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The Scattershot Atheist: The Dan Barker/Trent Horn Debate: A Review (Part 2)

Here’s part 1 of my review where I provide a summary and critique of Trent Horn’s opening statement. You can also click that link to watch the debate itself.

I now turn to my review of Dan Barker’s opening statement.

As I said, in part 1, I undertook a detailed summary of Horn’s opening statement followed by some critiques. That was a lot of work. Too much work. So this time around, I’m just going to give some reader’s notes as I listen to Barker.

Mic Problems and Miracles

Dan Barker’s presentation began rather infelicitously with a struggle with the mic. My sympathies here. I too have struggled with technical issues in front of a live studio audience and it ain’t fun! Barker makes the best of it with an ironic quip: “Would somebody pray for a miracle?” That elicits a predictable laugh from the audience and a moment later a young man from the audience fixes the mic.

But in fact, this event encapsulates an important feature of the dialogue about God’s existence, namely the underdetermination of theory to evidence. Did that young man’s fixing that mic illustrate that there is no God to answer prayers and thus we need to depend on each other? Or might we conclude that God answered the prayer through that young man? After all, a miracle is, at its core, a divine sign, not, as atheists love to suppose, a divine intervention that violates natural law.

The fact is that two reasonable people could interpret the same event very differently based on different background sets of beliefs. Unfortunately, as we shall see, this kind of chastening nuance is wholly absent from Barker’s presentation.

Scattershot

At this point, Barker launches into his presentation and it immediately becomes clear that his debate method is scattershot, i.e. briefly refer to multiple claims, arguments, and lines of evidence but don’t explain any one of them by clearly articulating a logically valid argument which is open to critical inspection.

Okay, I’m going to come out and say it: this is a coward’s debating strategy, one that intentionally seeks to place one’s claims beyond rational scrutiny both for the sheer volume of those claims and the lack of specific development for any one of them. Please note:

If you are forcing your interlocutor to attempt to tease out your premises, then you haven’t done your job.

Why the Christian God?

Barker begins with the assertion, “The Christian God does not exist.”

Barker then asks a question: why even debate the existence of the Christian God? Why not debate another god like the god of the Lenape Indian tribe?

Um, because, Mr. Barker, you agreed to debate Trent Horn, a Christian. No doubt if you’d agreed to debate a Lenape apologist, the topic would change accordingly.

One suspects that Barker’s question is actually posed for rhetorical purposes. Perhaps he is attempting to offer some sort of criticism of Christianity based on the fact that there are many conceptions of divine beings in various different belief systems. However, what is the argument, exactly?

As I said, Barker opts for the coward’s debating strategy, in this case by preferring suggestion to statement.

Divine Hiddenness?

From there, Barker appears to invoke a divine hiddenness objection. He asks: “If God exists at all, why does he need arguments? Why does he need proofs?” And then he adds, “This very debate is one evidence against the existence of God.”

Oh really? Please, Mr. Barker, share your premises.

*crickets*

Atheism, Definition, and Burden of Proof

Barker then says: “Atheism is a lack of a belief in God or gods.”

Barker is incorrect. Granted, his definition reflects a recent trend to define atheism in accord with what has classically been called weak agnosticism. Barker’s milquetoast “atheism” is even weaker than T.H. Huxley’s agnosticism which asserted that no one can know if God exists. Barker, by contrast, merely says he’s without belief in God.

Why does Barker adopt this incredibly weak definition? He explains, “We atheists don’t have a burden of proof. The one who makes a claim has the burden of proof.”

Is this also cowardice? Or merely a lack of confidence? Or something else?

Regardless, Barker does have a burden of proof. In this debate, his burden of proof is to show that the Christian God does not exist. Indeed, as I noted above, he begins his debate with that very assertion: “The Christian God does not exist.”

Consequently, when Barker now says atheism has no burden of proof, he’s talking out of both sides of his mouth by attempting to exempt himself from the very burden he just assumed.

More generally, the lesson here is this: if you want to persuade someone of a truth claim, you have a burden of proof. That is true whether that truth claim is God exists or God doesn’t exist or You should be without belief in God or anything else.

Atheism and Religion

At this point, Barker adds that atheism is “not a religion.” Well, of course, lacking a belief in something is not a religion. Who said it was?

Nor for that matter is atheism as historically defined — i.e. belief in the non-existence of God — a religion.

But then, neither is theism a religion.

Both these claims — God exists; God does not exist — are far too minimal to constitute religions.

However, it is also the case that some religions are theistic and other religions are atheistic. But Barker neglects to mention that point.

Defining God

Barker then says that he’s an atheist because there isn’t a coherent definition of God.

Barker is confused on this point. If the concept of God is incoherent, as he claims, then he is, in fact, an ignostic, not an atheist.

And why does he think “God” is incoherent? He briefly alludes to prima facie attribute conflicts. E.g. how can God be both omnipotent and omnibenevolent?

Er, okay. Surely Barker is aware that there is a huge literature discussing precisely these questions, isn’t he? When we were at King’s College, London together, my friend Daniel Hill wrote a doctoral thesis on this topic, later published as the monograph Divinity and Maximal Greatness (Routledge, 2004). What, do you suppose, is the chance that Barker has no familiarity at all with the high-level philosophical discussion in Daniel’s work?

(By the way, in 2006 Daniel Hill and I coauthored the modern classic Christian Philosophy A-Z  a must have for any philosophy of religion nerd.)

In his book, Daniel articulates the concept of God within the framework of perfect being theology. Here’s a simple definition of God from within a perfect being framework (and one that I think is fundamentally correct):

God is that being who exemplifies the maximal set of compossible great-making properties.

The onus is on Barker to show that this definition is, as he claims, incoherent. Note that compossibility is built right into the definition. This means that to the extent where two prima facie great-making attributes appear to conflict, one revises one’s conceptions of one (or both) of the attributes so as to remove the apparent conflict. In this framework, perfect being is the core definition and the list of great-making attributes that define that being is part of the supporting, axial claims.

And yes, in case you were wondering, there is within perfect being theology an extensive discussion of the criteria by which one identifies a great-making attribute.

Finally, let’s concede for the sake of argument that the concept of God faces some intractable conceptual difficulties such that no completely satisfactory definition of God, as yet, exists. Does it follow that one ought to disbelieve in God? That can only be answered by addressing a more general question: if a concept generally faces some intractable conceptual difficulties, are we rationally obliged to disbelieve in the existence of that concept?

