Honest Debate: Christianity Good and Bad

Moderator, pro-Christianity guy, & anti-Christianity guy

Here’s a video of a recent debate about Christianity, good and bad. I was the moderator, and I think it turned out well. Both debaters are non-believers because this debate is not about atheism versus Christianity. These debates are by and for atheists, created for the atheist community here in Seattle. Each debater represents a different viewpoint, but both viewpoints fit within the atheist worldview. The debate was what we call an “honest” debate. We have specific ground rules, roles, and expectations that prevent problems you see in typical debates: the unfair arguments, evasive answers, and rhetorical tricks. This format is inspired primarily by Rapoport’s rules for criticism, as popularized by Daniel Dennett. With that sort of approach in mind, I’ve been working with the Seattle Atheists to develop dialogs and debates that would facilitate a significantly more meaningful dialog than many of us have come to expect. This “honest” debate on Christianity is the third, and it’s the best. 

Here’s the video.

Sometimes people think that the point of Rapoport’s rules is to be nice. It’s true that the rules have the beneficial effect of taking some of the heat out of a disagreement, but niceness is only half of it. The other half is intellectual honesty. One rule is that you state your opponent’s viewpoint in terms so reasonable that the opponent accepts your paraphrase. Once you’ve done that, you can’t resort to caricature or exaggeration. When you state the opponent’s viewpoint, you demonstrate that you know exactly what you’re disagreeing with. Most people don’t. Over the years, I have seen people have a surprisingly hard time articulating their opponent’s point of view. You see some of this paraphrasing in the Christianity debate, and both debaters are pretty good at it. Before the debate, we had some preliminary discussions, so the debaters were already familiar with each others’ general positions. 

Another of Rapoport’s rules is to find places of agreement. I’ve come to appreciate the power of that technique more and more. This technique also appears in the book Crucial Conversations, about how to de-escalate conflicts and facilitate cooperation among people who are at odds with each other. In this Christianity debate, you see some times when the two debaters find things to agree on. 

The video ends before the results of the polls are announced. By the end of the debate, the pro-Christian side had picked up more undecideds than the anti-Christian side, but the anti-Christian side still had more sympathizers overall. 

The anti-Christian debater is Bob Seidensticker. He’s the author of Cross Examined: An Unconventional Spiritual Journey, and he critiques Christianity on his Patheos blog, also called Cross Examined. Bob had heard of Rapoport’s rules and was eager to participate.

Christianity was our third topic. Our first dialog was on Islam and Islamophobia, and it was not recorded because the topic is too touchy. The second was on Jesus, and you can see it here. We plan to do more.

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Agreeing how to disagree: Here’s a post that lays out the thinking behind better debates. 

Direct dialog on religion: Here’s a moderated video debate where we tried out some of the “honest debate” techniques.