Sunday, August 3, 2008

Yesterday's Debates with Bassam

I spent yesterday at Jalal Abualrub's Madinah Educational Center, a Salafi Islamic center in Connecticut. Bassam Zawadi and I debated the topics "Does the Evidence Show that Christianity is True?" and "Does the Evidence Show that Islam is True?" The Muslims at the center were all very kind, and Jalal took Bassam and me out to lunch.

The debates should be posted shortly. Here are my initial impressions. As for the first debate, I think I defended all of my arguments, and that none of my points were shaken during the debate. However, Bassam made a number of arguments that I didn't get a chance to respond to. While Bassam was talking, I would take several pages of notes, but I would only get to respond to about a third (sometimes less) of his points. So I think the debate was close.

As for the second debate, I think I successfully answered all of Bassam's arguments for Islam, and I don't think he refuted any of my arguments against Islam. Nevertheless, looking over my notes, I see that he made a few responses that I didn't have time to answer. But I still didn't see a successful argument for Islam.

These debates were rather long (about two and a half hours each), but they were action-packed.

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