Final Reflections
Pastor Stephen Feinstein
Given that Russell only had one last response in this debate, it is unfortunate for the atheist community that he gave one with little substance. I will
admit, I did find his rhetoric quite entertaining. It does not surprise me that
many atheists probably found it to be beautiful. Yet at the end of the day, the
1,143 words that Russell dedicated to the history of religious explanation did
not advance his argument at all. Instead it was a red herring fallacy of the
worst kind. Furthermore, it was one of the poorest examples of historiography I
have ever read. I guess I can save that for another time. For now, I am going
to get back to the red herring aspect of it. Imagine if I mentioned how
atheistic communistic regimes killed 169 million people from 1917 until today,
stifled free expression and thought, and as a result contributed to less scientific
advancement than the free West, of which the majority of the population was
Christian. I am sure Russell and his atheist friends would say, “That’s a red
herring. Stick to the argument!”
In the “speech,” Russell also was guilty of the faulty
dilemma fallacy. Although he did not say it, his words strongly implied that you have a
choice. Go with science and we can discover endless
things, or go with religion and stifle all scientific progress. I find that to
be highly naïve and dishonest. Many Christians love science. We believe that
God created a uniform universe and designed us to discover many wonderful
things. Christian scientists have discovered great things throughout history.
And just as so-called Christian governments arrested free thinkers, so too have
atheistic governments. Russell's use of this type of emotional sensationalism
is debased. It is ironic that he accused me of emotional appeals.
Also, Russell’s 1,143 words were a good example of the genetic
fallacy. He pointed out that past religious explanations were erroneous, and
therefore people should reject the Christian religious explanation too. This is
entirely irrelevant to the arguments that I made. I could just as easily
reverse it as follows: Many evolutionary atheists were eugenicists that influenced the
Nazi party, therefore, everything Russell says must be false because he is an
atheist.
The greatest irony of this debate is that in Russell’s second response, he
scoffed at the “elementary logic” I laid out for everyone, and yet throughout
this entire debate he has put forth logical fallacy after logical fallacy, and
has made absurd arguments that demonstrate his own deficiency in logic.
So what about Russell’s arguments? Well, the truth be told, he
did not make any arguments in his final post. I am actually shocked that he
would give up his final response and blow any chance he had to make atheism
look rational. Instead, he committed many fallacies, diverted attention
from the issue, resorted to insults, and lied about a half dozen times. Rather
than simply call him a liar, I would rather show directly where he lied. I feel
obligated to label them as lies at this point because I have clarified things a
number of times, and Russell continually ignored these clarifications and
misrepresented my position. Here are the examples.
You’ll recall that the way I
started my end of this debate was with a suggestion that both sides acknowledge
the success of the basic principles of science, and should accept them as a
legitimate way of finding things out. Stephen, repeatedly, said no.
He insisted that science cannot work unless we agree that science
“presupposes” a God to work.
Really? I said no to this? I remember on more than one occasion
saying I agree to your assumptions that world is real, that we learn through
sense experience, and that logic is reliable. I remember in the 4th
and 5th posts saying that a person could effectively discover things
in science even with the wrong presuppositions. So in light of this, Russell
clearly lied.
Here is his next lie.
Repeatedly I’ve rejected this
premise as both unwarranted and muddled. I challenged Stephen to explain
how any being could manufacture logic. He did not explain it. I
asked Stephen to justify his own assumption that the lack of God would
invalidate logic. He did not justify it. I asked Stephen to
“account for” his God in the same sense that he demanded the rest of us
“account for” logic. He did not account for it. What he did was repeat
the same claim, over and over again, in an increasingly verbose fashion but
never in a way that staked out any reason
for his positions.
I specifically stated that God did not manufacture logic, but instead
I explained how logic is a product of minds. Therefore, true logic is an expression of
God’s mind. Did Russell manufacture his own mind? I accounted for God by discussing
presuppositions. Apparently Russell does not believe presuppositions matter.
Why? If he did, then he would realize his position is irrational, untenable,
and impossible. Given that I did offer explanations, and yet Russell says that
I did not, he lied.
