Turkel felt so full of himself that he later said that he would extend the challenge to "everyone."
And so, since "Huey" has declined to answer our challenge given personally, preferring (apparently) the relative safety of his closed circle on this list of his, we'll re-issue the challenge here, and as a special bonus make it open to everyone -- and thereby express a key theme of Tekton Apologetics Ministries. The challenge is simple: Pick up any essay of mine and refute it. Contact me for terms of exchange. And if I hear nothing, I'll guess I'll just have to assume that no one can respond to my material.
"Huey" was a derogatory slur on the skeptic's Arabic name "Huyamunn." Those who are familiar with Turkel's antics know that such derision is typical of him. His favorite epithet for me is "McTill." I suppose it is his deeply ingrained "Christian love" that motivates him to fill his articles with constant streams of insults, sarcasms, and vituperations.
For some time, I was aware of Turkel's "Chicken Challenge," but I never responded to it, because I knew that he would (1) not accept my counterchallenge and (2) would never post a link on his site that would allow his readers easy access to my acceptance of the challenge. To answer him under these circumstances would have been a complete waste of time, so I remained silent until Turkel indicated years later that he would debate me in an open-forum internet format that would give his readers links to my part of the debates. When he agreed to this--an agreement that, by the way, he is now reneging on--I replied to some of his articles and then posted a response to his "chicken challenge" in which I pointed out that I had certainly met the conditions that he had stipulated in his reply to "Huey." I stated that I would therefore expect him to join the ii_errancy list, where topics concerning biblical inerrancy are discussed.
Turkel replied to my article with his "Mr. Perdue Has His Say." I, of course, am "Mr. Perdue," which some have suggested that Turkel intended to mean that I am the "chicken man," but after readers realize that Turkel has reneged on his original "chicken challenge" and have seen him reject the new proposal that I am presenting in this article, everyone should know who the real chicken man is. Be that as it may, Turkel has replied, and, surprise, surprise, he has reneged on his offer. You could have knocked me over with a feather when I saw that, because I thought that he would jump at the chance to humiliate me on my own internet list. I guess, however, that he is no longer interested in thrashing biblical skeptics "like nobody's business." I guess he prefers "the relative safety of his closed circle" on his Tektonics website. I can only assume that he knows that he cannot answer my material.
He was not without excuses, of course. (Turkel is never without excuses.) His first excuse was that I had misinterpreted the offer and had incorrectly assumed that it was for "everyone."
Till shows himself to be a poor reader as usual, and seems to think that the challenge is the same for everyone else as it was for Huey/Adnan -- that is, if you write even a 20% successful refutation of an item, I will join your list, which was the recorded challenge to Huey/Adnan from years previous.
Well, I guess that I had misunderstood his challenge, because he had clearly said (in the statement quoted above directly from his article) that since "Huey" had not answered the challenge, he was going to "re-issue [ sic] the challenge here, and as a special bonus make it open to everyone." Would I not be included in "everyone"? If not, why not? Could he not find satisfaction in thrashing me like "nobody's business"?
Well, Turkel had another excuse to explain away the "everyone" offer. As I said above, Turkel is never without excuses. In the quotation, I have retained his punctuation.
Such, sorry Farrell, is not the terms of the challenge now, and even if by chance he WERE 20% successful (which he hasn't been, and that's no surprise, since he can't even read straight and thinks I asked him to pay for 90% of my website) I wouldn't get on his list at the price of indeed having my website paid for 90% or even 110% for the next 8 years.
I'll let those who have read my debate exchanges with Turkel decide if I have been as much as 20% successful in replying to him. I suspect that many would say that 100% would be a more accurate estimate in what I have so far had time to cover. The fact that Turkel is doing just about everything he can to conceal my rebuttals from his readers by zipping them to discourage those who don't want to take the time to unzip them or don't have the software to do it and the fact that he is now reneging on his promise to provide his readers with links to my rebuttals is a clear indication that Turkel is trying to move his website back to what it used to be, i.e., a tightly closed circle where he could enjoy the security of preaching to his choir with the assurance that he will receive only praise and not have to deal with the annoyance of rebuttal articles that take him to the cleaners and then hang him out to dry.
