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A great deal of thanks must be conveyed upon Brother BeholderGuard who not only recorded the debate, but also did a video for it, added quotations and commentary. If I was difficult to hear in the first recording produced, then please note that this recording is 100% clearer! Glory be to Allaah for this recording, as it’s clear and crisp in its audio:
wa Allaahu ‘Alam.
I really didn’t expect this to be made public so quickly by Pastor Samuel, but here’s his comments on the debate amongst his Christian fans and supporters over at the Answering Muslims website:
Much of what Pastor Samuel has conceded to is the truth. He didn’t answer close to 1/3 of the historical, theological of philosophical issues I presented with the incarnation theology well. I’m happy he made these statements, as it demonstrates quite a factual reality about our debate. As for his points, my responses are:
These are just shoddy excuses to cover the fact that as the Pastor himself admits, and praise be to God he’s stated this, he didn’t respond to even 1/3 of my points during the debate, which led to a frustrating period for him during the cross fire period.
Addressing Two Hater Comments
One hater boasted that my only argument was the quote from Tertullian which says the belief in Christ’s incarnation was absurd and silly. If this Christian is willing to be honest, he’d have to then explain how in his 15 line quasi review he proudly declared I quoted many liberal scholars, James Dunn, James White and Athanasius. Your own words against me, are self contradictory.
This same hater boasted that I misused the fallacy of confirmation bias, to the contrary, as many viewers of the debate have indicated within the Paltalk room itself, my opening statement and argument was spot on, Samuel did not present any historical, philosophical or rational evidences for his position, he merely said this is what my God in the scripture I believe in said, therefore the incarnation is true. I call upon any Christian to demonstrate that Pastor Samuel did not do this.
One other hater, Anthony Rogers (who is known for threatening to rape me, and also known for getting exposed as a copy paster who claimed to research Arabic sources but instead literally stole the works of a Muslim brother who later called him out on it), claimed I was disrespectful and nasty throughout the debate. I do believe their was a moderator present and Pastor Samuel did not once complain to her, to make matters worse, no Christian during the Question and Answer period claimed the same, nor did any of them post comments to that effect. You seem to have taken issue with my quote of Tertullian, yet quoting your founding fathers of your faith doesn’t make me nasty, it makes them nasty. I understand your misdirected anger though, you obviously can’t attack a Church Father, so I guess I’ll take the hate for him. I also recognize that since our debate, you’ve pretty much been unable to stop me from walking over your ego by becoming more popular in the apologetics circles, I mean you’ve been asking people to ignore me, but since then I’ve – been featured by Dr. James White on his Dividing Line program, Dr. James White’s made videos about me, Sam Shamoun’s found himself arguing with me, your own co-workers at Answering Islam and Answering Muslims (Cl Edwards and Samuel Green) have debated me, you were embarrassed by the Bob Siegel saga which I made worse by publicising it and then to your dismay the guy actually put me on his show and gave me an audience in the week gone. Not only that, our website has exploded in views, doubling really and the Muslim Debate Initiative has made me an official speaker.
So I realised you really didn’t like my quoting of Tertullian, so I did you a little favour and reposted it to my Facebook page of 600, 000 + fans, just to piss you off:
So now because of your silly attack on me, 28, 900+ 42, 400+ 51, 000+ Muslims have been exposed to the statements by Tertullian and I promise, the more stupid things you say, I’m merely going to make more people see how absurd the incarnation is.
Again, I’d like to thank the goodly Pastor for his honest concession and for Anthony who gave me the impetus to share Tertullian’s quote to over more than 28, 900+ 42, 400+ 51, 000+ individuals. More to come.
wa Allaahu ‘alam.
I’m not sure whether to call this a debate or not. It was horribly short, which we anticipated, but for the time we did spend, I do felt as if Bob missed the mark.
Bob’s Opening:
Bob opens with the same argument that he used against Br. Shadid, the Qur’aan claims to validate the Bible and authenticates the Bible. Then he went on to mention Isaiah 53 and Daniel 9 as evidences that it is reliable. That was about it.
