Josh McDowell: It Isn't an Intellectual Problem, It's A Morality Problem -- 3/10

[jimtrueblue99]

30 minutes listening to Josh McDowell blather on and on is certainly what hell will be like. What a fatuous gasbag! Why do people keep falling for this snakeoil peddler?

[Funketeshitman]

Love the way Christians just want to infect you with their believe system...makes me sick.

[ivanisavich]

Hitchens is a nice guy? What is this guy talking about? Hitchens is snarky, smug and doesn't beat around the bush. He's the furthest thing from a nice guy you can get...and that's why we love him! He tells it how it is while apologists like WLC recycle the same old tired arguments over and over.

[metaljacket1983123]

Josh makes a heck of a good point in that the problem with a lot of athiests isn't based on intellect, but morality.

highwind8124 obviously knows nothing of Josh McDowell's track record when he makes the assertion of his business and ironically uses an ad hominem to attack McDowell when he is using one himself. If that is the fuel for the new athiest movement, I expect it to fall flat very quickly.

[highwind8124]

McDowell is in the business of strengthening the faith of people who want to believe. In doing this, he's decided that one tactic he can use is ad hominem, to get believers to assume there is no convincing reason to disbelieve, that it really is just their evil character.

The problem with this is that it's throwing gasoline on the fire. By making this assumption on their character, people will defend it by pointing out Bible contradictions. His very behavior fuels the new atheist movement.

[ivanisavich]

@highwind8124 Yup. "Gosh...those people didn't believe what I told them. It must be a character flaw on their part!" Or maybe you're just not convincing enough.

[highwind8124]

@ivanisavich

My point here was not that McDowell was convincing, but that atheists may genuinely have issues/arguments that they themselves cannot yet find answer to. McDowell rushes to the ad hominem.

But McDowell, while having some flawed or badly phrased arguments, isn't all bad.

I find his assessments to be disingenuous, so I don't put my faith in him being a good person. But he sells a product, and I don't regret having paid for it.