Russell also labeled my arguments as incoherent. Well, I was very
clear and I am confident in the articulation of my arguments. Russell simply
ignored the arguments. Thus, I concluded one of two things: Either he knew he was
sunk, or the arguments went over his head. Those are the two simplest
conclusions to account for Russell’s flimsy responses. He then said:
Stephen asserts that “God cannot
arbitrarily make a square circle.” Why not? If God had “created”
the laws of logic, then there must have been a point where they did not apply.
Even in describing the creation of logic, Stephen is stuck with the
assumption that God is bound by them.
I did not say God created the laws of logic. I said they are a
product of His mind. Russell’s insistence on this again shows me that when he is
backed against the wall, he resorts to lies about his opponent and hopes his
followers would agree. Reading the user comments on his website, they apparently
fell for it. This certainly betrays their claim to be free thinkers.
Now to Russell’s next moment of dishonesty:
Try as Stephen might, he can’t
make it a universal law that all things need a cause, since that would
contradict his conclusion about God.
After the last three responses, I would have thought Russell
might finally understand this. ALL CONTINGENT things need a cause. That is a
universal law. Is God contingent? No. Furthermore, I did account for the
existence of a necessary being – contingent beings exist. What is so hard to
grasp about that? It would be absurd for Russell to say he is self-existent.
Why? Well, he is contingent. He was caused by many other factors outside of
himself. The universe is contingent. Thus, it is not self-caused. After three
responses, the atheist should finally get it. Apparently in this case he
did not, unless he found it convenient just to lie. I am inclined to see this
as a lie on Russell’s part because I specifically made this case in detail, and
in my final response I even showed how the steps of his atheistic cosmology
bear the attributes of contingency. After all of that, he still insisted that I
said “all things have a cause,” when it was clear that I said causation is an
attribute of contingent things, and since the universe has these attributes, it
is not self-attesting and self-existing. Therefore, a necessary being must
exist.
And now for Russell’s next lie:
Stephen tried to throw in some
other metrics at various times; for instance, at one point he seems to believe
that the debate should be judged based on whose posts were completed in the
shortest amount of time
That’s interesting. According to Russell, I somehow used the
length of time it took to complete responses as a metric to declare myself the
winner. Unless my memory is foggy, I could have sworn that I made that point to
undermine Russell’s bravado. When Yoda and the Emperor finally had the show
down that all Star Wars fans had awaited, the little green warrior said, “If so
powerful you are, why do you run?” That is the point I was making. If this is
so easy, why take so long? I have three jobs and only get two days off per
month. I do not know how busy Russell is, but I do know that I did not have to
do any research to debunk a single thing he said. That is one reason I
responded as a quickly as I did. His responses were shallow and predictable. If
he would have given me something real, then perhaps I would have needed to
consult with my academic resources and colleagues. In such a case, maybe a week
would have gone by between my responses. The fact that Russell took five weeks
here, four weeks there, etc., leads me to believe his back was against the
wall, he did not know how to respond, and he consulted his colleagues in an
attempt to manufacture his responses. I cannot prove this is what happened, and
in the end only Russell knows. One thing is for sure. The fact that he did not
answer even a small percentage of my arguments, but instead continually
diverted attention away from the arguments, is a strong indicator that the presuppositional
argument for the existence of God stumped him.
I am not sure whether to accuse Russell of dishonesty in his
comment over our “mutual friend,” who set up this debate. Russell said
this young man was “singularly irritated” with my responses. Well, our
mutual friend told me that I did a good job and that his respect for me has
grown. He also wrote me after the first, third, and fifth responses and complimented
me on those responses. So I am not sure what was said to Russell.
I am inclined to think that either Russell blatantly lied, or
that our mutual friend said two different things to the two of us. Given the responses
I received from our friend, he does not sound like a man “singularly
irritated” with my responses. The reality of the situation is as follows:
Russell could not account for a single one of his assumptions, he did not
refute a single one of my arguments, and he ignored the dilemma that my
arguments pointed out concerning atheism. I believe that our mutual friend
noticed this.
With regard to the Nazi example, I am surprised that Russell
missed the point again. The point was not to compare him to a Nazi. My point
was to show that a majority vote is irrelevant as to who won a debate. I am
pretty sure Joe Biden’s followers liked what he said and Paul Ryan’s followers
similarly liked his answers.