Br. Ijaz’s Opening:
I had a little trouble with feedback for 2 minutes, but then I got started. I let them know the Qur’aan at its inception was seen as scripture, the Bible developed into a scripture. The Qur’aan has two strains of independent transmission going back to its primary source. The New Testament has atleast a 90 year gap between its primary sources and its empirical testimony. I demonstrated that in Islam we have CAR, Control + Authorization = Reliability. Our text is reliable because we control what was transmitted and we authorized specific persons with the requisite skill to transmit it, therefore making it reliable.
Question and Answer by the Moderator:
Again, Bob referred to Isaiah 53 and that the Qur’aan qualifies the Bible. Told him to read chapter 52 and that the suffering servant is the entire nation of Israel, I pointed to Devarim 28 to 31 and Yirmiyahu 44. As for the Qur’aan, I pointed to Surah 2, Verse 79.
I mentioned the Jews don’t believe in substitution atonement, he mentioned that Leviticus talks about this, I refuted him and mentioned that Leviticus mentions the Korban Pesach in which an animal is sacrificed, not a human, he did not respond.
The moderator asked about our concepts of heaven (I found this to be a pretty silly question, irrelevant to the topic), Bob mentioned we needed Christ to go to heaven. I mentioned that Christiainity doesn’t speak about heaven, the Apocalypses do and they’re an addition to the Christian faith, a late addition. Only Islam promotes an inclusive heaven, as our God is willing to forgive all sin, even blasphemy. I went on to say that the Christian God is a God which excludes mercy because if I as a Muslim disbelieve in the Holy Spirit (that’s blasphemy) I would then never go to heaven, thus our concept of God is more complete.
Bob was asked when did the NT get written, he said 90 CE, said 2 Peter called the NT scripture and that Christ claimed to be God. For my turn, I mentioned the story of ‘Umar (may Allaah be pleased with him) to demonstrate the Qur’aan was written during its inception in Makkah and we do have a C-1 text from within the lifetime of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) – see Arabica 57, 2010. In response to Bob, I mentioned the first empirical evidence we have is from 125 CE and anyone can make a hypothesis to claim any time earlier, but we need evidence to support our claims. Mentioned that 2 Peter is a Pastorial and is dated to be from sometime in the second century by most critics. Lastly, I let him know, he can’t know what Christ said or didn’t say from the NT because it was not first person verbatim.
20 Minute Back and Forth/ Free Discussion:
I asked Bob a simple question: Given Psalm 119:89, which canon or codex of the OT and NT do you say is from God. Took Bob around 15 minutes to answer. He went off on translations, at one point he said,”when Muslims read the Qur’aan in any other language beside Arabic, they are reading the Qur’aan”, I kindly let him know that they’re reading an interpretation, a translation, but not the primary text. The primary text is important, which is why us Muslims are like your scholars, your scholars read the primary text in its original languages for understanding and study, the lay Muslim learns how to recite the Qur’aan in its primary language because we value and appreciate our text, something you leave for your scholars to do.
In answering my questions, which I had to insist on, he finally said he accepted all canons and codices, but before I could pose a question to him, he decided to ask me an off topic question. What makes the Qur’aan true? I pointed to the Pythagoreans and the Essenes who settled in Northern Arabia and who later accepted Islam. I pointed to the mass conversion of educated Arian Christians and Jews in Iberia when the message of Islam reached them. The geopolitical success of Islam in conquering the Roman and Persian empires , all from a book that Bob says was written by one man.
Lastly, Bob decided to talk about how violent the Qur’aan is by quoting Surah 9, I responded with Qur’aan 2:190-194. I then furthered my response with mentioning the return of Jesus being vastly more violent, see Zechariah 14, in which Bob agreed Christ would return as a warrior. I began to laugh because Bob found it offensive that the Qur’aan may command violence, but was completely okay knowing that Christ would mass murder non-believers when he returned and this was not a problem for him.
My Thoughts:
The time was too short, the radio signal was horrid – this is consensus by a Christian ally from Canada, a Muslim friend from London. I got a ton of feedback during the show. Bob was unable to answer my questions, on the text of the NT being reliably transmitted. I provided examples and literature which verified the Islamic perspective and the best he could muster up was an argument that someone said the original Qur’aan could not be found, which is when I then referred to the C-1 text.
