are they've been doing thistheir whole life. They are the
(12:15):
authorities you want to hear, ifpossible, you want to hear the authorities
on this subject argue about this thing. So you don't want to amateurs.
And you're never going to get anythingout of amateur clown show debate hour except
just noise. That's my opinion.So a good reason to listen to debates
(12:35):
is so that you might hear thebest defenders of each point of view,
and you should tryly probably try toavoid the ones that you don't even you
know they have no credential, youknow what what I've seen, Yeah,
I do, and I think that'sa great point. But I've also seen,
Brian that those who know their topicreally well are more confident and less
(12:56):
defensive, which makes for a betterdiscussion. Oh yeah, yeah, And
so those who don't know the topicas well, or those amateurs that you're
talking about. I mean, everybodywho debates has to start with their first
debate, right, I understand that, but they should wade into that debate
having an expertise in their field.So the first one is you hear the
(13:18):
best defenders of these point of view. My second point is that you hear
actual arguments, hopefully without interruptions.So you know how if two people are
talking, or you hear people yammoring, yeah, you're having a discussion,
it's hard to parse out unless you'rea person who thinks in a logical way
in this sense where you're looking foractual arguments. If you hear a couple
(13:43):
of people having a deep conversation aboutthe subject, let's say it's evolution versus
intelligent design, that's a popular one. You hear two people talking about that
or having a discussion, you mightnot actually come away with arguments. You
might have been like, wow,they were all over the map on this
topic. But if you have aformal debate where there's opening statements, then
(14:03):
there's a second, secondary statements,there's cross examination and responses and things,
then you're going to actually hear.Hey, if there's persons making a case
for their position, how would theylay that out to persuade the hearer?
Well, they would have to makearguments, and so you're going to hear
premises. They're going to hear anyreasons, and it's going to be laid
(14:26):
out, hopefully again hopefully in avery systematic, logical, formal way,
and with ethos, pathos and logos. You know they're going to use proper
rhetoric to do that and to persuadeyou. And you want to You want
to hear the best people laying thearguments out in the best possible way to
make their case, because you wantto hear I want to hear the best
(14:50):
possible case for atheism or whatever theposition is. I don't want to hear
some there's just no guy something silly. I want to know why do you
actually believe that? So in debateyou are able to hear that and hopefully
without interruptions. You got let's sayyou've got ten minutes for your opening statement
or whatever that time might be.That person not being interrupted, they have
(15:11):
the floor. You respect them.There's their time to make their case,
and that's great. Everybody gets openyou know, gets their time to make
their case. And I think that'sjust hugely valuable because you just don't get
that when everybody's just talking over eachother. You know, it's sort of
like a you know, talking headstylething on Fox News or whatever your TV
(15:37):
show is, you know, whereeverybody it's more about the big argument going
on, where everybody's talking over everybody. This is not helpful. You want
to hear arguments. Yeah, AndI'm also thinking too that that also harkens
back to the format of the debate. One of them you mentioned modern day
debate. One of the things thatI get frustrated on that channel about is
a lot of times the format iseach person gets it's a opening statement,
(16:02):
and then they open the floor toopen discussion. Then they take audience questions
and then they might do a closingThere's not a lot of time to rebut
in a formal way, and soall the points aren't really hit upon.
Where When you have a more formalformat, so for example, each one
gets a twenty minute opening statement,ten minute rebuttals, maybe a cross examination,
(16:25):
then a closing, you can geta little bit more content covered directly.
Reason number three. You find outwhere the cutting edge of the quote
debate is, hopefully, and whatI mean by that is that if you've
got the primary defenders of a positionlaying out their best arguments for their position,
(16:47):
you find out where the argument actuallyis. You know, to come
back to arguments that people are actuallyusing versus not the ones that are actually
persuasive and that people are still arguingover. That's a good place to learn
what are the actual arguments in use, not ones that have been retired,
(17:10):
because no, that is not agood argument. It's sort of been retired
or defeated or unpersuasive or useless incertain contexts. So I just maybe for
perennial arguments like the existence of God, maybe they don't shift overly much.
