Justin Brierley from Premier Christian Radio has been trying to get me on his show for a while and succeeded in getting me to "debate" with Allan Craig over the issue of the proposed mega mosque, and in fact mosques in general in the UK.
Having just posted on the importance of dialogue, here I go having a good old ding-dong!
You can listen to it here:
http://www.premier.org.uk/engine.cfm?i=680
(although I haven't figured yet how to get it to play!)
Just a few after thoughts on the dicussion.
Firstly, everything was recorded in the studio on Wednesday morning, so it wasn't live, and since I haven't been able to listen to it I can't say if anything has been edited.
We were given a few minutes introduction, and then Justin went to try and patch in one of the guests. In the mean time (this you didn't hear) I said to Craig "You don't honestly believe that stuff you just said. I mean you look like a sensible mature person!" I wasn't being patronizing, but he really does!
What followed was a very sharp exchange where I accused him of being a Pharisee! Well I wanted to get it off my chest then so it didn't come out in the actual recording!
The secondly issue, even what he and Mr Mysterious voiced over murtad Mustafa said was true about the Mosque being the place from where armies were dispatched and people executed (although I have no recollection of that ever happening in the mosque) did the companions of the Prophet continue this after Islam spread? In fact, it seems that once the Muslims had space and means such matters where moved out of the mosque to specific places such as courts etc....This destroys the claim that the mosque in by it's nature is more than just a place of prayer. It can be more than that or not. This only depends of circumstance.
Another point is that despite Craig's attempt to make Christianity innocent of any crime, The Crusades were launched from Churches all over Christendom.
The other matter that I would love to have taken up, and did so very briefly in the interlude (which you didn't hear) is the fiction that somehow democracy is a natural by-product of Christianity. This is of course absurd and a travesty!
Democracy is a pagan Greek concept, not a Christian one. Its revival was a product of humanist enlightenment thinking, not Christian theology. Enlightenment thinking was a reaction against the Church, not a product of it! Surely the natural system for Christianity must be "theocracy" (mean rule of God) not "democracy" (which is the rule of people.) This seems intellectually extraordinarily dishonest.
It is a common ploy of Evangelical Christians to use the beneficial and seemingly successful aspects of Western society and portray it as Christian, yet in the same breath when it comes to the horrors of Western society they quickly claim that these are not "Christan" but "secular" societies. Craig did exactly that in this program! You can't have your cake and eat it!
Feed back and comments are really valued here.
Where did I go wrong?
Should I even be doing these types of discussions?
What points did I miss?
What other points might I have mentioned?