All in all, this was not worth my time. Bob really isn’t a debater and he seems more interested in polemics than actually discussing the topic. This is a common problem that I faced in all of my debates so far, I tend to speak over the heads of my opponents. I’m more of a reader, an academic, they are more inclined to preaching and so asking technical questions, historical questions is a significant problem on my behalf because I’m unable to get proper answers simply because my opponents cannot make sense of the questions being asked.
I invite Bob to Paltalk, where we can have an discussion unrestricted by time and in which we can talk to the audience. I’m not earnest for it because as I said, Bob is different to me, he’s satisfied with the non-technical questions, I tend to read academic texts synoptically and so my reading and study is different from Bob, but if he’s willing to bite the bullet, I suppose I am to.
wa Allaahu ‘alam.
Looking forward to this debate, it’ll be a short one, 1 hour or so long, 5 minute opening statement and moderated by Bob’s friend, Fred. There will be no question and answer call in session, but the first half hour of the debate will focus on the moderator posing certain questions to each debater, whereas the other 30 mins would be a discussion between Bob and I, the details are as seen below:
Tomorrow (24th November, 2013) at:
Topic:
Live stream:
wa Allaahu ‘alam.
Salaam ‘Alaykum,
The event is carded for tonight:
You may use WorldTimeBuddy to check the time for yourself, if it’s not listed above. The debate will be stream via this link.
wa Allaahu ‘Alam.
Riddles, questions, thoughts, I wonder what the answers to these would be? These aren’t meant to be insulting, and we do apologize if they seem to be so, these are just honest inquiries into the Christian faith.
Answers are welcomed, I’m sure there are some who can give some interesting responses.
and God knows best.
The information about Bob Siegel is provided through his website here:
A graduate of Denver Seminary and San Jose State University, Bob Siegel is a radio talk show host and popular guest speaker at churches and college campuses across the country, using a variety of media including, seminars, formal debates, outdoor open forums and one man drama presentations.
Bob grew up in a strong Jewish home, but was led to Christ while in college, through the ministry of Campus Ambassadors.
(Mission To The Americas).
Bob has debated many outspoken atheists, including, Dan Barker (Freedom From Religion Foundation), Phil Paulson, (Fundamentalists Anonymous) and Dr. Robert Price (The Jesus Seminar).
Bob is listed in Marquis’ Who’s Who in the West. In addition to his own weekly radio show (KCBQ 1170, San Diego) Bob has been a guest on many other programs, including The 700 Club, The Dr. Gina Show, Andy Parks, Live from the Washington Times, The Rick Amato Show, KUSI Television’s Good Morning San Diego, The Way TV, an outreach satellite network that broadcasts all over North and South America, Europe and the Middle East, and the world popular Jonathan Park radio drama series, for which Bob guest starred in two episodes and wrote one episode, The Clue From Ninevah.
Bob is a regular contributor for Communities @ Washington Times, San Diego Newsroom and San Diego Rostra. Between 2007 and 2010 his daily blog was frequently found in the National Top Ten on Townhall.com. Bob does a good deal of playwriting as well (14 plays & 5 collaborations), including the award winning, Eternal Reach. Bob has also published two books. A Call To Radical Discipleship, and I’d Like to Believe In Jesus, But…
Bob recently had an interesting debate with Br. Shadid Lewis (colleague at MDI) and I found his debate to be very poor. He did not present any strong arguments, his reasoning was weak and as I stated previously (in other articles) he simply embarrassed himself. Having heard my remarks, Bob Siegel has taken offense to them and has offered me a debate challenge, which I have accepted (and he’s confirmed my reception via e-mail). I will be challenging Bob on the same topic, the reliability of the New Testament. Now he thinks I was unfair in my assessment of his performance, which he is entitled to disagree with.
I’ll appear on his radio programme and the debate will be moderated. Details such as the time and date would be published soon. I’m excited to debate Bob and I am more excited to reach out to him and demonstrate to him, that the New Testament was not, is not and can never be considered reliable.
and Allaah knows best.
Br. Shadid Lewis and CL Edwards recently had a debate entitled, “Can We Trust the Islamic Jesus“, this is not a review of the debate (the review shall be published soon), but this is a criticism of CL Edward’s methodology of which he employed during the debate. I base my informed criticism about CL, on my experience as a debater who has also previously engaged with him in a recorded debate and on my past rebuttals to him.
