Debate Teacher Reacts: Frank Turek vs Michael Shermer

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Are you a fan of apologetics debates, but by the end of it you're scratching your head wondering, yeah, but who really won?

00:05

Maybe the two opponents were so rhetorically persuasive, but you really want to know who won based on the merits of the debate itself.

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My name is Nate Sala, I'm the president of a Christian apologetics ministry called A Clear Lens, and before I jumped into ministry,

00:19

I actually taught debate. So if you're looking for the inside baseball on famous Christian apologetics debates, then join me in this video.

00:30

On this episode we're looking at Frank Turek versus Michael Shermer. The debate topic is what best explains reality, theism or atheism?

00:38

Now this debate clocks in at a little over two hours, so I'm only going to be looking at cross -examination.

00:44

Again, we're going to be looking at the merits of the debate on this one. Now I'm spending time on cross -examination because I always told my students in the classroom that cross -examination is where a lot of the magic happens.

00:54

You can either shine or you can stink really badly in cross -exam. So I'm excited to take a look at this.

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Let's jump into the video right now. I'm pumped.

01:04

I'm pumped. Let's do it. Let's do it. At this point, we are going to have a 15 minute cross -examination where each debater gets 15 minutes to ask questions to the other debater and they get to answer it and then they switch roles after 15 minutes.

01:20

And at this point, you can also throw in some rebuttal statements in there. But however, I do ask that if you do ask a question, you.

01:27

OK, so the moderator, no, the moderator said something about rebuttals in a regular,

01:35

I don't know, again, like a policy or a public forum debate. You can't do that. You can only ask the right kinds of questions that serve your purposes as an interlocutor.

01:45

But the person that's answering the questions are not allowed to give a formal rebuttal.

01:52

Rebuttal speeches have its own separate category, and that's after a cross -exam. Great. All right. Thanks, Michael. Question I'll put on the board so everyone can see.

02:01

If you're a brain evolved by an unguided, unintelligent process and all your thoughts are completely dictated by the laws of physics, in other words, you're a moist robot, then why should we think your thoughts are true, including the thoughts you've stated right here tonight?

02:15

OK, we're operating at different levels here. So it would be like if you wanted to explain water by looking at the quantum physics in the subatomic particles in hydrogen and oxygen atoms.

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How do you get water out of these quantum, these quarks inside the protons and neutrons of the atom?

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You don't. It's a higher level explanation, much like we talk about emergent properties.

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How do you get democracy out of atoms? Well, you don't. You don't use physics to explain democracy.

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You use political science. So what we're talking about here is kind of different levels, explanatory levels, which is one reason why we have different fields of study.

03:01

OK, immediately they're already off on the wrong foot. A lot of times people aren't really talking to each other. They're talking around each other.

03:07

Turek asked a very specific question that actually goes back to if you catch the full debate, which, by the way, the link will be in the show description.

03:13

It goes back to something that he made in his opening statement. What Frank is asking is a two pronged question, it seems to me.

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The first question is really about epistemology. OK, if we are, according to atheists, according to Shermer, if we are nothing but molecules, then we're locked inside our own minds.

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We cannot transcend that. We cannot find anything that is actually transcendent and objective and applies to us in a way that we conform and adhere to it outside of ourselves.

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And so the first question Frank is asking is, how can we access that? That's an epistemological question.

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The second question that he's asking, though, is directly related, which is if we can't access it as atheists under your worldview, then is it even there?

04:02

Now, Shermer appears to be answering with like, well, the interaction of molecules makes water.

04:09

I think he's providing some kind of a corollary to where he's suggesting that basically the interaction of our own molecules in our brains creates truth.

04:18

I'm not sure. Let me go ahead and let him finish. I agree with you on that, that there are other fields of study. But if you're a materialist, unless you've changed your mind, all that exists are molecules.

04:29

So, again, why should we believe what you're saying? Consciousness. Well, that's sort of a bizarre question.