Well, consider what that means with another concept: time. As Augustine famously observed, “What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know.”

Augustine is not the only one to point out the deep difficulties with the philosophical concept of time. But time is hardly unique here. Indeed, spend any *time* (whatever that means) reading philosophy and you’ll discover many other concepts that fit that same bill: substance, abstract objects, properties, sense perception, facts, propositions, persons, … In each case, we find a term that is polyvalent and a range of conceptual analyses of that term which are disputable and, to various degrees, unsatisfactory. It hardly follows that the proper response is to surrender belief in all those entities/relations/concepts.

But if we don’t give up on substance, abstract objects, properties, sense perception, facts, propositions, or persons, then why God?

One more thing: the definition of naturalism is every bit as polyvalent and disputable as God. So there’s that.

God and Scientific Evidence

Next, Barker claims that if there were evidence for God someone would have won the Nobel Prize by now in virtue having identified the God-force in the cosmos.

Really? So Barker assumes that if God exists then God should be detectable as a distinct force in the universe which is the object of scientific analysis?

Thomas Aquinas rolled over in his grave with that one. As did thousands of other deceased theologians (may they rest in peace). (As for the thousands of theologians now living, counterfactually, we would have done the grave roll had we been deceased at the time.)

Appeal to Authority

Dan Barker then tells us that he has participated in 130 public debates and he has seen no evidence for God.

First off, I am quite sure William Lane Craig has conducted at least that many debates. So what?

Second, the fact that Barker claims he has seen no evidence at all in favor of the debate resolution after having done 130 debates is not something to brag about.

Barker then adds another appeal to authority by citing Bertrand Russell as claiming that most arguments for God’s existence “beg the question”. But let’s be clear: while Bertrand Russell made substantial contributions to many aspects of philosophy including philosophy of language, metaphysics, and logic, his contributions to the philosophy of religion in the books Why I am Not a Christian and Russell on Religion: Selections from the Writings of Bertrand Russell are rudimentary bordering on sophomoric. Nor does his famous debate on God’s existence with F.C. Copleston show an especially astute grasp of the field.

Perhaps most importantly, Russell lived at a time (logical positivism; ordinary language philosophy) when philosophy of religion was at a low ebb. The field has exploded since Russell’s death in 1972. Consequently, to quote Russell in favor of the view that the future of philosophy of religion is atheism is like quoting a 1960s futurist in favor of the view that the future of dinner is a synthetic pill.

The conversation has moved on, bruh.

Lol.

Naive Reductionism

Barker then complains that various religious factions (Protestant vs. Catholic; Sunni vs. Shia) are “killing each other over these trivial, irrelevant doctrinal differences.” You truly have to be willfully ignorant to think these kinds of disputes are merely driven by differences in doctrine rather than a complex nexus of historical, geopolitical, social, and cultural factors including religion.

As the old joke goes, a group of angry Irishmen cornered a passerby in an alley. “Are you a Protestant or a Catholic?” they growled. The man, terrified, replied, “Neither, I’m an atheist.” A moment later, the mob replied, “Okay then, are you a Protestant atheist or a Catholic atheist?”

Sadly, Barker ignores all this and engages in the crassest of reductionism about so-called religious conflict simply to land a point in his debate. (For more on this topic, see this excerpt from my book An Atheist and a Christian Walk into a Bar with Justin  Schieber.)

And of course, he still hasn’t shared with us a fleshed out argument.

Problem of Evil

Barker then claims that Christians have no reply to “the problem of evil”.

Should I bother to mention that there are many problems of evil and many replies to those problems?

Never mind. Here is Barker’s rebuttal to all theodicies and defenses:

“All you have to do is walk into any children’s hospital and you know that any good god does not exist.”

There is no doubt that the prospect of children suffering is terrible and emotionally wrenching. But that fact alone doesn’t constitute a formal argument against God’s existence. So … what’s the argument?

*more crickets*

Failure of Petitionary Prayer

In fairness, Barker does follow up that claim with what seems to be the beginnings of an argument: he claims that petitionary prayer does not provide a statistical increase in wellness. But which Christian claims that if God exists we should expect to see a statistically identifiable increase in wellness for those who receive petitionary prayer? There are so many problems with this crass assumption, it’s difficult to know where to begin. Fortunately, I have an article for that: “Failed Prayer Studies: A Response.”

The short of it is that when folks like Barker invoke failed prayer studies as evidence against God, they’re almost inevitably shadow boxing. And that’s no way to win a debate.

Whew, I only made it about 5-6 minutes into Barker’s opening remarks and already I’m spent. Looks like I’ll need a part 2 for this one.

The post The Scattershot Atheist: The Dan Barker/Trent Horn Debate: A Review (Part 2) appeared first on Randal Rauser.

Does God privilege weak outsiders over powerful insiders? A response to Tim Keller

Let’s ring in the new year with a New Year’s Day tweet from Tim Keller:

A salvation earned by good works and moral effort would favor the more able, competent, accomplished and privileged. But salvation by sheer grace favors the failed, the outsiders, the weak, because it goes only to those who know salvation must be by sheer Grace.

— Timothy Keller (@timkellernyc) January 1, 2019

Keller identifies two groups which we can call the powerful insiders and the weak outsiders. He then points out that if salvation were earned by good works this would favor the powerful insiders who would have a clear advantage in producing good works.

So what does God do? Does he even the playing field out of love for all humankind?

No. Instead, according to Keller’s understanding of salvation by grace, God places the powerful insiders in an epistemically and ethically deprived position, one that makes it more difficult for them to attain salvation. In short, their wealth and privilege dull their spiritual senses, making it less likely that they shall be saved. By contrast, the weak outsiders are ideally positioned to recognize their need for grace.

And Keller thinks that’s a good thing. The tone of this tweet is not somber reflection but joyful exultation that grace favors the weak outsiders over the powerful insiders. As one of the first tweeted responses to Keller puts it, “Hallelujah!”

Hallelujah?

Hallelujah that God places the powerful insiders at an epistemic and ethical disadvantage which makes it less likely that they shall be saved? A tweet celebrating the fact that God privileges one group over another: that’s a strange way to ring in the new year, isn’t it?

