Atheist Richard Dawkins Explains Why He Won't Debate Philospher William Lane Craig

The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference.

Richard Dawkins is a biologist who helped spearhead the so-called "New Atheist" movement with books like The God Delusion.  For a while now, there's been a lot of buzz about a possible debate between him and William Lane Craig on the existence of God.  Dawkins is, perhaps, one of the most recognized names in science and atheism.  Craig is considered to be one of the foremost apologists for Christianity, in addition to being an eminent philosopher.  Who wouldn't want to see that?

In the quote above we see him admitting that, because he's an atheist, he doesn't believe in good or evil.  The universe just is, and good and evil don't enter the picture.  I found it curious then that his explanation for why he will not debate Dr. Craig is that he essentially thinks Dr. Craig is evil.

Moreover, Dawkins' whole explanation reveals a lot about Dawkins' character and frankly I'm disappointed, but not surprised, at the shallowness of his excuse for not debating Craig.  Let's take a look at that link above.

"Rational" Rhetoric

Don't feel embarrassed if you've never heard of William Lane Craig. He parades himself as a philosopher, but none of the professors of philosophy whom I consulted had heard his name either.

This is, of course, a rather cheap shot.  It's not as if Craig is just some self-important internet know-it-all.  He's written numerous peer-reviewed papers, scholarly articles, and popular articles on the philosophy of time, science, theology and so on.

This is typical of Dawkins, however, who calls his detractors "fleas" who attempt to use his notoriety to promote themselves.  Dawkins is incredibly arrogant, pompous, and demeaning to people who disagree with him.  Exactly what you would expect from a shallow ideologue.  Atheists should be ashamed to have someone like him representing their camp.  And, by the way, it's going to get a lot worse.

For some years now, Craig has been increasingly importunate in his efforts to cajole, harass or defame me into a debate with him. I have consistently refused, in the spirit, if not the letter, of a famous retort by the then president of the Royal Society: "That would look great on your CV, not so good on mine".

Craig isn't the only one "harassing" Dawkins to debate.  Daniel Came, an atheist, rightly called Dawkins a coward for refusing to debate.   To be fair, there's a very simple reason Christians and atheists want to see this debate: Dawkins will get absolutely destroyed intellectually.  I don't think that many people want to see this debate to see an honest exchange of ideas, but rather to see Dawkins' shallow grasp of philosophy destroyed in public.

Is this a bad reason to want public debate?  Maybe, but it isn't unfair.  Dawkins is a biologist who purports to be a philosopher and fails miserably, and even atheists have recognized this.  He set himself up on a house of cards, and if it gets knocked down he really only has himself to blame.

Yes, I'm blaming the victim. 

Craig's latest stalking foray has taken the form of a string of increasingly hectoring challenges to confront him in Oxford this October. I took pleasure in refusing again, which threw him and his followers into a frenzy of blogging, tweeting and YouTubed accusations of cowardice.

Yes, and obviously being called a coward has ruffled Dawkins' feathers.  Especially since it wasn't just Christians who called him a coward, but his fellow atheists as well.  He's not happy being called out, and it'll show in the rest of his explanation.

Notice very quickly the demeaning language.  "Stalking".  "Hectoring".  "Frenzy".  And so on.  I know that you can read this on your own, but I do want to highlight that Dawkins is not writing from a very rational place.  He's emotionally charged up over this issue, and it's really going to undercut the purpose of excusing himself from a debate.  

To this I would only say I that I turn down hundreds of more worthy invitations every year, I have publicly engaged an archbishop of York, two archbishops of Canterbury, many bishops and the chief rabbi, and I'm looking forward to my imminent, doubtless civilised encounter with the present archbishop of Canterbury.

Not to talk down to bishops and archbishops and rabbis, but many of these folks are laypeople.   They simply aren't equipped to handle atheist arguments.  Pointing out that you're willing to debate people who aren't necessarily (as) qualified to debate you doesn't disprove that you're a coward. 

In an epitome of bullying presumption, Craig now proposes to place an empty chair on a stage in Oxford next week to symbolise my absence. The idea of cashing in on another's name by conniving to share a stage with him is hardly new. But what are we to make of this attempt to turn my non-appearance into a self-promotion stunt? In the interests of transparency, I should point out that it isn't only Oxford that won't see me on the night Craig proposes to debate me in absentia: you can also see me not appear in Cambridge, Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow and, if time allows, Bristol.

I don't have any criticism of this paragraph, I just wanted to highlight it because the joke at the end is pretty funny.

Evil

But Craig is not just a figure of fun. He has a dark side, and that is putting it kindly. Most churchmen these days wisely disown the horrific genocides ordered by the God of the Old Testament. Anyone who criticises the divine bloodlust is loudly accused of unfairly ignoring the historical context, and of naive literalism towards what was never more than metaphor or myth. You would search far to find a modern preacher willing to defend God's commandment, in Deuteronomy 20: 13-15, to kill all the men in a conquered city and to seize the women, children and livestock as plunder. And verses 16 and 17 are even worse:

"But of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth: But thou shalt utterly destroy them"

You might say that such a call to genocide could never have come from a good and loving God. Any decent bishop, priest, vicar or rabbi would agree. But listen to Craig. He begins by arguing that the Canaanites were debauched and sinful and therefore deserved to be slaughtered.

