The Secular Outpost seems to consistently get a lot of traffic from people who are doing Internet searches for “best atheist debaters.” This post is for them.

This post was originally titled “Best Atheist Debaters.” Just as I changed the old post “Worst Atheist Debaters” to “Worst Atheist Debate Performances,” I’ve changed this post from “Best Atheist Debate Performances.” The logic is simple: anyone can get lucky and have an exceptionally good day or exceptionally bad day. So with that said…

I don’t know of any way to be completely objective about this sort of thing; I know that many people will have their own opinions about this. For what it is worth, here is my list of the “best atheist debaters” for oral debates on God’s existence, in alphabetical order:

• Craig-Dacey Debate
• Craig-Dacey Debate 2
• Craig-Kagan Debate
• Craig-Parsons Debate
• Craig-Parsons Debate 2
• Craig-Tabash Debate
• Craig-Tooley Debate
• Fernandes-Lowder Debate*

* I know how self-serving it looks for me to put myself on such a list. For what it’s worth, I did so based on feedback others have publicly posted regarding my past debates.

I consider Paul Draper an excellent philosopher and debater, but I did not put him on the list for the simple reason that he self-identifies as an agnostic, not an atheist. If we were to expand or retitle the list into a list of “best nontheist debaters,” however, he would definitely be on the list.

Disclaimer: Nothing should be read into the fact that someone is not on the list. I haven’t evaluated all of the atheist debaters (who do oral debates); additionally, there are others I’ve watched but haven’t decided whether to include them.

Related Posts:

“Our Debates” [ Index ]

“Review of the Craig-Draper Debate: Does God Exist?” by Jeffery Jay Lowder

“Review of the Craig-Jesseph Debate: Does God Exist?” by Jeffery Jay Lowder

“Who Is the Most Prominent Atheist” (4-Jul-06) by Jeffery Jay Lowder