One more thing: to return to Keller’s initial premise, I see no reason to think that salvation by works would favor the powerful insiders. After all, on this scenario they would still be placed at an epistemic and ethical disadvantage, a point that is clear in the case of the Widow’s Two Mites in Luke 21:

“And He looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury, 2 and He saw also a certain poor widow putting in two mites. 3 So He said, “Truly I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all; 4 for all these out of their abundance have put in offerings for God, but she out of her poverty put in all the livelihood that she had.”

Salvation by works would only advantage the rich and powerful if those works were crassly understood to be the kind of works that can be produced by wealth and privilege. But the truth is that the Widow’s work of dropping two mites — all she had — into the treasury is worth more than the rich and self-confident benefactor who ensures his name is featured on every building he benevolently funds.

So it turns out that the powerful insiders are doubly disadvantaged on Keller’s scenario. The only remaining question: is that now a cause for double the celebration?

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If evangelicals are pro-family, then why don’t they care about Trump’s child separation policy?

A couple of days ago, Ed Krassenstein posted the following tweet decrying the widespread support among American (evangelical) Christians for Donald Trump’s divisive and xenophobic rhetoric against immigrants and refugees:

“Jesus Christ would tear down a wall, and give immigrants the shirt off of his back. I’m Jewish and I know this. What the hell has happened to Christianity in America?”

This prompted me to tweet the following reply:

“Go back a few decades and you’ll see that many Christians were supportive of segregation: Christianity Today published an article supporting it in the 1950s. And “progressives” like Reinhold Niehbuhr were SILENT on lynching. From that view, the Trumpists are a return to form.”

My tweet prompted a reply from an individual named Eric. While Eric denies that he is a supporter of Donald Trump, he clearly does support Trump’s stance on the border and immigration. And with that, an extended exchange began. In our exchange, I focused on Trump’s policy of separating children from their parents as a deterrent both to illegal immigrants and would-be refugees making legally valid claims for asylum on the southern border. This policy, as I pointed out, violates Article 9 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Here is the relevant excerpt from that convention:

“States Parties shall ensure that a child shall not be separated from his or her parents against their will, except when competent authorities subject to judicial review determine, in accordance with applicable law and procedures, that such separation is necessary for the best interests of the child.” (emphasis added)

Both Donald Trump and Jeff Sessions have explicitly stated that the Trump administration policy of separating parents from their children was intended not for the welfare of the child but rather as a deterrent. For that reason, the policy violates Article 9. And lest we think this is merely a matter of violating a UN convention, the real issue of moral concern is the ensuing trauma to children (and parents) that results from this policy.

In my view, this policy of child separation exemplifies the kind of issue that should be a matter of Christian moral concern. Christians should be speaking out to denounce this policy in the public square.

But did Eric agree? Here is our Twitter conversation beginning with Eric’s criticism of my original tweet. (Please note that I have left errata in the text uncorrected.)

Eric: Big difference…segregation was immoral. Illegal immigration is about laws. Christians that were for segregation were wrong but how can Christians that are for boarder safety be in the wrong? There is a difference between what we do as a Christian and what a country does.

RR: Everyone’s for “border safety”. As for the many things Trump does which violate Christian conviction, start with his hateful rhetoric against refugees (e.g. spreading leprosy?!) and his administration’s violation of article 9 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. And of course, Christians who supported slavery, lynching, segregation, Jim Crow laws, etc. all had their rationalizations.

Eric: Agree with you about his rhetoric and I’m not a support of his but I am for making sure that our country secures it borders. And I disagree with you that everyone wants border safety bc if that were true we would have better measures to keep out illegal immigrants.

RR: You think Jesus would support Trump separating refugee children as young as 9 months old from their parents as a way to deter further refugees?

Eric: That’s an absurd question.

RR: That’s a lame answer.

Eric: Come with better intellectual questions. Jesus calls us to be the light in the world. I don’t think he would be dictating governmental policy. He calls us to be the ones making a difference…not government.

RR: Are you claiming that Christian conviction has nothing to say about the law and conduct of government? I hope not, because that would be an absurd position. Conversely, if you recognize that Christian conviction does have something to say, why deny it in this case?

Eric: No I’m stating that it is US, not the government, that should be the ones helping those in need. Jesus would be more concerned with the people not the policy. When we vote we definitely vote our Christian convictions but more importantly is what YOU do in your home and community.

RR: That’s a false dichotomy. God calls all creatures & institutions to behave rightly, including governments (Rom. 13). Furthermore, I’m not talking about helping, per se. I’m talking about an intentional policy of family separation that is doing enormous harm. What would Jesus say? Put it this way: if the US government was shooting refugee children at the border, would you give the same response? Or would you speak out? The latter, I hope. But then why not speak out in this case where the action, even if not equivalent to murder, is still clearly immoral?

Eric: I speak out against our government with my vote all the time. I vote against all pro-abortion candidates.

RR: But you don’t speak for the separation of refugee children from their parents? Why?

Eric: You can’t morally equate abortion and illegal immigration. For me, saving the life of an unborn child is more important then illegal immigrants having their children removed from them. I’m not saying that it is right but when picking between the two, I pick life.

RR: I see, so you only start caring when the child is killed? Being separated from their parents for weeks or months and suffering years of trauma and developmental delay as a result isn’t bad enough for you to care?

Eric: Well I’m a foster dad so I care a lot about the children both unborn and born. In politics one party is prolife and that’s how I vote. I care about these children but their parents know the laws and what happens when they break them.

RR: I’m sure you would care if you were separated from your children. I think it’s tragic that you seem not to care that the US government is violating international law and Christian ethics by separating refugee children from their parents.

Eric: I find it interesting that you are trying to paint me out to be an uncaring person. Why do you feel the need to attack my character?

RR: I think you’re morally inconsistent and the reasons are plain: You care about fetuses & the well being of American children but you don’t care when the USA government separates vulnerable refugee children from their parents. So I challenged you to expand your moral sphere.

Eric: Well it’s a good thing I care more about what Jesus thinks about my morals. He knows my heart on both issues. I’m pretty sure that Jesus wouldn’t attack someone’s character like you have but unfortunately we live in a day in age that social media draws out the worst.

RR: You oppose legislation that allows the termination of fetuses but you’re silent on the punitive practice of separating refugee children from their parents? And you don’t think Jesus would call out moral hypocrisy? The same Jesus who called people vipers and white-washed tombs?