The rest of the article goes on in this vein.  I won't quote it all here, but you can check it out in the link near the top of the post.   The idea is that Dr. Craig tries to explain why the killing of Canaanites by the ancient Hebrews may not have been immoral.

This is a very sticky subject.  It would be like trying to have a debate over abortion.  When you talk to most people, they would have a hard time separating their emotion from their rationality.  Dawkins makes this mistake himself.  He obviously believes that these passages of the bible are immoral, but here are his 'arguments':

You might say that such a call to genocide could never have come from a good and loving God. Any decent bishop, priest, vicar or rabbi would agree.

And.

Do not plead that I have taken these revolting words out of context. What context could possibly justify them?

And.

Oh, the poor soldiers. Let's hope they received counselling after their traumatic experience. A later post by Craig is – if possible – even more shocking.

And.

So, apparently it was the Canaanites' own fault for not running away. Right.

Okay, so what you can take away from this is that Dawkins finds Craig's defense of these biblical passages to be morally reprehensible.  The problem is, if you're holding your breath waiting for an explanation as to why Craig is wrong and Dawkins is right, you're going to suffocate.  Craig, right or wrong, at least thought out his position and examined the issue and created a logically coherent argument.

Dawkins on the other hand just gives you a bald assertion that this is evil and hence Craig is defending evil and is therefore also evil.

Missing Your Own Point

You might say, "Well these people were slaughtered.  Dawkins doesn't have to argue that such a thing is evil, it just is inherently evil."  If only it were that simple.  I'll ignore for a moment that this is just a shallow appeal to emotion.  That still might not matter because emotional appeals work because emotions can exist oftentimes in the absence of rational thought.  There is, however, another complication.  I'll quote Dawkins again:

The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference.

That highlighted section is a metaphysical belief about morality.  You might have heard it called 'subjective morality' or 'moral anti-realism'.  Dawkins is not here saying that he lacks a personal concept of right and wrong.  Almost everyone, atheist or otherwise, has a personal moral compass.  What he's saying is that morality is created in the human mind, and is a matter of personal taste.  If I say, "It is wrong to murder someone", Dawkins would say, "It isn't wrong to do so, because wrong doesn't exist.  You just have a distaste for murder."

If this is true, that good and evil are nothing more than expressions of personal taste, then certainly Dawkins has reason to be so upset by this.  However, he has no possible justification in saying that Dr. Craig's own personal taste in morality is wrong.  If I tell you that chocolate is the best flavor of ice cream, and you say vanilla is the best flavor, how long do we have to argue before one of us is proved right?  How could either of us dare to condescend and say that our personal preference for vanilla or chocolate makes us a better person than someone who prefers another flavor? 

Dawkins has eliminated any justification he has to criticize Craig's own personal morality.  If there is no morality outside of personal preference, then all of us are justified, for our own reasons, to think slaughter is morally okay or not morally okay.  This is the absurdity of atheism.  It's so absurd, in fact, that even a staunch atheist like Dawkins, who believes in subjective morality, must live his life as if morality is not subjective.  Seriously think about that for a second.

Again, Dawkins is not being inconsistent when he is morally repulsed by these biblical passages, however by implying that Craig is morally obligated to agree that the passages are evil, he is absolutely being inconsistent with his own stated beliefs that everyone has a right to their own subjective morality.  If morality is all in your head, then no one can claim moral superiority.

Looked at this way, his excuse seriously looks lame.  That's all this is is an excuse not to have to debate, probably because he knows he's outclassed but he's too proud to admit it.

Dawkins follows all of this moral posturing up with:

Would you shake hands with a man who could write stuff like that? Would you share a platform with him? I wouldn't, and I won't. Even if I were not engaged to be in London on the day in question, I would be proud to leave that chair in Oxford eloquently empty.

And if any of my colleagues find themselves browbeaten or inveigled into a debate with this deplorable apologist for genocide, my advice to them would be to stand up, read aloud Craig's words as quoted above, then walk out and leave him talking not just to an empty chair but, one would hope, to a rapidly emptying hall as well.

So Dawkins' stated excuse is that he thinks that Craig is just a bad guy and so Dawkins won't debate him because he might get infected with immorality or something.  Doesn't this seem a little too convenient?

It's also interesting to see how few people are really buying into this (comments section).  I think that Craig's call to debate Dawkins has put Dawkins into a precarious position.  He is too proud to admit that he isn't willing to risk losing the debate, but people aren't buying the excuses that he's making up.  This whole affair, at least to a small extent, is making him look bad.  Even if Dawkins was being straightforward and honest in his numerous stated reasons not to debate, this is still making him look bad. 

Dawkins said this about a debate with Craig:

"That would look great on your CV, not so good on mine".

This is true in an ironic sense.  Namely after the debate, Craig would come out looking better, and Dawkins worse, because Dawkins simply doesn't have the sophistication to hold his own.