The Nightline Debate Videos

More of the same stuff from Kirk and Ray. It’s rather sad, IMHO. 🙁 Instill fear and guilt into others. Doesn’t seem very nice for people to do this to others. Emotional abuse, mild or severe is not very pretty. I’m sorry, Hemant, I didn’t bother with the second one in this thread, because the first one was too sad to see, even if the atheists were very strong in the debate. It’s a shame and very sad that Ray and Kirk call emotional abuse in any form caring about Kelly, Brian, and others. Why can’t Christians take a step back and see what they are doing to others? Not that mocking the Christian position, as Brian and Kelly were accused of doing, is a good thing either, but I really feel since the Religious Reich can’t handle the truth, they need to quit asking for these debates and stop imposing guilt and fear on others. It just doesn’t work to convert others, but rather it turns most people off.

I appreciated what Kelly and Brain said, but feel sorry for them because they had to indure such behaviours from Kirk and Ray on National TV. Even Kelly called it an appeal to the emotion- the fear emotion.

I’m with Brian Sapient on the performance of those two- “what a numb nut.” Yep, there are absolutely no transitional fossils, not one. I hope that sometime in the future they would release a DVD of the entire debate.

Why didn’t Brian and Kelly leave after Ray mentioned the Ten Commandments? There was no good reason to continue when they clearly violated the premise of the debate; and, as “rational responders,” they should have realized that a faith vs. science debate is useless, and ends up with people talking past each other instead of to each other. Besides, they would have spared us all the insult that is the “bull-frog.”

Michael J. Fox is the actor you’re thinking of, who suffers from Parkinson’s disease.

And your post immediately puts me in the mind of the old stop motion animated series “Celebrity Deathmatch.”

Why didn’t Brian and Kelly leave after Ray mentioned the Ten Commandments?

I propose they call a new debate. They should say that they have absolute scientific proof that God does not exist and they’ll tell this proof to the world if 20/20 does a live worldwide broadcast.

Then when the cameras are rolling they should get up and show a picture of the Mona Lisa.

“We know that the Mona Lisa had a creator, and his name was Leonardo da Vinci. How do we know this? It has a signature. All the greatest works of art are signed by their creators.

“How do we know that the world was not created by a god? Because there is no signature ANYWHERE on the Earth.”

At this point they should hold up a satellite photo of the earth.

“Now SURELY, all the wonder of nature and all the beauty of life on earth would make it a FAR, FAR more wonderful work of art than the Mona Lisa. Which makes it far, far more likely that anyone who created it would be proud enough to sign it. And yet, we find NO SIGNATURE! Look! Look on this picture of the earth, can anyone find the word ‘Yaweh’ written anywhere? No!

“Thus I have proven that either God doesn’t exist, or He was too ashamed of his creation to actually sign it.”

Kirk Cameron said this in his introduction:

As a former atheist, myself, and evolutionist, I want to pull back the curtain and show that the number one reason many people do not believe in God is not because of a lack of evidence, but because of a theory that many scientists today consider to be a fairytale for grown-ups.

I found this hilarious. The theory he is referring to is evolution, but if you listen again it’s so ambiguous that if someone didn’t know better, the “scientists” could be evolutionists and the “fairy tale for grown-ups” could be creationism. Which would make him right – that is a big reason why a lot of people don’t believe. Own goal!

David S said:

Also the RRS guys really really really need to work on appearance, tone, body language, etc. The facts are on their side–they can be positive and respectful and come across much better.

I agree. Even just dressing up a bit more smartly would have made a better impression. It’s like a job interview – it should be all about your CV (resumee?), but you have to make an effort with presentation, appearance, etc.

Kirk Cameron said this in his introduction:

As a former atheist, myself, and evolutionist, I want to pull back the curtain and show that the number one reason many people do not believe in God is not because of a lack of evidence, but because of a theory that many scientists today consider to be a fairytale for grown-ups.

Kirk thinks that being a “former atheist” gives him privileged access to Teh Atheist Hive Mind? What an arrogant jerk!

Oh please not another “debate” debacle. That was a half hour infomercial for those two frauds and their videos. Now Friendly Atheist has been invaded by trolls, self-styled saviors, keyboard theologians, pseudo scientists and drive-by witnesses all wanting to be right rather than be curious, all telling us what we think, believe, feel and do. Nobody is asking us. I accidentally knocked down a wasp nest once… If there’s another farce on TV like that one I’ll be out of here until the swarm goes away.

It’s time WE frame the discussion here. We do too much reactive responding to their challenges and not enough challenging of our own. Stop dickering with them over scripture, arguing over science and superstition. We should refer all the Christian newcomers who have shown up here to “do us good” in the last two days to this posting only. Don’t talk to them anywhere else or about anything else. The abuse of non believers is the shameful hypocrisy that the pious either ignore or give only brief lip service to. I’m sick and tired of Christians tollerating it.

Let’s challenge all these loving Christians who are so often sorry to hear that their brethren are treating atheists like dirt to DO something effective about it, to step up and actually stop other Christians from all the abuse, rather than say, “Well gee I’m sorry to hear about that, but anyway back to my point about how you atheists are wrong…”