Debate Series

Politics
12 Mar, 2007
5

The Rosenkranz Foundation, in partnership with The Times Online (UK), has sponsored a new debate series on serious and contentious public policy issues. Usually, three experts or representatives (in case you don’t think they are experts) from each side are present. ABC News did a piece on tonight’s debate, "Global Warming is not a Crisis."

Note that you can listen to the IQ2US debate series archived on NPR, including:

Is America Too Damn Religious?
Hollywood and the Spread of Anti-Americanism
Hamas: Government or Terrorist Organization?
Weighing the Limits of Freedom of Expression (Freedom of expression must include the right to offend)
Debating a Nuclear Iran

Upcoming debates in this "IQ2US" program include the following topics:

Spreading democracy in the Middle East is a bad idea
Let’s stop welcoming illegal immigrants
Russia is becoming our enemy again
It’s time to end affirmative action
Aid to Africa has done more harm than good
Racial profiling keeps criminals off our streets
Excellence in sports requires performance enhancing drugs
Darfur is not our problem
America’s newspapers are dead
Civil unions, "yes": gay marriage, "no"
CEOs get paid way too much

Tags: Politics

Cineaste says:

12 March, 2007 at 3:13 PM

I'd like to add this debate to your series…
1986 Oxford Union Debate
The 1986 Oxford Union Debate between evolutionists Richard Dawkins and John Maynard Smith (Professor of Biology, University of Sussex) and creationists A. E. Wilder-Smith (Professor of Pharmacology and consultant) and Edgar Andrews (Materials Scientist & President of the Biblical Creation Society).
And this one too…
<a href="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7385355182363346492&q=theism+naturalism&hl=en" rel="nofollow">Video: Naturalism vs. Theism Debate (Fernandes vs. Lowder)

Log in to Reply
danielg says:

12 March, 2007 at 11:46 PM

America is to damn religious
I downloaded this 90 minute debate, and found the conservatives to be rather poor, and the liberals annoyingly patronizing (though Barry Lynn was funny), and often, utilizing standard arguments, canards, and in some cases, misinformation.
That is, until about 41 minutes, when William A. Galston, a Brookings Institute Sr. Fellow took the mike. He is an “old school liberal” (a Kennedy liberal, not one of the secularist anti-religionist extremists we call liberals today), and he was clear, concise, and excellent. Here’s my transcript, which is partial.

The topic before us is one that stirs understandable passions….I’d like to appeal to your reason, fair mindedness, and to your sense of our shared national history, not the myopia of the moment.
Let me tell you what this debate is NOT about. It’s not about whether you have to be religious to be a good American. Of course you don’t. Nor is it about whether you approve of the way that the most intense elements of the Republican coalition, speaking in the name of religion, have conducted themselves. As a lifelong activist Democrat, I sure don’t. Neither do most Americans, and obviously, neither do you. Nor, finally, is it about whether religion in America is without excess or without sin. Of course it isn’t, for the simple reason that it is a human institution.
Here, I believe, is the real question. IF you believe America is TOO religious, you must believe we would be a better country if we were LESS religious, or maybe not religious at all. That’s the proposition I’d like to contest. Admittedly, this is not an easy argument or inquiry to conduct….
America is better off with the religion it has, with all of it’s flaws, than without it. I want to make three simple points.
First of all, from the very beginning of our history, religious Americans have been at the forefront of most, if not all, of the turning points in our history.
Consider the REvolutionary War, where for 10 year prior to our Declaration of Independence, Protestant ministers from the pulpit were teaching the lessons of liberty, so that when Thomas Jefferson came to draft the Declaration, he didn’t have to make up a new theory. He only had to do what he said he did years later in a letter to a friend, to “state the plain common sense of the American mind.”
Or consider the anti-slavery movement, first in England, and then in teh US, religious Americans were in the lead.
After the Civil War, with the rise of industrial capitalism, the teachers of the social gospel spearheaded progressive reform. They were at the forefront of the concern for immigrants and the poor….In the 1920’s, the Catholic Church engaged with organized labor, and its leading intellectuals and theologians set the stage for the New Deal.
In the 1950’s and 60’s, the civil rights movement, of course…The anti war movement, the anti-Vietnam movement was fueled and sustained, among other things, by religious passions.
Today, movements to fight AIDS, famine, and genocide are LED by Americans of faith. Last year I had the privilege of attending a rally on the Washington mall against our government’s inaction in Darfur, and I tell you, if you took the religious people out of that crowd, there would hardly have been anyone left.
Here’s my second point. Religious Americans are among our most engaged citizens today, and their engagement strengthens our community.
I’m not going to deluge you with statistics, but I can tell you this – religious Americans are far more likely than non-religious Americans to give to charitable causes, and that includes non-religious causes. Religious Americans are far more likely to volunteer, and that includes for non-religious causes. Religious Americans are far more likely to participate in our nation’s politics, to follow it closely, to attend political meetings, to join local reform groups, to contact elected officials, and even to vote….And all of these generalizations hold true after you correct for income, marital status, and all of the other variables.
Here’s my third point. Religious Americans, unlike what you have heard from our worthy opponents, are NOT, repeat, NOT a threat to our liberties.
An overwhelming majority of religious Americans practice what one eminent scholar has called a “quiet faith.” It is private rather than public, tolerant and inclusive, moderate rather than extreme, and above all, non-judgmental.
These are not simple social science abstractions. If you don’t believe me, look at the Terry Schiavo affair. Strident voices in the Republican base said ‘go for it!’ The Republican congressional leaders went for it. President Bush flew back from Crawford, interrupting for the first time in his presidency, a vacation. And then what happened? These folks were stunned to find that they had a genuine public revolt on their hands, including a revolt of a majority of religious Americans who considered what the govt was doing meddling and intrusive…and an abuse of law to limit our personal freedoms. [..]
Now, if you’ve followed me on this journey, I hope that you’ll agree…religious Americans, with all of their flaws, have ennobled our country. But my guess is, many of you remain unconvinced. What about the shrill voices, the calls for a Christian America, the lunatic rantings of Jerry Falwell. All of this and more is true, but every movement, secular and religious, has its extremists. Those with tunnel vision and an absolute conviction of their own rectitude who will brook no compromise.
Let me ask you. Who among you would wish to be judged in accordance with the most extreme version of the faith or beliefs you profess? To judge fairly, you must look at the full picture, not the fringe. And if you do, I’m confident that you’ll conclude that America is not too damned religious after all.