The Scope and Delimitations of the Debate
It’s all in the title. When two debaters sit down to discuss a topic, they are agreeing to leave off all other discussions and to focus on what the subject of the debate is. So for example, if I sit down with an opponent, and we agree to debate oranges, we are agreeing to discuss nothing but oranges, we will not discuss any other fruit such as an apple, or a banana. This therefore is what we refer to as the scope (depth) and the delimitations (boundaries of the debate). The scope of the debate, is that we have agreed to discuss everything about oranges, as much as we can. The delimitations (or boundaries) of the debate, mean that we limit ourselves to the discussion of oranges. CL would have to explain if he did not agree to debate this topic, to atleast release himself from the criticism against him.
What’s in the Title?
The title of the debate was and up to the start of the debate, declared to be, “Can We Trust the Islamic Jesus“. Let’s break the title up to understand what the scope and delimitations of the debate was:
Who is being referred to as, ‘we‘, here? Well, let the evidence show that the we, includes solely Christians and Muslims. Why do I say this? Well for one, the organization which CL Edwards represented was a Christian organization, the Center for Religious Debate. The audience was a Christian audience. The debate was held inside of a Church and the debate began and ended with Christian prayers.
Secondly, they were debating the Islamic Jesus, not the sources of the Islamic Jesus, but whether or not Christians, can trust the Islamic Jesus, not the Islamic faith, the Islamic scriptures, the Islamic Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), but the Islamic Jesus.
What was Shadid’s Methodology?
Since this was a Christian opponent, and a Christian audience and given the scope and delimitations of the debate title, Br. Shadid’s methodology was quite simple. It can be demonstrated in set notation:
Let Set M represent the attributes of Islamic Jesus:
Let Set C represent the attributes of the Christian Jesus:
Set C represents what Christians trust about Jesus, therefore, Shadid’s methodology is to demonstrate the intersection of Islamic beliefs and Christians beliefs about Jesus, imply that they already believe what Muslims believe, and since they already trust their own beliefs about Christ, they then already trust the Islamic beliefs about Christ.
Let M ^ C be the intersection or what is commonly trusted among the beliefs of Muslims and Christians about Christ:
The Muslim beliefs about Christ, are therefore declared to be a subset of the beliefs which Christians have about Jesus Christ. I’m using set logic, or set notation, since this is the easiest way to explain Br. Shadid’s methodology. I’m also using this form of explanation, since CL Edwards claims to have studied logic, or atleast attempted to explain (without reason), the definition of several logical fallacies during the debate. It is therefore the case, that CL clearly is an inane ignoramus, a sophomore (bookful blockhead), who although being a claimant of utilizing logic, he clearly did not understand the clear and consistent logic as used by Br. Shadid. My criticism against CL shows that he either intentionally misled himself into thinking he was a logician, or he fooled his audience by claiming to understand Br. Shadid’s methodology.
What was CL’s Methodology?
CL Edwards focused his argument on the following points:
His methodology however, fails to live up to the scope and delimitations of the debate title, for which both speakers agreed upon. Let’s look at the first argument. The debate is not about the reliability of the Qur’aan, therefore the first argument of CL is outside the scope and delimitations of the debate, not to mention it contradicts his own beliefs as the New Testament itself is outside of the first century via empirical evidence (P52 dated to 125 CE), theoretically though it is dated to have existed in some form during the 70 – 80 CE, however there is no physical manuscript (for which CL argued for) which proves this.
His second argument, once again falls outside of the scope and delimitations of the title. The debate is not about the reliability of eyewitness reports. Br. Shadid during the debate also successfully demonstrated that the New Testament was written decades after Christ, by persons unknown to Christ, the names of the Gospels are mere attributions as handed down by tradition and not by fact.
Lastly, his final point, the existence of the Injeel also fails to be relevant to the title. The debate is not about whether the Injeel existed or not, or what the evidence for the Injeel is, therefore this argument of CL is highly irrelevant and clearly outside the scope and delimitations of the agreed debate title.