But other areas, like let's say, abortion debates, that's a great place
(17:34):
to find out where what people arearguing it might be way different now than
it was twenty years ago. Whatare the current debates because of the changes
in technology, changes in health care, changes in laws, stuff like that.
So now, if you're listening todebates, it'd be better to listen
to all the old ones, butlisten to the new ones, because like
(17:57):
the battlefield might have shifted its sortof terrain, you know, the landscape
has changed. So you want tofind out what is the cutting edge of
the current debate on this topic.So that's what I think is value about
valuable about debates, And that's yeah, and that means yeah, And as
you say that, I'm thinking about, for example, William Lane Craig's debate
with Alex Rosenberg, and Craig offeredthe moral argument, and Rosenberg got up
(18:22):
there and offered the youtha frod dilemma, as if as if that was some
new earth shattering argument and philosophy hadadvanced past the youth. It's like,
it's like you, it's just theonly thing you had a reference was like
some nineteen fifties textbook or like yeah, you know. And so even you
know, both believer and unbeliever asthey listen to that, we're kind of
(18:45):
thinking, well, how does Rosenbergnot know that that has been defeated,
at least especially the forum that hepresented in the debate. So that's an
example of even how philosophical thought advances. And you know, you got to
be on the cutting edge that anddebates help with that. Yeah, okay,
my point number four or why youshould be listening to debates, And
(19:06):
I steal this one from rentery Night. If he's listening, shout out.
So you get used to hearing theopposite point of view without getting scared,
nervous or anxious, and you geta thick skin. So I remember,
like certain topics before I was exposedto the other points of view, when
(19:29):
I would hear the other point ofview, I would be very nervous and
I would almost want to like turnthat off. No, don't even listen
to that, you know what Imean, because that's that's an unbeliever or
you know, this is a nonChristian atheist. Turn that off. Like
you know, there was a timewhen I was an ardent and only been
exposed to a Young Earth view,and when I would listen to, say,
(19:52):
podcasts from people who held an OldEarth view, I got disgusted and
wanted to just turn it off.Looking back, I'm glad that that's not
the case anymore. That if Idisagree with a different point of view,
I don't get nervous. I don'tget scared or anxious or upset or red
faced or something or like sweating,Like what would I say, I don't
(20:17):
know how to respond to this,or no, this is new information,
And I was like, no,I want to be exposed to as much
of the other point of view asI can in the proper dose for my
Christian maturity level. Obviously that sortof thing comes into play. But you
can't run and hide from the otherpoint of view. You want to be
familiar with it. Sort of likesilly example comes to mind, but when
(20:41):
soldiers are in basic training and they'refiring weapons over their heads and throwing smoke
bombs and getting them to do thingswith all kinds of stressful distractions, gets
them accustomed to being able to operatewithout getting distracted by oh, the heat
of the moment. So if I'mhaving a discussion with an unbeliever or something
(21:04):
or skeptic and I'm hearing things forthe first time, I don't want to
be in that position or this isthe first time I'm hearing an objection.
I've never even heard of this before. I don't want to say I don't
want to be in the position whereI'm like trying to think on my feet.
I want to be in the positionlike, oh, okay, sounds
like they're going down this road,sounds like they might be pulling out uthafro
(21:26):
in a minute. Yeah okay.And basically from a like a chess point
of view, you'd be like,Okay, they might be doing this movie,
they might be doing that move.I've seen both of these. I
know how I may respond to eitherone of these things, and I'm my
heart rate is still you know,sixty two beats per minute or whatever.