Eric: I think you missed where I said it isn’t right to separate families. I am for strong borders and strong security. Feel free to go back and actually read my earlier tweet. And no I don’t think Jesus attacked people’s character.

RR: Do you agree that the state-supported separation of refugee children from their parents is a moral evil just as the state-supported segregation of races was a moral evil? If not, why not? And what was Jesus doing when he called people vipers, snakes, and white-washed tombs?

Eric: No I don’t support it. You retweeted and I was commenting on the wall. I think it’s morally ok to build a wall and have better national security He was using allegories to call out the Pharisees. You are calling me uncaring and attacking my character.

RR: Krassenstein was right: Jesus didn’t demonize the other; he welcomed them. As I pointed out in my original tweet, American Xians historically have often behaved precisely contrary to Jesus: e.g. slavery, segregation. That’s why I called Trump’s rhetoric & policy a return-to-form.

But you still didn’t answer my question. Do you agree that the state-supported separation of refugee children from their parents is a moral evil akin to the state-supported segregation of races? If not, why not? If so, why don’t you oppose it as you oppose abortion?

Finally, terms like “snake” and “white-washed tomb” are not allegories; they are metaphors which are clearly intended to provide a direct indictment of the moral character of particular religious leaders in Jesus’ community. I haven’t used any such labels in our exchange.

And that’s where our exchange ended. Sadly, while Eric clearly did think that Christian moral conviction required action against “pro-abortion” political candidates, he did not, by his own admission, believe that a policy of child separation was of sufficient moral concern to require a Christian response.

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Bandersnatch… or Blandersnatch?

I’m a big Black Mirror fan, that sophisticated dystopian British/Netflix series that explores the darker side of technology. So when I heard less than a week ago that Netflix was releasing a new full-length movie installment into the Black Mirror universe on December 28th, I gasped, “It’s a Christmas miracle!”

And when I learned that this new movie, set in 1984 and centered on a young video game designer writing the code for a new video game called Bandersnatch, would immerse the audience in the story by allowing each viewer to choose how the story unfolds for them, I was cautiously optimistic. After all, The Cave of Time was one of my favorite books as a child. Indeed, for a couple of years in the early 1980s I lived on a steady literary diet of Choose Your Own Adventure books (here is a great boxed set for your favorite 9-12 year olds … or nostalgic forty-somethings).

So last night, I sat down to watch (is that the right word?) Bandersnatch.

The choices begin early on when we are asked to choose which cereal our hero, Stefan, will have for breakfast. Fortunately, from there the choices increase in gravitas as the program unfolds.

One thing is clear: Bandersnatch is essential viewing for anyone remotely interested in Black Mirror … or anyone with a Netflix account and an hour or two to spare. (Depending on your choices the program varies significantly in length.)

But here’s my major frustration: if the show doesn’t like your choice, it eventually steers you back to the main storyline. Personally, it felt a bit like getting your knuckles rapped and as the story begins to unfold again, you realize that you have rather less control than you’d been led to believe. After about 1 1/2 hours, I found myself growing increasingly impatient. Along the way, I’d been offered a couple of opportunities to bow out to the end credits, but I wanted to persist to the real end. However, eventually, I realized that my interest in completing this dark story had been outweighed by my desire to do something else, and so finally I bowed out.

It was at that point that I thought back to the video game Dragon’s Lair. When it came to the arcade in 1983, we were dazzled by the animation:

But soon, the novelty wore off as we, or at least I, realized the playability was low. Put simply, there wasn’t much fun in learning how to link a series of animation sequences and calling it a game.

For all its innovation, I have the same feeling about Bandersnatch. There simply isn’t much fun in learning how to link a series of dramatic sequences and calling it a movie.

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Thoughts on the Ravi Zacharias Christmas Insult Letter

A friend of mine forwarded to me a Christmas greeting that Ravi Zacharias emailed to his followers. It’s a weird, rambling 1400 word article. Here I want to highlight the fact that Zacharias pauses part way through to take some cheap shots at “naturalists”:

“My colleague Vince Vitale has a great line: If this world came from nothing, the naturalist also has to explain a virgin birth. The late paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould made the comment that if you roll back the scroll of time, this world would never happen again. Well! There’s your miracle as well, but its specialists are called naturalists.

“And who are these naturalists? Men and women with designed brains and designed arguments to assure us that there is no design and that we are here by accident. So as much as the skeptic mocks the virgin birth and fights the miracle, he or she smuggles in one of his own and uses designed arguments to boast that our existence is an accident. As much as he or she fights the moral argument, she has no scientific explanation of why we ought to be moral in our conclusions.”

First, Vince Vitale’s “line” is not “great”.

Second, it’s clear enough that Zacharias is trying to belittle naturalistic explanations, but his hamfisted attempts to do so are confusing, at best. How does Gould’s assertion about the contingency of evolutionary history entail a “miracle”, exactly? After all, the occurrence of a contingent event does not constitute a miracle by any conventional definition of the word.

Third, how ironic that Zacharias should complain about skeptics “mocking” the virgin birth in the middle of a passage where he mocks and strawmans naturalists. If Mr. Zacharias wants civility and charity from others, why doesn’t he show it? (Of course, some Zacharias supporters might complain that I am not being charitable to his arguments. I’ll simply invite them to fill in the many blanks.)

As for the abysmal quality of Zacharias’ reasoning, it’s difficult to know where to begin. His reference to “designed brains” merely begs the question against naturalists who don’t accept that the brain is designed, to begin with. His suggestion that the naturalist’s denial of design in nature somehow contradicts the existence of “designed” arguments is nothing short of bizarre. And his final reference to the “moral argument” (which moral argument? There are many, Mr. Zacharias) apparently adds scientism to the mix. In short, this is a smear of icing on a very unpalatable rhetorical Christmas fruitcake.

The rambling confusion, lack of charity, and hypocrisy in that passage are bad enough. It’s compounded by the fact that it is dropped in the middle of a Christmas letter. And to think that this letter is being sent by a ministry to people who purportedly have some interest in reaching out to non-Christians.

Ravi Zacharias isn’t simply a liar and fabulist. Based on this letter, he’s also a very uncharitable (and confused) tribalist. The fact that his name is intimately associated with Christian apologetics is nothing short of a tragedy.

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The Dan Barker/Trent Horn Debate: A Review (Part 1)

A couple of months ago, Catholic apologist Trent Horn debated atheist Dan Barker on the question, “Does the Christian God exist?”