A Change of Scope and Delimitations
At some point during the debate, CL realised that if he were to argue against trusting the Islamic Jesus, he’d have to argue against what Christians already believe about Christ – since the Muslim beliefs about Christ are a subset of what Christians already do believe (this was demonstrated above). CL, realising this, decided to alter the scope of the debate, by asking Br. Shadid to assume he was an atheist, and therefore from this angle, challenged him to prove that the Islamic Jesus existed.
Once again, this only goes to demonstrate that CL is not a professional debater, nor is he educated. To begin with, if we are to discuss the topic that CL proposed, then we’d be discussing the origins of Christ, since atheists do not agree that Christ may have even existed at all. This is outside the scope of the debate, as the title does not indicate that either speaker was to prove Christ existed, but rather to show that Christians who already believed in a Jesus Christ, can also believe or trust in the Islamic Christ.
A Hypocrite of Unforeseen Proportions
During the debate CL Edwards found himself claiming several fallacies of Br. Shadid, to which he himself is victim of:
CL’s confirmation bias, was demonstrated when he declared that the Bible came from eyewitnesses during the first century. This is clearly a false notion and none of the NT texts have been transmitted as first person verbatim.
By pretending to be an atheist and asking Br. Shadid to prove that Christ existed at all and then condemning him when he chose not to – and to instead stick to the debate, this is in itself a straw man argument.
Lastly, Br. Shadid, practised the Christian methodology of typology, in which they read from their own text/ scripture (the New Testament) about the Christ and then they return to the Old Testament to demonstrate that he was mentioned there, or that the Old Testament offers proofs about him. Br. Shadid applied this same methodology to the New Testament, he declared the Christ of the Qur’aan to be trustworthy and then using typology, demonstrated the Qur’aanic Christ from the New Testament. One of the strangest arguments from CL is that he asked, how could Br. Shadid seek for evidences of an Islamic Christ in a book he himself believe to be corrupted, when CL himself and many Christians believe that Jews corrupted the Torah to hide the truth about the Christ’s prophecies within them. He lowly can he go?
Very Low
In a last ditch attempt to salvage a debate in which the methodology of Br. Shadid flew over his head, in a debate to which he could not commit himself to be relevant, and to a crowd who was anxious – waiting for him to make a single valid point, CL went to the lowest low. He began to insult and use derogatory terms. How are these questions relevant to the trustworthiness of the Islamic Christ?
These have nothing to do with the debate, but rather these were low blows in attacking the faith of Br. Shadid, in order to escape the reality that CL cannot stand up and defend his faith, so he rather cast insults to make himself feel better. In contrast, doesn’t CL believe in a deity who is a man, and therefore does have genitals? We also pray that CL has taken a biology class or two, but again, his level of intelligence is yet to be established, therefore it is no wonder he has labelled a young adult as a child, he does not know that at the age of sexual maturation, a child can no longer be labeled as such.
The Reality of the Debate
If CL had to argue that the Islamic Jesus was not trustworthy, seeing as the Islamic beliefs about Christ, are a subset of Christian beliefs about Christ, he’d be relegated to arguing against his own religion. Therefore, for a majority of the debate, he focused on things outside of the scope and delimitation of the topic – the existence of the Injeel, the Qur’aanic claims about Christ, the eyewitnesses, God’s genitals, explaining the meanings of some logical fallacies, etc. CL did not have the courage to discuss the topic directly and therefore found himself fiddling around with largely irrelevant arguments, pretending to be atheist and mocking his opponent.
I’ve always held that the debate with Bob Siegel was the worst of the series, but to me, CL took the cake for this title. Bob was uninformed, inexperienced, but we cannot offer the same excuses for CL. He’s debated before, this is his field of interest, he’s a seminary student, he claims to be an ex-Muslim, he has no excuse for his lackluster performance, his shameful behaviour and his lack of mental fortitude to cope with the methodology and logic of Br. Shadid.
CL Can’t Change
I experienced the same with CL during my debate with him. Like any other dud, he tried to explain that Christ was God from evidences in the Bible, the debate however was titled, “Is Jesus God, man or both”?, it never asked according to the Qur’aan or Bible! I caught him out, demonstrated that his evidences and opening were useless, I used the secular historical method, never once quoting the New Testament or the Qur’aan. I’d presented an argument, with a methodology that he hadn’t prepared for, so his counter arguments were nuanced, he couldn’t salvage the debate because he didn’t prepare for it in the way I did.
