Readers will remember that I accepted a call for debate opponents from agnostic Ben Wallis here. He has since taken down the post that included the challenge and let me know that some things came up on his end that would prevent any formal debate right now. At the same time, he has suggested another debate opponent for me, and we are attempting to work something out.
Recall also that atheist Paul Baird openly challenged such noteworthy apologists as K. Scott Oliphint, Doug Wilson, and James White to debate. That challenge extended as well to Jamin Hubner, Dustin Seegars, and me. Once I learned of the debate challenge I accepted it here. Since then, Paul and I have been setting up a debate on morality.
Today I came home to find out first through his blog and then through email that Paul has backed out of the debate. He writes:
Prior to the Third Debate I made a series of offers to debate Presuppositional Apologetics with a number of people, including Chris.
These offers are recounted above.
Now that there has been a Third and even a Fourth Debate
These debates were the ones with Sye TenBruggencate.
and in order to finally bring the whole Presuppositional Apologetic pile of crap to an end
Paul likes to take these sort of cheap shots at presuppositional apologetics without substantiating his dismissive stance toward the method and its arguments. “[P]ile of crap” is a more appropriate description of where Paul has found himself after Sye’s repeated annihilation of Paul’s position of unbelief. Elsewhere Paul tauntingly claims, “I can’t believe that I’ve stumbled upon something so profoundly wrong with the whole Presuppositional Apologetic and noone wants to put me right.” And what exactly is this “something so profoundly wrong”? And what is this about no one wanting to set him right? One can see how empty these rather boastful comments are.
I’ve advised Chris that I won’t be proceeding. He can claim victory if he wants, although I suspect he’s not a man of that sort of character.
Well no, of course I will not claim victory in a debate that never happened. I will however point out that there was no substantial reason given for Paul’s confident challenge to a number of leading presuppositional apologists followed by his subsequent refusal to debate someone who is not even close to being on the same level as them.
It would seem to be the case that Paul Baird, like so many other unbelievers, wants to “talk the talk” but does not want to “walk the walk.” It really is too bad that this type of fundamentalist atheism is so popular in our time.
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