I am going to post a two-part review of the debate which focuses on their opening statements. In this first installment of the review, I will summarize and critically engage with Horn’s 15-minute opening statement.

A Quick Overview

When Trent Horn is in debate mode, not a word is wasted. That will become manifestly clear as I provide a brief summary of his jam-packed fifteen-minute opening statement.

I have divided Horn’s statement into three parts. The following summary is mine and may not represent Horn’s preferred brief description of his own arguments.

Part 1: On God’s Existence

Horn begins by providing three mutually supporting cosmological arguments for the conclusion that God is the best explanation of the origin of the universe.

Argument from First Cause: the universe cannot have always existed given that it is impossible to traverse an infinite regress; thus, God provides the first cause for the existence of the universe
Argument from Motion: even if, per impossibile, the universe were backwardly eternal, God would still be necessary as the first cause of motion
Argument from Existence: There are only three explanations to the question of why something rather than nothing exists: (i) there is no reason; (ii) the universe explains itself (i.e. it is necessarily existent); (iii) the universe is brought into being by an external cause. (i) is no answer at all, and (ii) is false because the universe is contingent. This leaves (iii): the universe is brought into existence by an external cause

Part 2: On Identifying the Cause of the Universe with the Christian God

Next, Horn seeks to identify the God of his first three arguments with the God of classical theism generally and of Christian classical theism specifically.

General Argument for the God of Classical Theism: the universe may require a cause, but why think that cause is the Christian God rather than one of the innumerable finite gods from ancient mythological polytheism? The problem with the mythological gods is that they are all finite, imperfect, contingent beings which, as such, would fail to provide the metaphysically necessary (agent) cause of the universe. Only the concept of God shared by the classical theisms of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam provides a suitable candidate for explaining the universe.
Specific Argument for the God of Christianity: the God of classical theism should be identified with the God of Christianity based on the historical evidence for the supernatural resurrection of Jesus and the failure of alternative natural explanations of the evidence including, specifically, the failure of Dan Barker’s attempt to explain the appearances of Jesus as grief hallucinations.

Part 3: Rebutting Barker’s Moral Objections to the Christian God

In his book, God: The Most Unpleasant Character in All Fiction, Dan Barker provides evidence that the God of the Bible is morally evil. This evidence, if successful, would undermine Horn’s attempt to identify the God of classical theism with the God of the Judeo-Christian revelation. And so, in his final section, Horn seeks to rebut the claim that God, as described in the Bible, cannot plausibly be considered the God that created the universe.

To that end, Horn presents a wide-ranging and somewhat piecemeal rebuttal to Barker:

God benevolently provides rules to ensure the well-being/flourishing of his people
God benevolently protects his people from violent enemies
God justly punishes wicked nations while retaining the right to withdraw human life when he chooses
Since God transcends human experience and conceptual frameworks, God is often described in non-literal (e.g. metaphorical/analogical) language; this language includes a developing theology that often does not distinguish between God causing x punitively and God allowing x.

Impressively, Horn concludes his opening statement one second before the fifteen-minute buzzer rings.

A Review

Rather than provide an overview of Horn’s entire opening statement — an argument which is impressively squeezed into a bare fifteen minutes! — I will focus my comments on some selected aspects of the argument that I find to be particularly interesting … and perhaps contentious.

The Purpose of a Debate

Horn’s three cosmological arguments are clearly stated with lucid examples, though given the speed at which he moves, and the abstract nature of much of the content, one must wonder how many audience members would succeed in understanding and processing much of what he said.

That raises an important question: what is the purpose of a debate such as this? Is it to present accessible and memorable content to the audience such that that audience learns that content? Or is it to persuade the audience that the speaker has a powerful argument even if (most) in the audience never successfully follow and/or remember that argument?

In addition, given that the online audience for a debate like this ends up being far larger than the audience who watched it live, I wonder to what extent expectations about that future online audience (and their ability to pause and replay for clarity and understanding) affect the amount and abstract nature of the content that is included.

Resurrection and Classical Theism

Horn provides a decent argument for the historicity of the resurrection of Jesus, at least as good as 3-4 minutes would allow. However, he doesn’t devote much time to explaining how this unique event would support the conclusion that God should be identified with the God of Christianity. To note one famous example, the Jewish theologian Pinchas Lapide famously defended the resurrection of Jesus while remaining a practicing Jew. With that in mind, it would have been helpful if Horn had taken a moment to explain more clearly why he believes the resurrection of Jesus should be interpreted as confirmation of Christianity.

Classical Theism vs. Polytheism

Next, I’d like to address the way that Horn contrasts the concept of God in the classical theism of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam with the concepts of finite gods in ancient polytheism.

To begin with, I heartily concur with Horn that the gods of polytheism do not have the, er, metaphysical gravitas to provide an explanation for the existence of the universe. (For further discussion, see my chapter on “Why Zeus, at least, isn’t God,” in The Swedish Atheist, the Scuba Diver and Other Apologetic Rabbit Trails.)

However, it is also worth pointing out that the concept of God as described in classical theism is not unique to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Indeed, this conception of God is often called the “God of the philosophers” because it is, first and foremost, a philosophical construction. For example, one could be a deist or mere theist and accept classical theism. Conversely, one could be a Christian and reject classical theism. In fact, many Christians believe that classical theism is incompatible with various aspects of Christian doctrine. And over the last several decades, many Christian theologians have repudiated various attributes of God in classical theism including impassibility, simplicity, atemporal eternity, and meticulous divine foreknowledge (or omniscience).

One of the problems facing the Christian is that God, as presented in portions of Scripture, appears to be more like the finite anthropomorphic deities of ancient polytheism than the sophisticated, abstract notion of deity one finds in classical theism. For example, he becomes enraged, changes his mind, learns, and has regrets. This is grist in Dan Barker’s mill.

Of course, Horn is well aware of the complexities of identifying God-as-depicted-in-Scripture with the God-of-classical-theism. His fourth point noted above (i.e. the use of non-literal language) constitutes one way to remove the logical incompatibility of these claims. The critic might concede that with enough ingenuity one can support the identity claim in principle and still insist that this reasoning appears implausibly ad hoc.

Divine Punishment/Protection, and Genocide

Arguably, the weakest point of Horn’s argument comes with his attempt to neutralize moral objections to the presentation of Yahweh in the Bible in support of the identity thesis.

