This week, ABC News’s Nightline hosted a debate titled “Does God Have a Future?” Deepak “How To Know God” Chopra, Jean “A Passion for the Possible” Houston, Sam “The End Of Faith” Harris, and Michael “Skeptic” Shermer faced off. You can watch some of the choice moments on the ABC News site. From what I’ve seen of it, I agree with Greg Taylor’s review over at the Daily Grail:
…The show’s potential certainly wasn’t realised – in actual fact, it was quite a mess. Certainly, one of the most annoying aspects was the sloppy moderating which allowed Chopra to rudely interrupt Shermer and Harris continually, despite using up plenty of time himself when talking. But the real issue I think was that the question – ‘Does God have a future?’ – was ambiguous. Was it asking whether humans would need the concept of god to live happily in future? Or perhaps it was referring specifically to the Abrahamic God of Judaism/Christianity/Islam? Or did it mean to suggest that science and rational thought was possibly on the brink of disproving the idea of God itself, regardless of whether people need the concept to live happily.
Shermer and Harris certainly latched on to the Abrahamic God idea, while Chopra stuck to quantum New Age psycho-babble – which all led to a very disjointed ‘debate’ in which everyone was simply throwing forward their own ideas, playing to their section of the crowd, and not actually answering each other (or even the original question).
Nightline Face-Off: “Does God Have A Future?” (ABC News)