You know. So back to restatingnumber four. You get used to hearing
(21:49):
the opposite point of view without gettingscared, numbers or anxious, and you
get a thick skin. You're notscared of hearing people objecting or calling names
or you know, disagreeing. You'relike, okay, great, yeah,
let's talk about it. Yeah.And then I find too that as I
listened to more and more debates andI was able to see how the Christian
(22:10):
faith held up under scrutiny, ifyou will, that helped my confidence and
my faith grow, and it alsomade me. It put a desire within
me to want to learn those argumentsas well, so that I could have
a case of my own. Andyou've kind of segued into my number five,
which is you learn that Christianity canhold its own intellectually against the topics
(22:34):
critics. Oh yeah, and thatgives you confidence that should boost your faith
when you're like, wow, youknow what, of all the debates I've
listened to, I don't really hearChristianity getting smacked down too much and looking
foolish. It's more like, youknow, oftentimes it's like the rational view,
the thought out view. Now youmight not agree with it, but
(22:56):
you can't deny that it's rational,thoughtful, intellectual, whereas many times the
opposing view can be caustic, emotional, kind of snarky, sort of gives
you a negative impression. So Ifind my confidence boosted when I'm listening to
(23:17):
debates. Yeah, in least listenersthink we're being unfair, please refer back
to Brian's point number one. We'retalking about when you hear the best defenders
here. So, of course,if someone's saying, thinking, well,
I saw that debate between so andso and so and so, and the
Christian got smeared, or they lookedlike a fool, or they were unkind.
(23:41):
We're of course admitting that those areout there. But that's why Brian
starts with we're talking about when youlisten to the best defenders. Yeah,
and you know, two people canwalk away from the same debate completely still
convinced that their own position and thinkingof the side lost. So I'm not
I'm not saying that's not the caseas far as holding a view, but
(24:03):
I do think if someone's fair andcharitable, they have to I do think
that they should admit that the Christiandefender often, Hey, they are coming
across, they are bringing arguments,they are bringing evidence, they are bringing
reasoned responses. So if debit happensto be is Christianity reasonable, they win
(24:26):
very easily. Yeah, debates do. Debates do various type types of work,
right, I'm thinking, for example, you said two people can listen
to the same debate and have adifferent response or still walk away not having
their mind changed. But also debatescan open your mind. So I'm thinking
of when I listened the first timeto Chris Date, who we just had
(24:48):
on the podcast talking about conditional immortalitydebate Phil Fernandez on the topic of annihilationism
or eternal conscious torment. Well,when I listened to that debate, I
was in the eternal conscious torment camphard and found I think I probably would
have labeled conditional immortality as anti biblicalpossibly. And when I got done watching
(25:12):
that debate, I can't say Ichanged my mind, but I walked away
going, Wow, there's a lotmore to that view than I had imagined.
And I've got to wrestle with this, and so that's valuable in and
of itself. Yeah, you know, with debates like that, it makes
me go, okay, this,this person making this case is a is
(25:33):
a really good defender and case maker. Who's the best casemaker on the other
side? Because I want to hearthem. I want to hear the best
arguments. I don't want to Idon't want to hear ones that I'm not
even convinced of it, Like,can you know packed up Jane Jay Warner
Wallis is old podcast name, pleaseconvince me, you know, I'm like,
there's kind of a cool idea there, or yeah, I want to
(25:56):
be I want to be persuaded thata view is true, so that I
can embrace what I believe is true. You don't want to be like,
oh I me me just keep believingway I'm believing. I'm like, no,
if I'm wrong, I really wantto know, not out of the
idea of well I might be wrong, so I better not hold this.
I want to be like confident inmy view being shifted one way or another.
(26:18):
It's like, oh, okay,well, if this isn't true,
let me change you know, yes, okay, so number six and then
we're gonna give you guys a breakfor a coffee. So number six.