First, Horn says that God benevolently provides rules (especially the  Torah) to ensure the well-being and flourishing of his people. But what happens when some of those rules appear to be contrary to human well-being and flourishing? Consider, for example, the deep problems with biblical teaching on corporal punishment. As William Webb has argued, much of the biblical teaching on corporal punishment is actually destructive.

Webb attempts to address this issue by adopting a redemptive-movement hermeneutic in which God accommodates to incomplete and even harmful ethical instruction in order to lead his people to fuller understanding. (See my review of his book here.) I have serious concerns about the adequacy of Webb’s redemptive-movement hermeneutic. But here I’ll simply note that the extent to which Horn adopts it is the extent to which he must concede that some biblical teachings only finally serve the well-being/flourishing of God’s people when they are abandoned.

Corporal punishment is only one example. Among other examples of apparently destructive and brutal punishments in the Torah consider punitive appendage amputation and stoning. As Soraya M., a modern victim of stoning cried out as she was murdered, “How can you do this to anybody?” I would challenge anybody to watch the dramatic reenactment of her murder in The Stoning of Soraya M. (see my review here) and tell me that the punitive act of pelting people to death with rocks constitutes an advisable means of cultivating societal flourishing.

Horn also defends God and the Israelites by arguing that God is simply protecting his people from violent enemies and justly punishing other nations and further that God has the right to take life when he will. In reply, I would simply point out that several biblical texts describe actions which would qualify today as ethnic cleansing and genocide by international law (e.g. Deut. 20; Josh. 2-11; 1 Sam. 15). For further discussion, see my article “Did God Really Command Genocide? A Review (Part 2)“. And a critic might be suspicious at the claim that an omnipotent and perfectly good God commanded actions which are now considered to be categorically immoral crimes against humanity.

Causing or Permitting?

At one point in his remarks, Horn argues that the biblical writers sometimes fail to distinguish between God causing actions and God allowing actions. He notes, for example, the disturbing metaphor of God lifting a woman’s skirts to humiliate her as a metaphor for the humiliation of Israel and of God causing parents to eat their children as a horrific description of famine. The Israelites interpreted these actions as divine punitive acts, but Horn suggests that they may, in fact, be better understood as God allowing human beings to experience the consequences of their individual and collective choices.

This is an intriguing analysis. But one might wonder whether Horn has gone far enough in applying it. If the Israelites were in error in thinking God actively punished them in a famine, for example, could they have likewise been in error to believe God commanded the eradication of ethnic groups or the stoning of insubordinate children?

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My Best Christmas Tree Ever

I’ve always been really big into Christmas: the music, the Christmas specials, the food, the decorations, and the Christmas tree.

Especially the Christmas tree.

When I was a kid, I oversaw the decorations in our home, and I took particular pride in the decorating of the tree. I was the one insisting that our fake tree go up in late November. I was the one who finally pressured my parents to ditch that fake tree with its labyrinth complexity (every color-coded branch needed to be inserted separately into the wooden spindles that served as the trunk; it was an afternoon’s work). I was the one who suggested getting a real tree instead (thanks, no doubt, to inspiration from Charlie Brown). And throughout the 1980s, I was the one who oversaw the decorations: garlands, ornaments, and loads of gaudy tinsel.

During most of the 1990s I was living in Vancouver, but I would still make it home several days before Christmas Eve and I always made sure to put my signature stamp on the tree.

All that changed in 1999. I was married in June. Then, at the beginning of September, my wife and I moved to London, England. We were now living in the famed London Goodenough Trust. That student residence was a Godsend: a vibrant community of graduate students from around the globe living in community with our own private square, two pubs, and two chaplains. And located a 10-minute walk from the British Library and a 15-minute walk from King’s College (my school) and the famed West End. It felt like we were at the center of the universe.

On the downside, the apartment was small … as in you couldn’t open the fridge door and the oven door at the same time small. Oh yeah, and like most post-graduate students and their spouses, we were dirt poor. With no money and no square footage, it was clear that I would need to give up the prospect of having a Christmas tree for the first time in my life.

Or would I?

One day in early December, I figured out a solution. I walked down to the local paper merchant and purchased a pad of multi-colored construction paper. And then, over the same span of time that it took to assemble that 1970s Christmas tree, I made a modest 12-inch-tall tree out of that paper while my wife fashioned a garland and some ornaments. Finally, we added a little paper fireplace and wreath for good measure.

A humble tree, no doubt. But as I look back, I think it was my, and our, best Christmas tree ever.

Merry Christmas to all!

And as a bonus, I have included below my 2014 Christmas greeting from all of us (i.e. me, myself, and I) here at the Tentative Apologist:

https://randalrauser.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Merry-Christmas-from-Randalrauser.com_.mp3

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Is it categorically wrong to eat other human beings?

First off, my apologies for choosing such an, ahem, distasteful topic to discuss on the day before the day before Christmas. But here goes.

In the discussion thread to my article, “Could God command something morally heinous?“, one of my readers, a fellow named “Angry Grasshopper,” (henceforth, AG) took issue with my statement that cannibalism is always wrong. He wrote:

“cannibalism is not ‘categorically immoral’. Watch ‘Alive’ for demonstration of that point.”

But of course, the film Alive does not “demonstrate” the ethics of cannibalism. What it “demonstrates” is a scenario where people need to eat other people in order to survive. One must still judge the ethics of their actions. When I pointed this out, AG replied by clarifying further:

“What makes the cannibalism of “Alive” moral (or at worst amoral) to me is the fact that it literally saved lives while causing no suffering to the already deceased team mates.”

And with that, AG suggests that cannibalism is ethical if it (i) saves lives and (ii) causes no suffering to those who are eaten. For example, presumably, it would be wrong to farm human beings so that those who are so inclined could buy cheap human rump roast at Walmart. But if a human being has already died, as the people in Alive had, and those who are living are facing starvation, then it is not wrong to eat them.

With that in mind, I offered AG the following scenario which meets those two conditions:

“So if human corpses could be processed safely for human consumption in areas where people face serious food shortages, would you support that action?”

AG replied,

“…no, I wouldn’t support that. The question seems to be a complete red herring to me. Your claim was that cannibalism was ‘categorically immoral’. I pointed out a single case where it is not immoral, at least to most people. That is all that is needed to refute the claim of ‘categorical’.”

