Chris Pinto's assessment of the debate: not a matter of winning or losing

Chris Pinto's assessment of the debate is here and he did his usual great job of mustering his material and making his points.  He has command of his information and he has the right Christian attitude as well.

Was the Simonides question resolved in the debate?  Clearly not. 

I know I've been falling down on the job on this blog in recent months, being preoccupied with other things.  When I see a whole page of articles critical of Chris Pinto as a "conspiracy thinker" by another Christian ministry I'm not going to name, I feel the weight of my failure to keep up with these issues.   But Chris always answers that accusation very effectively. 

At the end he criticizes those of us who have made remarks in terms of who won the debate and makes it clear he doesn't think in those terms, that all the participants are on the same side, all seeking the truth that best serves the Lord.  Wonderful, I want to believe that, and in the most general sense I do believe it.  The problem is that the debate format itself demands a win/lose orientation, and those who are exercised in debating skills usually "win" it as far as making a more effective-sounding case for their side irrespective of the actual facts or truth they've brought out.

After hearing Chris' assessment of the debate I'm happily reminded of just how fully he commands his material, which didn't get to come out in the debate as I'd have hoped, as at the end of the debate I had felt that the wrong side of the issues had come out on top.  Again, the problem with the debate format is that it favors the wrong goals if what you are really concerned about is a collegial effort at resolving differences in the service of the Lord.  Rather than casting this sort of disagreement in a debate format it needs something more along the lines of a round-table discussion, and MUCH more time should be given to it.