See how a case for a positioncan be made cumulatively, and how critics
try to counter it, often resortingto nitpicking. So so what I mean
(26:41):
by this is that I think ithelps me, over the course of time,
has helped me to see different waysa case for a position can be
made, not just using appeals topersonal experience or randomly plucking out a examples
and illustrations or stuff, but saying, oh, well, you know what,
(27:04):
I believe Christianity is true, andI have got three or four arguments
here that I find persuasive. Nowthere are many more, but here are
three. Sure, I think that'sa great way to say, introduce someone
to the idea they if you're talkingto someone having a discussion, to be
able to say, you know,I think there's a lot of reasons that
(27:25):
this position is true. There aremany arguments. I think that there are
five or six strong ones, butlet's talk about two or three, you
know, And I think that knowingbeing familiar with the range of ways that
a case can be made for positionand making that known, saying oh,
(27:45):
there's a lot of ways I couldmake my case, but here are two
or three I like and let meshare that. It kind of gives the
person you're talking to the idea that, oh, wow, there must be
a lot to be said here otherthan well, I think it's true because
Jesus changed my life. Nothing wrongwith that. But if you're making an
(28:07):
intellectual case persuading someone because oh thisis I think there's reasons for this to
be true, rather than I workedfor you, well, you know you're
on keto and I don't agree withKeto either. You're a scientologist, so
at any rate, So the ideahere is, when you're watching debates,
(28:29):
you can see how cumulative case canbe made. You can sort of construct
and put together a selection of argumentsthat you find persuasive and build your own
case. So if William Lane Craigmight be trots out his five arguments or
whatever in a debate, and Imight like two or three of those,
might grab them. I'm going touse that because I like it. Here's
I'm going to modify it. Iknow someone else who makes his case a
(28:52):
different moral argument. I'm going tograb that because I like that better.
And I'm thinking to myself, ifI'm in the position to make a case,
I've got these tools I've gleaned fromthese different people I've listened to,
and I'm gonna make my own tool, get my own utility belt. Okay,
ready for number seven? I amindeed. Number seven is that you
find out that the debate is waydeeper than the debate. So when I
(29:17):
say debate in the first sense,I mean the topic, like the debate
over the existence of God, isway deeper than the debate you just listen
to. This is just maybe theforward battlefront. There's way more to be
learned. So it's like, oh, here's a good starting point for about
three or four books I could startreading on this topic. You know what
I'm saying. Yes, the samewith oh well I just told my view
(29:42):
on abortion because of this. Well, go and listen to a debate and
you realize, okay, here's theforward battle front, and it represents miles
and miles more battlefront behind each sortof different argument that may have been brought,
and there's way more to the topicthen you can imagine if you haven't
(30:02):
gone down that road. So that'swhat debates do, is they just they're
like this big front gate to ahuge estate, and it's like, okay,
this is just the introduction to thistopic. If you go down this
rabbit hole, there's this huge landscapeof this really deep subject topic and it
(30:22):
goes in many different directions. SoI think it's just a way to broaden
your knowledge and through exposure to thebest thinkers. Yeah, and this is
evidenced when debaters will often say somethingalong the lines of I can only scratch
the surface here, but I wouldencourage you to check out my work,
or I would encourage you to checkout scholar x's new book, because they
(30:48):
realize that you can only scratch thesurface and get into a you can only
go so deep in a debate context. Yeah right, So that's my seven
reasons. And on that note,listeners, this is only the beginning of
our discussion of debate. There's moreto come where we were talking about actual
debates that have really influenced us andimpressed us and that we want to recommend
(31:10):
to you. So see you onthe other side. See you on the
other side, Ray, Thanks forlistening to the podcast. If you have
a question you'd like us to address, or just a message for us feedback
good or bad, you can eitheremail us at podcast at apologetics three fifteen
dot com or leave a voice messagefor us using speak pipe. Just go
(31:30):
to speakpipe dot com slash apologetics threefifteen to leave us a message. And
remember, if you include a Ghostbuster'squote in your question, we guarantee that
we'll read it on the podcast.We also ensure up to fifty percent better
quality answers. Also, if you'veenjoyed today's podcast, please leave a review
in iTunes or the podcast platform meetyour choice, and please share this episode
(31:52):
with a friend if you've found ituseful. Remember you can find lots of
Apologetics resources at apologeticspreefifteen dot com,along with show notes for today's episode.
Find Chad's apologetic stuff over at TruthbombApologetics. That's truthbomb dot blogspot dot com.
This has been Brian Aughton and ChadGross for the Apologetics three fifteen podcast,
and thanks for listening.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!