Similarly, he wrongly assumed the arguments Br. Shadid would offer, so when Br. Shadid offered something logical, and clear, something CL didn’t think of – he had to go all out to not lose a second debate in a row. CL lost one debate, perhaps we could excuse him as it was his first, but to lose a second in a row because he was unprepared to deal with his opponent’s arguments – demonstrates that he is not a debater, he cannot hold his own and when he’s put to defend his religion, he can’t.
The Challenge
I know CL cannot debate me, I know that he’d try to mock me or insult my religion or cast aspersions about my character. Regardless of these things, he cannot hold his own in a debate, so here I am, challenging CL to debate me, let’s debate the topic Bob failed to impress on, “Is the NT Reliable“? Can you defend your religion against a person who’s not only significantly younger than you, but who’s unfazed by your theatrics? The challenge has been issued, all we need now is to see if CL can stand up and hold his own…? I’ve issued an email challenge to him, this is the message verbatim:
Good day Mr. Edwards,
Please see the following article assessing your performance, and also see the challenge towards the end:
Can you hold your own?
Let’s see what his next move is.
and Allaah knows best.
It is no secret that the Answering Muslims Blog is operated by extremist right-wing American Christians, David Wood himself is a very active member of the anti-iimigration, anti-Muslim organization Act4America!, and several of their posts are very critical of the US President simply because of his ethnicity. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that the persons who often view their blog, think similarly to them. Unfortunately, they have no shame in what they say, despite claiming to be religious folk and a few of their members let their racism openly be known directly on the Answering Muslims Blog and via one of their friend’s Paltalk rooms of which Anthony Rogers (under the pseudonym, Charles Martel), frequently visits and supports:
Click to Enlarge
This particular Christian found it particularly pleasant to refer to Br. Shadid’s ‘fetish‘ for being whipped. It is quite well known that African slaves in America were punished via the whip, or lashes with whips as is described in violent beatings referred to as ‘lynchings’. Therefore, this person’s insinuation is that Br. Shadid is a black Muslim who like those before him, likes to be whipped by his Caucasian Christian superiors.
This comment is a bit more direct and was featured prominently on the Answering Muslims blog. Here we can see a Caucasian Christian, insinuating that Br. Shadid was an angry black Muslim, who was very threatening to those in the West. Why would the color of his skin need to be mentioned, and why the adjective angry? It’s fairly common to see racists referring to Afro-Americans as ‘Angry Black Persons‘, in this case, Br. Shadid is rendered as an ‘Angry Black Muslim Man‘, who is ‘very threatening‘, and was ‘yelling‘ at his audience. Whereas Bob Siegel who debated Br. Shadid, was screaming and making strange noises on stage, but never once was he described as ‘loud‘, ‘yelling‘ or ‘angry‘.
Neither David Wood nor Anthony Rogers who commented on the same post on their blog, found it to be inappropriate that Br. Shadid’s color of skin was used as a criticism against him, which only goes to show that they agree with what this person wrote. As Muslims, we do not allow racism to be a part of our religion, even if we dislike a certain culture, we dislike the culture itself and not the persons, as it is easy to dislike a sin, but not to hate the sinner – as no one is devoid of God’s mercy and guidance.
We kindly ask Answering Muslims to issue an apology to the Muslim and African communities in regards to their racism and we hope to see that they shall take punitive measures to curb the racist culture which is bred amongst their fan base. I decided to send an e-mail to Anthony Rogers (smprparatus@aol.com), asking him to address the issue:
Good Day Mr. Rogers,
I am quite appalled to have seen several racist comments issued by your fan base in regards to Br. Shadid Lewis, including mentions of him liking to be whipped and that he was also an angry black man. I do not know if you condone, or if your faith allows you to pursue such views (viz a viz the curse of Ham), but as a Muslim I have found those remarks to be quite distasteful and abusive.In this article I have screenshotted said comments issued by your fan base:
https://callingchristians.com/2013/09/13/christians-racially-abuse-br-shadid-lewis/
Will you be intending to address the racist culture bred amongst your fan base, or is this behaviour something you and your faith condones? Looking forward to a reply given the serious nature of this situation.
