Three things I can observe about this debate at PJM:
1.) It is certainly a viable, lively, worthy debate. That alone supports the contention of “Expelled” that the debate is often stifled by atheistic evangelists in the public square.
2.) That the denigrating, smug, sneering tone of Derbyshire, or Dawkins for that matter do not help their side. It shows not only weakness of character but the underlying weakness of argument. Wy do atheist militants always have to resort to such infantile arguments using referrences to Easter Bunnies, strange pagan gods, or as God being unseen as “proof” that He does not exist. Can’t they see how laughable and weak these arguments are? Certainly they are more intelligent than their arguments reveal.
3.) That whether you believe the Universe started from nothing and expanded into its present matrix of mindboggling beauty and incredible balance and harmony through random, purposeless, non-intelligent forces, or that, as many of the greatest scientist up to the present acknowledge, that a Super Intelligence was behind it all, it is still a matter of faith. One faith might have more reason, common sense, and circumstancial evidence to support it, but it is faith nonetheless.
That is why the debate goes on.