Let me deal first with AG’s claim that my whole line of questioning is a “red herring.” On the contrary, the whole point of querying AG about the ethics of cannibalism is to point out the strength of the intuitions which support the categorical valuation of human beings that is entailed by the descriptor “Image of God” and the concomitant prohibition of cannibalism. Hopefully this point will be clearer by the end of this article.

With that in mind, I replied to AG as follows:

“You say that you wouldn’t support that use of corpses, but the question is *why* since it would ‘literally save lives while causing no suffering to the already deceased’ and thus should be a morally licit example of cannibalism by your definition.”

And with that AG finally seemed to recognize that his initial Alive criterion for the ethics of cannibalism was insufficient since it allowed precisely the scenario I proposed. With that, he offered three additional pragmatic considerations against the recycling of human bodies for human consumption:

“First, there is the negative physical health cost of the consumption. Prion diseases like kuru are frighteningly easy to transmit when humans consume other humans. A prime example of this was seen in the outbreak of kuru among the Fore people of Papua New Guinea in the 1950s. They were a small tribe who ceremoniously ate the bodies of their dead relatives.

“Second, is because of the demonstrable negative psychological impact of the consumption of other human beings. Even those who were ‘forced’ into this practice when their plane crashed in the Andes had to deal with these first two problems.

“Finally, there is the simple fact that if human beings become the source of food for a group of human beings, they will be more likely to murder perfectly healthy human beings in order to eat them.”

Let’s consider these each in turn.

AG’s first point conveniently ignores a key stipulation in my scenario, viz. “if human corpses could be processed safely…” So we can set that consideration aside. (However, we can also recognize that food production and consumption always entails some degree of risk, so it is not necessary to eliminate all the risks of cannibalism in order to justify the practice on a risk-analysis.)

Second, concerning the issue of psychological aversion, we can point out that human beings have a psychological aversion to consuming many things which can, in principle, be overcome: e.g. the consumption of insects as a source of protein; the consumption of recycled/purified wastewater. So we can assume, for the sake of argument, that in like manner the psychological aversion to eating human corpses can be overcome. (Conversely, if it cannot be overcome, then that would be prima facie data in support of my analysis of the unique wrongness of the action. Consider, by analogy, Dave Grossman’s analysis of the human aversion to killing other human beings in his book On Killing.)

Finally, what about the danger of a spike in homicide rates? Well, the fact is that AG provides no evidence that the recycling of corpses into a highly processed food item to supplement the human diet in marginalized regions would lead to a statistically significant increase in murder in those regions. Nor has he provided any reason to think that such risks could not be mitigated. And since I am stating a hypothetical scenario, we can assume, for the sake of argument, that such risks either do not exist or could be mitigated.

Thus far, AG’s three pragmatic objections have been neutralized. To be sure, he could try identifying further pragmatic objections. But the fact remains that he has provided no principled objection to processing human corpses for human consumption if doing so can save human lives. I’ll leave it to my other readers to decide whether that is a sufficient mapping of human moral intuitions about the morally good and morally right.

For further discussion of this distasteful topic, see my discussion of the Armin Meiwes case in my book The Swedish Atheist, the Scuba Diver, and Other Apologetic Rabbit Trails, chapter 26.

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Could God command something morally heinous?

This article is excerpted from my 2016 book An Atheist and a Christian Walk into a Bar (Prometheus), coauthored with Justin Schieber. Support the authors and consider buying a copy! You won’t be disappointed.

Well, okay, you might be disappointed —  life gives no guarantees — but I’m betting you won’t be. Anyway, without further ado, let’s turn to the question: Could God command something morally heinous?

Justin: Admittedly, the following question deals with a specific theistic tradition (rather than mere classical theism as we’ve been so far discussing), but I think it might be useful in understanding how this perception functions on your view. We are both quite familiar with the story of the binding of Isaac. If you were there, would you have directly perceived what Abraham was willing to do as an evil act?

Randal: No problem, that’s fair game. Even if our primary focus is classical theism, I have made particular references to Christian theism in particular, and of course I am a Christian, so it is legitimate for you to ask about a specific part of the biblical narrative.

Justin: I knew it!

Randal: Let me first say that Jews and Christians have always taken a range of views over how to interpret narratives like the Akedah (the binding of Isaac), which is referenced in Genesis 22. Some interpreters have taken this to be a historical event that happened in the past. But others have interpreted it as a nonhistorical, allegorical tale with theological significance. Others believe it is historical, but they insist that a range of textual cues support the reading that Abraham knew God was not really demanding sacrifice. Still others adopt a sort of hybrid view, by taking the story in the terms of what Karl Barth called saga, which Barth views as something like an allegorical tale with some shadowy historical antecedent. My point is that interpretation of this narrative is an intramural debate among Jews and Christians. And the debate over how to interpret Genesis 22 does not affect my tradition of Christianity, let alone theism simpliciter.

With that long preamble out of the way, let me take the bull by the horns and address your question directly. What would I do if I believed God was telling me to kill my child as a spiritual sacrifice?

Simple. I’d seek counselling and medical advice. I’m guessing you would as well. I hope that response isn’t too disappointing, but it’s the truth. If I came to believe God was calling me to kill my child, I’d believe it was more likely that I was delusional than that God was calling me to kill my child, and I’d act accordingly.

Justin: Well, for your sake and for the sake of your child, I’m glad to hear it. Perhaps you can help my confusion. In the context of an earlier argument, you’ve remarked about the epistemic distance that exists between our knowledge of the moral realm and God’s knowledge of the moral realm. After all, if God is omniscient, she will know all possible goods and evils that could possibly exist and how they relate.

If that’s true, and if God has a morally sufficient reason beyond your finite, human understanding for commanding what you believe her to be commanding, then you shouldn’t expect to know what that justifying reason is, correct?

Randal: Um, yeah, sure. If God commands p, I shouldn’t expect to know why God commands p. By analogy, if the master mechanic working on my car asks me to hand him the cobalt screw extractor set, I shouldn’t expect to know why he has asked me to hand him the cobalt screw extractor set. But I can still ask whether he has asked me to hand him the cobalt screw extractor set. (After all, I could be wrong about that.)

As a Christian, I believe God rejects what is commonly called redemptive violence—that is, the use of violent means to bring about reconciliation between alienated parties. I believe the death of Jesus brings an end to all such appeals to violence as a means of reconciliation.