As for his umpteenth reference to the issue of whether he had once stipulated that he would debate me on the condition that I would pay for 90% of his website for eight years in advance, I will refer readers to my latest reply to this in which I quoted directly from his own website to show that this was a condition that he had stipulated. I would ask readers to verify the accuracy of my quotation of this website article, but I can no longer access it. Turkel has apparently removed it. He has a habit of either removing or revising articles after errors in them have been exposed or he has been caught with his pants down on some issue. With his original article now erased from his website, he can continue to deny that he stipulated as a condition of debating that I pay 90% of the cost of his website eight years in advance, and his admirers, of course, will believe him. Perhaps this condition that he stipulated in his now missing website article is another then-and-now situation like the "chicken challenge" that he had extended to "everyone." When he issued the challenge was "then," but "now" he no longer extends the challenge to "everyone," so maybe when he said that I would have to pay 90% of his website eight years in advance was "then," but "now" he has dropped that requirement.
After twisting himself into verbal knots to try to make a challenge to "everyone" not be a challenge to everyone, he then made it clear that he would not make good on his promise to join the internet list of anyone who could be successful in replying to 20% of any article he has posted on his site.
Why? Chicken?
Does he want an honest answer here? If he does, my answer is that I think that this is exactly why he is trying to extricate himself from a predicament of his own creation. He knows that if he tries to defend biblical inerrancy in a forum where he will encounter informed opposition, he will suffer more embarrassment than he cares to experience. He, of course, has a different answer.
No, because I have already lined up the chickens and plucked them as it is. As one reader once commented, why should I go in and fight the trolls with my fists when I'm already plucking them off from the roof of my castle with a high-powered bazooka?
Well, if Turkel really believes this, I have to wonder why he makes his website so complicated to navigate, why he zips his articles that I have ripped to pieces, and why he is not putting the links to my articles that he promised to provide before the debate began. I want as many people as possible to see the shallowness and absurdity of his articles and his constant resorts to far-fetched how-it-could-have-beens, so that is why readers of my rebuttals will always find links to what he has written. Obviously, he doesn't feel as secure as he pretends when he is preaching to his choir from the roof of his castle.
As for the comment of "one reader," if he thinks that the comments of readers prove anything, then I can easily prove that I have plucked him cleaner than a Thanksgiving turkey, because I routinely receive messages from people who express the same opinion as the one below.
I enjoyed your latest reply to Turkel on the Abiathar issue. It is so funny because Turkel just can't admit that he is wrong, but he can't stop replying to you without losing face. I wonder if he will actually link to your latest reply.
And, no, this did not from a member of my ii-errancy list or alt.bible.errancy, which I also post to, and it did not come from a subscriber to The Skeptical Review. It was an unsolicited comment from someone who read the Abiathar exchanges and sent me his opinion. I haven't checked to see if Turkel linked to my last Abiathar article, but I have checked and seen that he isn't linking to my latest rebuttals of his preterist position.
I wonder why he isn't linking his readers to my articles. Doesn't he want his readers to see how he has lined me up and plucked me? I link my readers to him, because I want them to see just how badly Turkel's goose is being plucked.
I have saved in my computer files all correspondence that I exchanged with Turkel before and after our debates began, so he knows that I can prove that he promised to link his readers to all of my articles in the debates, but he is no longer doing that. Why? Common sense should tell readers that if Turkel really believed that he was "plucking [me] off from the roof of [his] castle with a high-powered bazooka," he would inundate his readers with links so that they could see for themselves the plucking I am taking, but he is no longer linking, because he knows that he is the one being plucked.
I am going to give Turkel another chance to put a little action where his mouth is. He has been boasting on his website that when he and his wife were college students, they enjoyed "torment[ing] [their] skeptical college professors who attacked Christianity."
One thing my wife and I both liked to do was torment our skeptical college professors who attacked Christianity. We'd both have a lot of fun with Stephen Harris, who brings us every liberal theory under the sun in one neat package. I found it hard to read this book, because I have little tolerance for people who bring only summary statements to the fore with qualifications like "most scholars say" -- those who use this phrase deserve a painful death by means of a Farrell Till lecture.
In another article, he boasted that he enjoyed giving "certain professors headaches."
Poor McTill. If only he knew how much I loved giving certain professors headaches in college. I did the same thing when they preached Ibsen's screed, "The majority is always wrong." As I asked my prof, "So does that mean that when 51% agree with Ibsen, he becomes wrong? If so, why did he try to convince anyone? That would seem counter-productive." And like McTill, their answer was to dodge and evade the fact that their subjective pearls of wisdom had been tested and found plastic. Or, the wiser ones than McTill changed the subject.
