On the Christian-Atheist Debate, 2017 (A Critique)

Hello all –

A few days have sauntered-past since the debate at Makerere University on 2^nd March, and given that an immediate post-event period and atmosphere is often deemed unhealthy to objective reviews of the same, I’d hope and trust that five days are sufficient time for any subjective ‘‘steam’’ to have let-off. 

All contingencies allowed, I sincerely opine that my brother Ekele Odoma did win the technical debate of the day. 

He stayed on course throughout, and despite my attempts to broaden the parameters of discussion and enumerate the possible senses in which the term ‘meaning’ may have been used – Gideon’s responses remained mostly theme-oriented. 

I, on the other hand, adopted a broad, far-ranging strategy at the outset, thinking to narrow it down toward the end, but not quite succeeding. 

My intention here was to underpin how – in a cosmological context, we cannot productively discuss meaning in the context of human life, since arguments for and beliefs in the afterlife (or afterlives) are as malleable and numerous, as they are ultimately unfalsifiable.

Our fate after death is not known, and perhaps cannot even be known.

What would make sense would be, thus, to discuss meaning in the material – in the here and now sense.

This then, deductively and inductively, would compel the debate to gravitate toward HUMAN MORALITY, given that this is perhaps the best expression of meaning or reality with regard to earthly life.

My opponent however, didn’t fall for the ‘bait’ offered. 

Brother Odoma – permit me salute you for the staying-power you displayed.

And now, with the benefit of hindsight – I realize that the line of argument I should’ve adopted ought to have been making clear how there is NO (verifiable) PERMANENT, TRANSCENDENTAL MEANING TO REALITY. 

Implying that life, human or otherwise, is time-bound and subject to spatial limits and sundry constraints. 

The only meaning there is to life therefore – is what we give it, and nothing more. 

Our relationship as powerful and powerless humans in no different from the relationship between the lion and the zebra; in which case people with power are able to prey on the weak with ultimate impunity.

There is no intrinsic justice to the world – natural selection and the law of the jungle, to which we can never be fully exempt no matter how refined our civilizations, make sure of that. 

The only justice there is to life is neither god-imputed nor biology-ascribed – but is wholly man-made. 

This is thanks to culture, scientific-curiosity, as well as social aspiration and individual ambition. 

Now, brother Odoma agreed that there is no ultimate meaning in the context of jungle law – but does this imply that animals, which are soulless and not bound for immortality, have no meaning in their (purely mortal) lives? 

Zebra may be the natural meal of lions, at a whim – but we also, from scientific consensus, that they also form communities and have families and demonstrable sentiment for their calves and kin.  

Zebra herd migrate in pursuit of pastures and water; which reveals that they care about the future and the continuity of their species. These are certainly meaningful things – and they can only be ensured by the herd not starving to death. 

Their impending, grueling and unceremonious death at the hands of the big cats doesn’t take away this short-lived meaning or aspiration from their short lives, even when they know that the offending lions will never be punished in hell for killing their fellow Zebra in cold blood – the lions having no souls to burn, anyway.

And quite similarly, our own species is a ready (and very natural) meal for predators like lions.

Does a lion that kills a man, as they often do in the Serengeti, get punished any worse for this crime, than it gets punished for killing a Zebra? 

Does it make any difference if the man is a Christian? 

The thought would be laughable – God penalizing a specific lion in the afterlife for having mauled his votary, while simultaneously taking exception to other lions for dispatching off non-Christians.

When Gideon sneered that, ‘‘Why don’t we refer to the mauling of a Zebra by a lion as murder?’’ – the short answer to this would have been that as far as the zebra and their moral system are concerned, the lion has committed murder. 

Gideon’s dismissal of the lion’s crime as not constituting murder (and suggesting that it was absurd of me to suggest so), only served to vindicate my charge against him and most Christians of speciesim – the selfish refusal to acknowledge other species as entities with an agency worth respecting. 

The poor, oppressed and disenfranchised of the earth can expect no help from anyone in the clouds or beyond – and unless they make their own justice, there’ll be none for them. Our only hope lies in building cultures and value-systems that distribute and democratize power – whether this power be economic, cultural or political. 

A man who commits his life to doing evil, and succeeds at it, if he doesn’t get indicted and penalized by human laws and social controls – ULTIMATELY escapes punishment. 

A sad reality this is, but the only plausible one per available evidence. 

All throughout history, bad things have happened to good people and will continue to do so; which is why our attempts to build societies and civilizations with stronger cultural and/or legal controls must be redoubled, not scaled-back and undermined by the postulate of divine intervention and/or predestination.

The debate should therefore have revolved around me agreeing with Gideon, first, that THERE ISN’T AN ULTIMATE MEANING TO LIFE.

Or at least, not the slightest evidence for one.

There is no objectively known, or even perhaps knowable immortality to life – and, it could further be argued, no NEED for one.

Man can, has always been able, and should continue to live and lead quite fully and meaningfully the short years he has on earth – without being worried about his nonexistence after death.

An innate something called cognitive-dissonance permits us do this – which is why it is possible for you to plan to meet your lover tonight, and even consummate the relationship, when you know full-well that millions of kids are in that same instant dying excruciating deaths in the civil wars raging across The Sudan, Yemen and Burma.