As a result, I will have a strong defeater to any claim that God is now commanding violence as a means of reconciliation. And that certainly encompasses the most sacred bond of the parent/child relationship.

So, as a Christian, I will have a strong reason to reject as genuine any perceived call of God to wreak violence upon my beloved progeny.

Justin: Okay, but I’m not entirely sure that is relevant in this case. After all, as you’ve suggested, God’s omniscience doesn’t merely entail that there are some moral truths beyond our grasp. It also suggests that you are in no position to say that this one reason you’ve identified is even loosely representative of the total reasons that God has available to her for acting. Moreover, we could, for the sake of the thought experiment, bring you back in time and place you in Abraham’s

shoes.

It would seem, then, that you are in no position to guess the likelihood of God commanding that of you. For all you know, God has a supremely magnificent good, which can only be achieved through this initially unfortunate event.

Randal: Sure it is logically possible that God could command something that appears to be morally heinous. But, for goodness sake, Justin, something parallel to that is true of every moral theory. Take your own theory predicated on moral desires. It’s logically possible that moral desires could require actions that appear to be morally heinous. Since you’re raising a point that applies trivially to every moral system, I fail to see what you hope to accomplish by pushing that particular issue on me.

Justin: I worry you’ve missed the more important of the two points, Randal. Notice that I’m not just saying that it’s logically possible that God might permit something that appears to you as morally heinous. That wouldn’t be terribly interesting all by itself. Rather, I’ve made the additional claim that, given the epistemic distance between you and God, you are in no position to place likelihoods either way. That second part deserves some serious focus.

Randal: On the contrary, the cases are parallel on that point too. How do you know that you are not in a precisely parallel situation regarding your epistemic distance from the right moral desires? In other words, how do you know that the right moral desires are not ones you now consider morally heinous?

Justin: Of course it’s possible that I am wrong about a particular obligation I believe I have or don’t have. As you pointed out, that’s a potential issue on all views. Besides, that’s not even what I’m pressing here. You’ve said that, if you were to start thinking God was commanding you to do something you directly perceived as heinous (like killing your child or torturing and killing a POW, which you earlier said was always wrong no matter the circumstances), you would think yourself more likely delusional than that God was really commanding that act.

Randal: Yup.

Justin: However, this reaction to my hypothetical shows that you believe yourself to have sufficient representative knowledge of the reasons God has available to her in order to claim that God probably would never command such a thing. Would you agree?

Randal: I’m glad you’re conceding that every moral theory faces the same hypothetical that a person could be radically incorrect in their current moral beliefs, whether those beliefs concern moral obligations, moral values, or desires. But I’m surprised that you don’t see how that fact undermines your whole line of questioning.

As for my current moral beliefs, as I said, a person’s fundamental knowledge of moral value on which moral obligations are predicated is not arrived at discursively by grasping particular reasons for action and inferring moral values and obligations from them. Rather, they are perceived immediately, as with Tolstoy’s immediate perception of the evil of capital punishment.

Justin: Yes, I’m aware that this is your view. My question though is not about how you perceive moral facts. Rather, my question is about how much is being perceived. Now, I’m sure we can agree that, given that God is morally perfect, God would not command something unless she had a morally sufficient reason to do so. It follows then that, when you responded to my hypothetical scenario about coming to believe that God was commanding you to kill your child by saying,

“I’d believe it was more likely that I was delusional than that God was

calling me to kill my child.”

we can translate that to,

“I’d believe it was more likely that I was delusional than that God has a

morally sufficient reason to command me to kill my child.”

Now, as finite beings, we might not be able to perceive any morally sufficient reason at all why an omniscient God, if she exists, would command such a killing or any other instance of evil for that matter. But the question I’ve been trying to get at is, does it logically follow that, just because we cannot perceive such a morally justifying reason for God to command you to kill your child, that it is therefore more likely that you are delusional?

Randal: But Justin, I’m not a utilitarian. In other words, I believe there are all sorts of actions that I could never have a moral obligation or moral calling to perform. For example, as I’ve already said, I believe torture and rape are categorically evil. Since I believe those actions are necessarily immoral, it follows that I could never have a moral obligation to torture or rape another person. I have the same view about devotional child killing, and I’ve defended that view in a conference paper called “I want to give the baby to God: Three theses on devotional child killing.”

Justin: Well, color me confused. On the one hand, you claim that certain acts are necessarily immoral. And yet, earlier you said that it is merely more likely that you are delusional than that God wants you to kill your child. If you think that God commanding you to kill your child is not impossible, then how were you able to entertain my hypothetical in the first place? We could have saved some time if you had just argued my hypothetical was incoherent in the first place.

Randal, you’ve said you’re not a utilitarian. I wonder though, do you think God is? For example, in the previous discussion on religious disagreement, you suggest that God allows certain horrific evils to occur in the world for some greater good.

Randal: Unfortunately you keep trying to hammer a point that I’ve already responded to. But let me restate my reply a bit differently.

First, as I said, I believe there are a range of actions that are categorically immoral, and, as such, they could never be morally permissible to perform, including rape, torture, cannibalism, devotional child killing, and so on. Since these are categorically immoral, no divine being would ever command them.

Ahh, you say, but what if God did command them? What then? Huh? Huh?

And this brings me back to the second point I’ve already made. While you seem to think that these per impossibile scenarios that you keep raising present a unique problem for theism, the reality is that the exact same scenarios can be presented to the atheist ethicist like yourself.

For example, at present you agree with me that the desires to perform actions like rape, torture, cannibalism, and devotional child killing are categorically immoral. But what if you come to believe that the morally right desire is to rape, torture, cannibalize, and kill? Then you’ll need to rape, torture, cannibalize, and kill!

Justin: My confusion here was flowing from the fact that you were entertaining my hypothetical in a way that seemed you merely thought it less likely that God would command such a thing rather than flatout impossible.

That said, you raise a good point. If I were to fall under the radical delusion of thinking that the desire to rape or torture are the kinds of desires that, when introduced or increased, tend to fulfill desires rather than thwart them, and that therefore rape or torture could, in certain circumstances, become obligatory, I’d also seek help from a mental health professional.

Randal: Well, we can certainly high five on that point!

Enjoy the article? Get the book!

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Would you kill your child if God told you to?

If God told you to kill your child as an act of faith, would you do it?

— Tentative Apologist (@RandalRauser) December 20, 2018

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