Saturday 19 February 2022

Debate, or train crash? Matt Dillahunty vs Michael Egnor

Two hours, or more? Did I really want to watch a debate that long on the topic Does God Exist? Maybe I'd watch the first 20 minutes, and give up if it didn't seem to be going anywhere. In the event I watched the whole thing without a break (and slept in the next morning).

It started off amicably enough, though the production quality of this live-streamed YouTube video left a lot to be desired, both technically and from the moderating point of view.

Here's the video, hosted by the Theology Unleashed YouTube channel:

 

It was streamed live last September and has to date been viewed over 136,000 times, with over 8,000 comments. As far as I can tell (not having scrolled through all of them), the comments are overwhelmingly in favour of Matt Dillahunty, or against Michael Egnor. This will not be a surprise if you watch the video first.

Michael Egnor has blogged about the debate at the Discovery Institute and on Evolution News, though you'd be forgiven for thinking he was at a different debate in an alternative reality.

Matt Dillahunty has posted his own preliminary analysis of the debate on his own YouTube channel, with a promise of more in-depth analysis to come:

 

The most gobsmacking moment in the debate for me was when Michael Egnor claimed that the singularity at the Big Bang that began the universe was supernatural (therefore God). Less of a surprise (because one gets used to such shenanigans from the Discovery Institute) was Egnor's unwillingness to engage in proper debate, instead resorting to personal attacks on his interlocutor. Even less surprising, therefore, is Dillahunty's refusal to debate Egnor again.