The video I used for my multimedia source is a YouTube video of the Joy Behar Show with two distinguished individuals proving their arguments for the existence and non-existence of God. One is an evangelical and author named Pastor Douglas Wilson. The other is an atheist or “antitheist” analyst named Christopher Hitchens. Both were to provide evidence to support their case for the truth of God’s existence. Mrs. Behar did this segment because of the growing unrest in American life about religion and how many are turning from traditional practices in faith to atheists. Pastor Douglas Wilson tried to use what he called a “burden of proof” to support God’s reality. He was very unclear in the meaning of this and contradicted himself by saying non believers deny the self evident fact they are the burden of proof but it is only self evident to believers. So it is only self evident to believers how can non believers have the burden of proof if it is not self evident to themselves. This was just a side note I wanted to add to portray the nebulousness of this argument and how, to me, it was not very coherent. Hitchens on the other hand believed also that Wilson’s argument was not very relevant and that it was very circulatory. Hitchens believes that the great claims by the bible should be backed up by great evidence. He says that atheists do not have proof that there is no God, but there is no concrete evidence to back up that there is such an entity. Also he says that atheists do not believe in the supernatural dimension only a natural one and that there is only this one and it is the best we have been received. Pastor Wilson then says that animals could talk to Noah on his ark, because we are animals, primates, and we can talk. Hitchens retorted saying that the Presbyterians first did not believe that humans were primates, but now they do believe we are animals and came from primates. Hitchens uses the arguments that the virginal birth, resurrection, and miracles were all like other ancient mythologies and should be considered one of those fairy tales from long ago. Hitchens also believes that even a man named Jesus did exist, his doctrines, moral and ethical, were not true. Mrs. Behar then asks Pastor Wilson if he believes that God is watching him at this very moment, his answer was quite certainly, yes. The idea was, Mrs. Behar used, was that this idea of God watching you is almost viewed by Christians as a self-absorption or self-flattering ideal. Pastor Wilson then used it in a different perspective that it humbles you. Hitchens then said that it humbled you too much so that you were a servant to the Almighty Creator. After the commercial break, the debate picks up a new topic of the relevancy and need for the Ten Commandments. Whether or not humans already know this code, or that we need a divine being to council us on our decisions. Pastor Wilson believes that it is not self-evident not to kill someone or to commit adultery by human standards and that we do need divine intervention. He also states that “if someone waved a magic wand and all sin disappeared our economy would collapse.” Hitchens sidetracks and uses his argument that way before the Ten Commandments were made; Confucius gave us the golden rule: do unto others as you would want to be done unto you. He then says that the first four were made for to obey the “divine dictator.” The next two were self-evident and the others were a Bronze Age and fearful age code that should not be upheld any more.
I believe the way to respond to this source is too break down each of the three debaters’, even Mrs. Behar, cases and debates and the facts and how they presented them. I’ll start with Pastor Wilson. He is not an eloquent speaker and his words are unclear and ambiguous. It is hard to comprehend what his babble is about because of the irrelevancy of it. He did not argue his side properly to make a good judgment, and I believe that he did not have any true facts or data at all. There may have been some good points in his debate, but really I didn’t pay much attention to what he said. Let’s go on to Mr. Hitchens. He is definitely a better and more vivid speaker. He presents a better argument, and is a very articulate debater. Really his facts weren’t that impressive, just how he presented the information was. It was all in his tone, it had confidence, intelligence, expressiveness, and it had every component of a sound argument. He presented his opinion, clearly and coherently, supporting his thesis with philosophical logic. Now let’s move on to Mrs. Behar. She was extremely amusing. It was almost as if she had no place in the argument, yet she interjected often trying to be of some use. She was completely biased with Hitchens, most likely to appease her viewing audience. Her questions were very transparent and understood already to her audience. I didn’t like how she would not let the two openly debate the issue, but try to prove their thesis’s in a cemented block of time. It was a pathetic attempt to try to become CNN. All in all, it was kind of an enriching debate, but lacked all passion and vehemence. I laughed at the pointlessness of the segment, a futile attempt at an engrossing debate.
"The Joy Behar Show-Christopher Hitchens vs Pastor Douglas Wilson." YouTube. Web. 4 Apr 2010.
Awesome job. 50/50
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