Twelve Days of Apologetics (1) Does God Exist? SES

Twelve Days of Apologetics Day 1

VIDEO by Ses Apologetics

Does God Exist: Evil and Suffering

Skeptics say God cannot exist because of all the evil and suffering in the world. RZIM itinerants refute that argument.

VIDEO by Ravi Zacharias International Ministries

Does God Exist Series: The Cosmological Argument

The Cosmological Argument is explored as one of the evidences of God’s existence – VIDEO by Ravi Zacharias International Ministries

Debate – William Lane Craig vs Christopher Hitchens – Does God Exist? Biola University (April 04,2009)

With winter on our heels, we always like to spend time watching apologetics debates, so here is a very good debate with 2 formidable opponents, whom to watch and learn from.

Dr. Craig, presents his case using 5 arguments

1. cosmological argument, the well known first cause argument,
2. teleological argument, the incredible beauty, organization and complexity of the universe testifies to intelligent design. He uses the anthropic principle to back up his point here. There are over 100 known fundament physical constants that demonstrate the extreme fine tuning required to support life on Earth. […]
3. Morals come from a transcendent creator making them objective.
4. The resurrection of Jesus, shows us there is a personal God. Dr. Craig expounds on the veracity of this claim.
5. The immediate experience of God

Hitchens, bases his belief of atheism on lack of evidence of a supreme being and a few of the things he brought up include:

1. The big bang and evolution with very large quantities of time explain the start of the universe and life as we know it today.
2. When presenting his case, he groups the major monotheisms: Christianity, Jewish faith and Islam into one assembly asserting the arguments based on his vast experience of debating representatives from each world view are similar
3. Since Mr. Hitchens doubts all arguments for the existence of God based on lack of evidence, he concludes there isn’t one
4. All religious beliefs are gibberish and wishful thinking
5. He states the Bible has records of genocide and slavery in it, asserting that it promotes immorality
6. Firmly believes that morals evolved much the same way organic structures have and cultures that didn’t practice basic morality became extinct.
7. Uses the fact the Catholic church promoted an Earth centric universe as evidence the theistic camp doesn’t know what it’s talking about when it comes to science
8. He values personal freedom very highly and doesn’t want a theocracy telling him what to do.
9. He takes this subject extremely seriously and respects the discussion of it.
10. He attacks the saint hood of mother Teresa strongly.

There were four sections in the debate: a 20 minute opening speech, rebuttal, question and answer period between Dr. Craig and Mr. Hitchens, a closing argument was given by Dr. Craig and not Mr. Hitchens, presumably he presented his case completely in the first 3 sections of the debate.

This summary is given by an amazon reviewer here. This debate took place in the gymnasium of Biola University – http://Biola.edu. The introduction start in about the 12th minute, so if you want to skip the part before that just of to the 12th minute. VIDEO by Wade Davis