Debate called off

[DavidObeid]

I'm sorry to announce that a public debate I had lined up with Independent Baptist minister Charlie Haddad from Slam Australia (http://slamaustralia.org.au/) will not be going ahead.

Charlie and his fellow Independent Baptist ministers are refusing to have the debate filmed and copies distributed. As a result, the debate will not be going ahead.

[Matthew]

Worried about losing? :P

[New Jack Swinger]

Pathetic I tell ya! They do not want it filmed at all, even if they bring their own cameras.

[Stephen Spiteri]

Perhaps it would be "bad for business" if they were seen to be unable to make a good case for the manner in which they practice their faith. Can you imagine turning up to a bunch of prison inmates who just realised their spiritual advisors had been holding out on them? ;)

[Nemo]

No fair... i wanted to see SLAM get slammed.

[DavidObeid]

The reason they gave was that they were unwilling to have the debate recorded or filmed.

They (falsely) alleged that an audio recording of a debate we had back in 2003 was tampered with and claimed that they did not want this to happen again. I offered them the opportunity to film the debate themselves on their own cameras, but they still refused, appealing to the same (in my opinion fake) reason.

[tony mattar]

i was really looking forward to this debate...
does it have to be filmed ?
can it go ahead without being filmed it will still be worth it to reveal the TRUTH either way ?

[DavidObeid]

We (Fr. Peter Joseph, Robert Haddad and myself) debated these guys in 2003 and we had the debate audio taped.

To put it bluntly, we massacred them.

They immediately started to spread the story around that we had doctored the audio tapes.

I will not debate these guys and have the truth later misrepresented. I don't for a moment put it past them to speak to a doubtful Catholic and attempt to sway them by saying something like, "You know, we debated some of your priests (the story after the last debate is that we were all priests and begged that Scripture wasn't used in the debate!!!!) and they agreed that our position is the more biblical etc etc."

As long as I believe they have a willingness to lie (refusing to be filmed counts as a willingness to lie as far as I am concerned) then it's a no go without video footage.

[Stephen Spiteri]

Where might one get hold of that audio debate, David?

[DavidObeid]

You'd need to contact Arlette Bowen from Lumen Verum Apologetics.

Anthony Succar is your best bet on how to contact her.

[frjohnlm]

what a pity my friend, we pray for another opportunity.. :-)

[OneFaith]

David,

Will there be another debate sometime soon? I would love to watch.

[DavidObeid]

Hi OneFaith,

The Independent Baptists we had the debate lined up with have said that they are unwilling to have any debates recorded, as such there won't be a debate with them at this stage. If you come across other people with an anti-Catholic stance who would be willing to debate please put us in contact with them.

[OneFaith]

Hi OneFaith,

The Independent Baptists we had the debate lined up with have said that they are unwilling to have any debates recorded, as such there won't be a debate with them at this stage. If you come across other people with an anti-Catholic stance who would be willing to debate please put us in contact with them.

No problem, you will be the first person I contact if I come across someone who wants to debate.

[GilWright]

Did you catch the post about Baptist pastors who are turning into Baptist Bishops (including some strange belief in apostolic succession)? Could be an interesting discussion point....

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/07/19/more_baptist_pastors_adopt_bishop_title/

[DavidObeid]

Let's face it Gil, it's not like they got very far without them ;)