Another thing that I found comical were the comments on
Russell’s thread once he enabled comments. Some of his followers wrote that I
was the less civil of the two of us, and I was condescending. I truly wonder
what debate they actually read. My tone was harshest in my third response. The
other responses were entirely civil. In a number of Russell’s responses, he did
not come off so cool. He resorted to a few insults, and at a number of points
showed emotion.
Moving on to Russell’s interpretation of the gospel
presentation, he called it an, “appeal to fear and emotion.” Perhaps he failed
to realize that I only ended my response with the gospel because I care. My primary
goal was not to win a debate, but it was tear down the false walls of
opposition in the minds of his readers. Afterward, the goal was to show them
that they have a massive problem (they all sin against God’s law and their
conscience) and there is a consequence. That is no more of an appeal to emotion
than a doctor telling a patient he has a disease and needs a cure. Yet if Russell
will insist this is an appeal to “fear and emotion,” then what about his
atheist friends who make similar appeals to protect the world from people like
me? The atheist camp is so incredibly hypocritical that I am sometimes
speechless.
Finally, Russell’s statement that presuppositionalists do not
present evidence simply demonstrates more ignorance. We love evidence. The
difference is we are not so naïve that we think people interpret evidence in a
non-biased fashion. Instead we all have a network of presupposed beliefs by
which we determine what is possible and impossible, and the evidence will be
interpreted in a way that confirms those presuppositions. The field of
epistemology can prove this so easily. As a result, we presuppositionalists
like to prove first that our opponent’s presuppositions are impossible, and
then we move on to evidence. For example, immaterial logic exists and yet Russell identified
himself as a materialist; therefore his position is indefensible. I am not sure
why he and his followers do not understand how simple this is. His presuppositions are impossible, and therefore his interpretations of evidence cannot be trusted.
Furthermore, Russell proved that he was not qualified to enter
into a debate of evidences since he failed to admit and realize the role that
presuppositions have on the interpretation of evidence. I addressed this point
a few times in the debate (e.g. when I brought up uniformitarianism vs.
catastrophism) in the hopes that we would actually get into some evidential
reasoning. Yet, Russell would not allow for this. If this were a longer debate
I would have presented much evidence. When I debated our mutual friend, I
presented a great deal of evidence. So before claiming that
presuppositionalists don’t use evidence, Russell should try picking up a book
about it and see what we really think.
This was supposed to be a debate with a somewhat high profile
atheist. I had to work much harder when debating our mutual friend over a year
ago. It is somewhat sad that he appealed to someone higher up in the atheist
world, and yet that court of appeal put up less of a challenge than he did. I
hope he realizes this and it leads him to question atheism even more so.
In summary, Russell, failed to respond to my arguments. He did
not even address the argument that logic is immaterial, and yet he as a
materialist inconsistently believes in logic. If atheism depends on materialism,
and yet immaterial logic exists, then atheistic materialism is irrational,
untenable, and impossible. If nature is uniform, and yet atheistic materialism
claims that the universe is a random accident, then atheistic materialism is
irrational, untenable, and impossible. Russell attempted to divert attention
away from this by appealing to different definitions of “chance,” and yet he
never responded to what definition syntax required. In addition to proving that
atheism is irrational, untenable, and impossible, I also defined Christian
presuppositions, and explained why only the Christian God is the necessary
precondition of all intelligibility.
Truly, this debate has accomplished much for me. It has shed
much light on the “New Atheism” and just how groundless it is. I would hope
that Russell would better prepare himself for future debates, and that he would
actually take the time to respond to specific arguments. Perhaps the untrained
were satisfied by his responses, but those who truly are free thinkers were
left with more questions than answers about atheism’s inability to stand.
Romans 1:18-32 explains why many will scoff at the truth. In Acts 17,
the Apostle Paul laid out the most brilliant defense of the truth in the
ancient world. And yet, even after he completely schooled these
philosophers, only a handful of people received the truth. For the Christians
out there, I recommend my following sermons linked below.
What Paul faced 2,000
years ago is not much different than what we experience today in terms of
intellectual opposition. There is nothing new under the sun. The way in which
he defended the faith is a good model of how we should. My goal with this
debate against Russell Glasser of the Atheist Experience was to give a
God-honoring and Biblical defense of the truth. May God produce much fruit from
this effort.