As you see, he is not a conservative. And I disagree with his underestimate and marginalizing of evangelicals – nominal and liberal Christians may be plentiful, but conservative evangelicals are not fringe or an insignificant minority.
In addition, his allusion to “tolerance” brings up the issue of opposing moral ills, and whether or not that is “intolerant.” Many many conservatives have discussed how the current morality free tolerance, devoid of truth, especially in the areas of sex, is extreme and unbalanced.
Again, the first two points are strong, the last, not so strong.

Log in to Reply
Cineaste says:

12 March, 2007 at 5:45 PM

Again, the first two points are strong, the last, not so strong.
Well of course, Seeker. Galston's first two points are in line with conservative evangelical thought because they put religion in a positive light. Therefore, it's only natural you agree. Though, it must be said that he made religion sound almost like socialism in it's progressiveness. As you point out, Galston's last point is highly critical of Christian fundamentalists (who take their holy books as literal truth). Therefore in your estimation, his last point is correspondingly, "Not so strong." The reason you give for the weakness of Galston's last point is "conservative evangelicals are not fringe or an insignificant minority" and "many conservatives have discussed how the current morality free tolerance, devoid of truth, especially in the areas of sex, is extreme and unbalanced."
My dear Seeker, you completely undermine Galston's argument that "America is better off with the religion it has, with all of it's flaws, than without it." You accomplish this by blatantly, if unwittingly, underlining what is so wrong about the right wing evangelical mindset. To right wing Christian Evangelical fundamentalists (who take the Bible as literal truth), those who do not agree with you are described, in your own words as "morality free," "devoid of truth," "extreme" and "unbalanced." This is intolerance defined. Your intolerance to secular morality screams to secularists that we (secular human beings) are better off without your intolerant brand of fundamentalist religion. This is exactly why Galston was trying to disassociate moderate Christianity from right wing fundamentalist evangelical Christianity. You contradict yourself and your claim conservative evangelicals are not "fringe" by your poor choice of adjectives. Like a bull in a china shop, you blunder about in your arguments and effectively trash Galston's "third point." "Morality Free" indeed! Shame on you!

Log in to Reply
Cineaste says:

13 March, 2007 at 6:19 PM

Here is another series that is a takeoff of the movie "Office Space."

"A comedy about life in the corporate offices of God. What if all the problems on earth were not caused by a spiteful deity, or karma, or fate, but just office politics and the Peter Principle?"

God, Inc – Episode 1
God, Inc – Episode 2
God, Inc – Episode 3

Log in to Reply
Cineaste says:

13 March, 2007 at 6:21 PM

God, Inc – Episode 4
God, Inc – Episode 5
God, Inc – Episode 6

Log in to Reply

Debate Series

5 Responses

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Related Posts

Archives by Topic

Meta