Consequently, my task would have been to moot and prove how – THE ABSENCE OF AN OBJECTIVE, ULTIMATE MEANING TO OUR LIVES SHOULD NEVER NEGATE, OR AT ALL DIMINISH THE TEMPORARY, TRANSIENT (and only verifiable) MEANING WE CAN IMPUTE TO EXISTENCE. 

Meaning in life – is not, and cannot be made synonymous with immortality.

God (whatever name your denomination ascribes him), isn’t about to show-up in a cloud of fire to save us from our ephemeral life’s almost entirely man-made predicaments and travails.

Only man, only we – can save ourselves, or else perish helplessly.

This notwithstanding, I still insist that the debate ought to have been broader.

For, while Brother Ekele seemed content with enclaving his talking-points around arguing the indefensibility of meaning in a world with no immortal anticipations – I, contrariwise, was and still am convinced that the so-called GOD DEBATE cannot and shouldn’t be compartmentalized into isolated fragments of standalone topics.

Such a subject may only be meaningfully discoursed-over in its full breadth.

One cannot dispute (or in my case defend) the possibility of finding meaning in a life without immortality, and a God to grant it – without inviting upon themselves the bounden duty of defending (or in my case interrogating) the existence and nature of this God, to begin with.

***

Not even Gideon’s attempt to posit a necessary ‘‘banger’’ for the big bang, unless we can find an explanation for the banger’s origins, holds sway.

The only explanation the Abrahamic faiths have to offer for God’s origins are that either he created himself, or was uncreated, and thus has always been. 

Collate this with Gideon’s Chapatti analogy and realize how not-dissimilar such an explanation is from this –  

The chapatti, upon asking for its presumed maker’s origins (in this case we humans) being told that we either created ourselves, or were uncreated. 

The Intelligent Design argument always runs into this wall, and will continue to as long as it’s dogmatically espoused. 

Evolution, for its part, scales the wall because it easily explains how simple building-blocks can emerge from a cosmological accident, and slowly evolve to form the complexity that is life today. 

Simple and accidental things can both cause and result from the bang – but no simple or accidental explanation can ever be posited for the banger, who is an entity as complex (if not more) than the already complex life he is credited for . 

Unless Christians can actually explain God’s provenance, the only option left to them is to concede that God’s emergence was itself accidental, or to outright abandon the Intelligent Design argument. 

***

Now, to return to an earlier point made concerning the numerosity of afterlives, and how this buttresses my arguments against immortality:

When the audience got around to questioning the debaters; a young man, Godwin Toko, challenged Ekele’s argument on immortality being the only sound foundation for meaning quite well, I think – by disputing its universality. 

Gideon responded by declaring the question already answered, and requesting another. 

However, I didn’t think it was answered, and here’s why: 

Toko’s question was to the effect that immortality and its consequences cannot by definition be theologically singular – since there are numerous faiths, each with its own version of immortality. 

To argue for a specific interpretation of immortality (in this case the Christian interpretation), is to effectively argue against the other 10,000 or so interpretations of the same – which are held just as intransigently by their respective faiths.

Hindus, for instance, teach reincarnation – which arguably may not be as objectionable to the sinner as eternal hell, since it is reversible and offers a second chance, while Christian (as well as specifically Christ-prescribed) damnation doesn’t – hell being eternal in nature.

Does my brother Ekele’s argument, for a Christian immortality being the only sound foundation for meaning, in any way invalidate the Hindu (or other faith’s) interpretations of immortality?

Certainly not.

And yet we know, for sure, that the two (several) competing interpretations of immortality cannot both (all ) be true.

In the end, one of them must be true, and the other(s) false.

The atheist position is oppose the (necessary) fanatic commitment to either, required scripturally of the adherents of either faith, and propose a middle road; namely – scientific skepticism.


***

Finally, it must not elude mention that any dogmatic convictions relating to eternity, hell and heaven are intrinsically opposed to genuine humility and patience in this one transitory life we are sure of. 

This, as you will notice, is in direct contradiction to Gideon’s insistence that meaning in this short life, can only logically repose in the promise of eternity. 

If anything – what eternity really reveals to the believer is how minuscule and negligible his/her experiences in earth are. 

The believer is thus impelled to speedup the passing of this temporary phase in slavering anticipation of the everlasting. 

This is where concepts like martyrdom and divine reward begin to gain traction. 

If one really believes that killing a few infidels or ‘enemies of God’ will earn them an eternal reward, then nothing (apart from a lack of faith) should prevent them from acting on their belief. 

Faced with the absurdly impractical and antisocial teachings of Jesus (ascetism, pacifism, penury and neglect of family) and Mohammed (martyrdom) – it is actually the Christian and Muslim who must, to use Gideon’s phrasing, borrow a great deal of rationalization to make sense of this fleeting life. 

In order to patch together some meaning into their short life, the believer is forced to literally ignore, reinterpret or dismiss outright many of the core teachings of their own faith.  

It’s a point I tried to make in so many words, but admittedly – the stillborn wit and facetious sarcasm I hazarded got in the way. 

Next time, perhaps. 

Otherwise, congratulations to my Brother Ekele. 

Cheers, and good health to you all. 

God preserve you!  

;-)