Br. Ijaz Ahmad
http://www.callingchristians.com
and Allaah knows best.
Bob Siegel is a Muslim hero. After his debate with Br. Shadid Lewis, there can be no doubt that Bob secretly works for Muslims. I say this because Bob seemed to offend, almost insult and argue against Christianity in last night’s debate. Not only did he not defend the reliability of the New Testament (as was the topic of focus), but he successfully argued against it, while embarrassing himself in one of the most absurd displays of immaturity I have ever been privy to witness.
Unfortunately for Bob, I have a very strong feeling that he would now be the focus of many Muslim-Christian debates, because of his self refuting nature, it’s impossible that anyone debating him could actually lose. In a debate where Bob had to defend the reliability of the Christian New Testament, Bob said, in no uncertain terms:
one scribe writes something stupid and another scribe crosses it out
According to Bob Siegel, the hero of Muslims everywhere (Calling Christians is probably going to consider forwarding him a proposal to make him our spokesperson), during the writing of his scripture, people wrote stupid things in it, or a scribe copied stupid things that God said and other scribes crossed out what they felt was stupid. Now isn’t that funny, in a book that he’s supposed to be defending as reliable – he argues that arbitrary editing on the count of something being apparently stupid – was done. If that isn’t arguing against his own point, then I don’t know what to call it.
This however, wasn’t the worse thing that Bob did, at one point Bob decided to break out into song and dance – yes, singing and dancing during an academic discourse because he felt like it. Flailing arms, animated speaking, voice impersonations and more, Bob is a man of many talents, but what he is not is a professional debater, nor an academic. To be quite honest, I’d pay money to have Bob entertain me, he’s good at it, he’s very theatrical, a great singer, amazing dancer, his voice impersonations would make you laugh – it was a blast! Yet, this was neither the place nor the occasion for Bob to showcase his dramatic talents.
This was a debate, on behalf of the Center for Religious Debate. His arguments were poor, so poor that during his opening statement I successfully only counted one argument about the reliability of the New Testament. One, just a single stand alone argument. Other than that, Bob was largely a dud, nothing intelligent came out of his mouth and with each passing moment he seemed to slowly poison the well of Christian thought and belief. Besides negating the reliability of the New Testament and declaring the Bible to contain stupid man made writings, he happened to use awful analogies and at the very worse, emotional ranting.
Emotional Bob, this should be his stage name, and this is not meant to be insulting. Bob started his defense of the reliability of the New Testament by declaring that he spoke to God, he knows God and therefore nothing can be said to change his mind about the reliability of the New Testament. Isn’t that funny? For an academic discussion, you’d like to assume that one would provide evidences, maybe discuss or mention a theory or two, perhaps reference some famous scholarly works, but not Bob, he decided to throw thousands of years of Christian scholarship into a liberal trash can and figured his best plan of defending the reliability of the Bible is to declare that God literally, told him it was reliable.
Now, Bob wasn’t all that horrible, he did have some good, hard hitting points. His discussion on the cayaf (?, cayaph, kayaf, kayaph) was very insightful. Bob, what in the heck is a kayaf and what did it have to do with your debate last night? Apparently ‘kayaf’ is something Islamic that no Muslim knows about…
Sorry Bob, but I just had to make you into a meme, did God also tell you I was going to do that? If not, maybe you should try to figure out what that voice in your head was, I’m thinking that it wasn’t God.
Now, Bob spoke largely about the Qur’aan and Islam, perhaps for 75% of the time he was speaking. This was a debate about the reliability of the New Testament, but I don’t think Bob got the memo that this was a debate or what the topic of the debate was. At one point, he asked the moderator how much time he had left and decided to forego 2 and 1/2 minutes of speaking time during his rebuttal period. Funnily enough, he later complained that he was not given enough time to speak.
Bob, you are the hero of Muslims everywhere. I pray that one day I do get to debate you, because you’d be the easiest person to debate. I’m hoping that you do more debates with Muslims, especially focusing on the topic of Christianity, perhaps you’d bring more Christians to Islam than is possible – you’re a great spokesperson for Islam and we wouldn’t have it any other way.
Calling Christians 
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