Despite your comment being irrelevent to my ideas about the public sphere (you are using a broader definition of public), I will bite anyway as you raise a good question nonetheless.

I plead not guilty to your charge of hypocrisy (in this particular area anyway!).

No, I wouldnt complain if an atheist tried to convince me of their views.

I'm all for freedom of speech. It is an important concept for Christians, based on the dignity of human beings and their standing as agents made in the image of God.

I wonder where naturalistic atheists could find a comparable basis for the idea, within the resources of their own understanding of the world?

GrahamY

He refuses to discuss evidence around God, and uses red-herrings and rhetoric all the time.

It is Craig that makes bare assertions constantly uses fallacies like "the argument from ignorance".

The problem is that trying to debate reasonably and honestly with W.L. Craig is fraught for people without his rhetorical debating skills.

http://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2011/08/why-reasonable-people-should-not-debate.html

"Christopher Hitchens does a perfectly fine job of defining his version of atheism... Watch how Craig then present Hitchens with a false trichotomy. He demands that Hitchens choose between three beliefs, none of which correspond to what Hitchens has just described. Finally, Craig gets Hitchens to say that there are no gods. Then he pounces, demanding to know how Hitchens can prove a negative.

"This quickly morphs into a discussion of whether absence of evidence is evidence of absence. Hitchens, to his credit, does not view that as an open and shut proposition since, as we all know, absence of evidence is, indeed, part of the reason for not believing in gods. But to a slick apologist like Craig, that can be a devestating admission.

>> The point is that William Lane Craig is a typical Christian apologist who would prefer to focus on rhetoric than on truth. Most atheists will find this method of debate frustrating and aggravating.

>> They have to be constantly on their guard against a "gotcha" moment, knowing that Craig will pounce whenever he gets a chance."

He constantly uses fallacies like "the argument from ignorance".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJmS5oVBfJY&feature=player_embedded

Silly analogies like teapots and santa claus provide him with further rhetorical ammunition, though. "You can see the trick. He simply refuses to accept the analogy being made and prefers to twist it around to make his point." (from the first URL link above)

Can someone please explain what the last post (by McReal 11:19 today) was prompted by or in response to? It seems to have been addressed to Graham Y but it does not seem to relate to any of the preceding posts.

Diver Dan, in neglecting to put in the "would" before "love", you have completely altered the meaning of your wish: "How I love to see the secularists squirm under conditions of defeat!"

GlenC,
The post should have appeared on another thread: Article: 'There's probably no Dawkins. Now stop worrying…'

I think it demonstrates why there should be NO European Court;
It's really not the business of anyone else except the country or sovereign nation at hand if they want to be inclusive, exclusive, theocratic or kemalist- it is definitely not their job to make concessions to their preferred system to please the morals of some uninvolved (and unelected) organization.

Trav and others

You suggest that there should be no constraints on the teaching of any sincerely held beliefs in the public square, or in schools inclined to teach them. Would you support the right of believers to press upon others, especially children, theories whose probabilities of being false are 100%? What about those whose probability of being false is 99%, or 50%?

Do you see a big difference between, on the one hand, teaching children that there ARE people who believe things that most people find untenable, and, on the other, REQUIRING THEM TO BELIEVE those things?

Do you agree that when a government mandates the display in all public schools of an icon depicting the crucifixion of Christ, and implying as a certainty that the crucifixion was followed by the resurrection, that they are at least contributing to a strategy designed to make children believe something that most people in the world reject?