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Kirk Cameron Battled Atheists to a Draw on ABC's Nightline Debate by Michael Patrick Leahy  Michael Patrick Leahy Kirk Cameron, Evangelical Christian and former child television star (he played goofball Mike Seaver in the popular ABC TV sitcom "Growing Pains") and Christian author Ray Comfort took on two atheists in an ABC Nightline debate held in New York this past May. The atheists were represented by Brian Sapient and Kelly (no surname), two of the people behind the self proclaimed "Rational Response Squad" , the group that sponsors the odious web based "blasphemy challenge." The topic of the "debate" was the existence of God, with Mr. Cameron and Mr. Comfort arguing in the affirmative, and the surname challenged atheists arguing in the negative. To call the event a "debate" is an injustice to the term, however, as the evening quickly devolved into an exchange of press releases between the two sides, interspersed with the typically nasty and ill mannered catcalls emanating from the atheists in the crowd. ABC, in its wisdom, had specified that the crowd of one hundred would be evenly split between fifty atheists and fifty Christians. Stylistically, Mr. Cameron knocked the ball out of the park. He came across as likable, articulate, and sincere. Dare we say it, there is something almost Reaganesque in his ability to communicate. The atheist opponents mumbled responses, filled with "ums" and "you knows", and delivered their "zingers" with such obvious looks of intellectual contempt for Cameron and Comfort it was cringe inducing. ABC's "neutral" moderator, the unctuous Martin Bashir, whose claim to journalistic objectivity was first made in his pandering interview of noted bizarro Michael Jackson, did his best to cover the atheist bases for the communication challenged duo of Brian and Kelly, repeating their claims in a more articulate style. Bashir pressed Comfort and Cameron to respond to the atheist's taunt "who created the Creator?" suggesting strongly that the concept of an eternal Creator was inconsistent with all known logic and science. The unpleasant nature of the atheists behavior on this evening apparently surprised both Cameron and Comfort, but to long time observers of the new militant atheism such conduct has come to be expected. The insufferable intolerance of the unholy trinity of militant modern atheists (Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennnett, and Sam Harris) simply asserts its intellectual superiority, then proceeds to demonstrate its completely dogmatic resistance to fact. The group of militant atheists behind the self proclaimed "Rational Response Squad" has mounted a destructive campaign of online bullying in the so called blasphemy challenge, in which young Christian teenagers are socially coerced into making online rejections of God and faith. Though it's hard to imagine a more evil and destructive use of modern communication technology, this campaign continues to cause untold thousands of parents great grief and sadness. The arrogant young atheists behind this movement care not a whit for the young children or the families involved, they simply seek their 15 minutes of notoriety and fame. They compound their arrogance with chilling repetition of Joseph Goebbel's "Big Lie" philosophy. You may be familiar with those web banners claiming that Jesus was not a historical figure. The crowd at "Rational Response Squad" is behind those banners, caring little that the evidence of the existence of Jesus is overwhelming. Just ask the non-Christian historians of the day, including Josephus, Pliny, Tacitus, and Suetonius. Ridicule, bullying, and shouting over the other fellow have been the chosen tactics of this particular brand of militant atheism since 1860, when the original miltitant atheist, Thomas Huxley (who claimed to be an agnostic, but behaved like a militant atheist) claimed victory over Bishop Samuel Wilberforce in the famous debate over Darwin's theory of evolution at the annual meeting of the British Natural History Association in Oxford. Huxley's "victory" that day was based not on factual superiority to Wilberforce, but instead in the subsequent repetition of a series of personal insults heaped on Wilberforce by Huxley. Mind you, not all atheists are boorishly rude and intolerant. Christopher Hitchens, for instance, demonstrates that non-belief can easily be consistent with the free and open exchange of ideas that has characterized Western Civilization for the past several centuries. That tradition, however, apparently is lost on these new militant atheists. Mr. Comfort did a fine job of demonstrating the rationality behind belief in God, certainly a more erudite argument than the counter argument advanced by the atheists. Quite properly, he made the argument of a divine Creator based on the wonderful design which we see all around us every day. It's the same argument, Comfort noted, made by the greatest scientist of all time, Sir Isaac Newton, three centuries ago. But the tag team of Comfort and Cameron gave away the intellectual momentum when they made the fundamental error of choosing to have Mr. Cameron build the second half of their presentation in a refutation of Darwinian evolution. The historical precedent of the Wilberforce-Huxley debate should have suggested to them the lack of wisdom associated with making the concept of the existence of God hinge on the acceptance or non-acceptance of a particular scientific theory. Over the long trajectory of modern civilization, scientific theories may come and go, but God remains throughout. The two missed a central point here – almost every believing scientist ( and that would be about half of all scientists) could best be described as theistic evolutionists. Accepting the Darwin's scientific theory of evolution is not inconsistent with belief in God. Scientists Francis S. Collins, head of the human genome project, and Harvard's Owen Gingerich are but two of many scientists who accept Darwin and believe in God. Indeed, Darwin's staunchest ally in America, Harvard's Asa Gray, was a strongly believing Christian his entire life. This is not to say that Darwin's theory will ultimately not be replaced by another scientifically proven theory of evolution. Personally, I think that some theory will evolve that combines elements of intelligent design and Darwin's theory of natural selection. But there is an accepted process within the scientific community by which one theory is supplanted by another, and the intelligent design community, though excellent at pointing out the flaws in Darwinian evolution, has yet to set forth it's own testable theory. Cameron is right to point out the flaws in Darwin's theory, but wrong to suggest that acceptance of it is inconsistent with belief in God. The late Stephen Jay Gould, opponent of both the atheistic evangelist and biologist Richard Dawkins' brand of "completely random" Darwinian evolution, as well as scourge of the Young Earth Creationists, had it right. Science and religion are best viewed as "non-overlapping magisteria." Paraphrasing the words of the famous scientist H.P. Yockey, when it comes to concepts of God, we are amazed at how many scientists are actually talking religion, and how many theologians are actually talking science. The "Rational Response Squad" and their fellow militant atheists have failed spectacularly in their efforts to transform science into a religion. Mr. Cameron would be well advised in the future not to try and transform religion into science. Michael Patrick Leahy is the Managing Editor of Christian Faith and Reason Magazine Past issues - Print edition - Media Kit - About Christian Faith and Reason ©2007 Christian Faith and Reason
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