Turkel's boasting here reminds me of all those Christian-student/atheistic-professor urban legends that circulate on the internet. The situation is always the same. An unnamed student at an unnamed college or university took a class from an unnamed atheistic professor, who had a reputation for harassing Christians in his classes. At the first opportunity, the Christian student stood up, asked the professor a series of questions about whether he had ever seen his brain or some such, and very quickly the professor was left silent with nothing to say. Turkel's remarks above finally let us know who that mysterious Christian student was and what college it all happened at. It was Robert Turkel--before he became James Patrick Holding--at Florida State University or perhaps the community college that he attended before that.
Well, to borrow an expression from Dirty Harry, I am going to make Turkel's day. I have retired from college teaching, but if Turkel took such delight in showing up his professors at Florida State, he should take at least a little pleasure in humiliating me at his old alma mater. I challenge him to debate me on a biblical inerrancy issue at Florida State or any college of his choosing. I have already posted this challenge on the ii-errancy internet list and sent a copy of it to Turkel, which he hasn't answered yet. The challenge has already generated a great deal of interest. Several have e-mailed the list to say that they will gladly contribute money to my expenses, since I would have to travel from Central Illinois to Florida. I have declined these offers, because my policy has been not to accept money for my debating activities. I don't beg for money on any website, unlike someone I know; I travel at my own expense. If I can do that, Turkel should be able to pay his expenses from his home in Ocoee, Florida, to the university site. If, however, Turkel's pleas for money on his website haven't brought him sufficient funds to put gas in his car, maybe some who have offered to contribute to my expenses would chip in to fill up his tank. Heck, I'll even give him a fill-up myself. We will do everything we can to give Turkel the opportunity to brush off his big old high-powered bazooka and blast another professor to smithereens.
In addition to the offers of financial support for this proposed debate, Joe Reinhardt, the owner of a video production company, Access Media Group, in Clearwater, Florida, has written to tell me that he will offer the services of his company to produce a video of the debate.
I am a subscriber to The Skeptical Review. I am an active member of the Atheists of Florida; And I am also the owner of a video production facility in Clearwater, Florida. We frequently do broadcast quality, multi-camera on-location productions. I would be more than a little interested in producing a video of your debate with Turkel or anyone else willing to accept the challenge. This could be arranged with no up-front costs.
This should be an offer that Turkel can't refuse, but I am going to predict that he will. If he does refuse--and as surely as God made little green apples, he will--I will, to borrow an expression from him, just have to assume that he knows that he would not be able to respond to my material. I will also assume that his mouth is bigger than the courage of his convictions.
Another article on this subject has been posted on the Tektonics.Org Exposed! site, so I can abbreviate my comments about why Turkel should want to leap at this opportunity. I am in basic agreement with what the author of the other article said on this subject, so readers may refer to it to read what was said about reasons why Turkel should be eager to accept this opportunity. He could even begin his first speech with an introduction that summarized his professor-bashing days as a student at the university and then express his pleasure at having the opportunity to humiliate a retired instructor from an out-of-state college. I'm sure that Mr. Reinhardt would even let Turkel list the video tape on his Tektonics website and give him a cut of each copy he sold. Just think of the opportunity that Turkel would have to show his choir members that he wasn't just whistling Dixie when he bragged about his professor-bashing days.
The matter that should remain to be settled would be agreeing on a proposition for the debate. My only requirement would be that it be a proposition directly related to biblical inerrancy. I have noticed that Turkel recently ventured into defending the accuracy of the resurrection narratives in the New Testament gospels, so I propose the following proposition.
Resolved: The resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is a verifiable historical event.
Since the resurrection is the cornerstone of Christianity, which keeps the faith of Christians from being vain and their lives miserable (1 Cor. 15:17-19), I would think that Turkel would be eager to accept this opportunity to humiliate an old professor at the very institution where he received his degree in... library science? If, however, he doesn't want to debate this proposition, I have many others to propose, and, of course, he would be entitled to present his own counterproposal. Maybe he would prefer to defend the fulfillments of Ezekiel's prophecy against Egypt or Isaiah's prophecies against Babylon and Tyre, or maybe he would prefer to defend the historicity of the exodus and wilderness wandering tales.
Maybe pigs will fly someday too.
In late February, I will be going to Florida to see my grandson play in the college baseball tournaments in the Homestead area. I'll pass through the Orlando area close enough to Turkel's home in Ocoee to spit on it, so that would be a good time to have the debate, but we could do it later if he chooses. Whatever pushes his buttons.
If Turkel refuses this challenge, people are going to wonder why his mouth is so big but the courage of his convictions is so small. The best way to close this article would be to quote the last sentence in his "Chicken Challenge."
The
clock is still ticking. :-)