04:35

What do you mean, why should you believe it? It would be like saying you're made out of quarks.

04:40

And so why should I believe you? What does quarks or atoms got to do with anything? Because if we're controlled by the laws of physics, including our thoughts, why should we expect our thoughts to be true?

04:51

OK, I'm a compatibilist, so I believe that we have volition and free will. How? OK, but free will was not the primary thing that Turek is talking about here.

05:01

So now Shermer has kind of shifted. You know, Turek did bring this up, but that was a secondary effect of his original question.

05:07

And now Shermer is shifting whether he's doing it on purpose or not. I mean, this is kind of filibustering a little bit, but let's see.

05:15

Well, OK, so it has to do with emergent property of complex systems.

05:20

So you and I have more degrees of freedom than a dog. Dog has more degrees of freedom. By degrees of freedom,

05:26

I mean places to move, choices to make. So rats make choices. I'll press the left bar, the right bar, go down this alley, that alley, whatever.

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Those are choices. Rats make them, dogs make them, we make them. And we have more choices, more degrees of freedom than, say, rats, than, say, cockroaches.

05:44

OK, so like what would be the difference between a drug addict hooked on Oxycontin and you and I who are not?

05:53

You know, you and I don't are not under that sway, but the poor addict is.

05:58

There's a difference there of degrees of freedom. OK, so I would. Yeah, but he's presupposing freedom.

06:04

So he really hasn't answered the question. And look, as a compatibilist myself and a

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Christian, compatibilists have a difficult time answering this question because it's a difficult question to answer because the problem of interaction is still something that compatibilists, in my opinion, really haven't worked out.

06:24

And so he really is going to struggle in this particular area. But again, this really wasn't the primary question that that Turek was asking here.

06:31

And so, I mean, he's I don't know what he's doing at this, but he's not helping himself. I would answer it that way, that it's kind of a different levels of how many controlling vectors are at work.

06:41

Do you believe the laws of logic exist? Well, OK, not without humans to describe them.

06:47

OK, let me ask you this then. Yeah. You're saying the laws of logic are just human constructions. Correct.

06:53

Well, OK, two things. One, there is a reality that really exists. So we can measure that the angle here, you know, to a bat's brain or, you know, it may look different than on my brain, but there really is a table and it really exists.

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Even if I can't ever know what it's like to be a bat and know what it feels like to experience a table through echolocation rather than touch or sight.

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But still, that really exists. So the laws of nature that we describe and interpret with mathematics and words, those are human constructions.

07:27

There's no like second law of thermodynamics or or a Newtonian equation in a star.

07:34

Yeah, but. Stars is doing what stars do when they get a certain pressure and temperature, they convert hydrogen into helium.

07:40

Let me let me just ask you this. You're saying the human constructions then. So let me ask you this. Before there were any human beings on the

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Earth, was the statement there are no human beings on the Earth true? OK, yes. OK, well, then how could the laws of logic just be human constructions then?

07:55

Well, but we're we're asking that today, regardless of what we're asking. There's no humans.

08:01

There's no one asking the question. But it was still true prior to that. How how could you and I even communicate if you had your own idea of the laws of logic and I had my own idea?

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How could we even communicate unless we're we? So this is where Schirmer is getting himself into a lot of trouble, OK? On the one hand, he was taking issue with Turek's original question.

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Again, Turek's original question was two pronged. On the one hand, if we're locked inside ourselves in a subjective sense, because all we are just molecules in motion, then how can we?

08:29

So this is epistemological question. How can we access truth? And how can we even say there is such a thing as something that is objective that we must adhere to and conform to?

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Originally, it seemed like Schirmer was talking about molecules combining together to create water and all that.

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So the corollary then must be that truth is something that is a is a process or a combination of the molecule and the molecular interaction in our brains.

08:56

But now he just said that there is an external reality. So in the realm of external reality, what is his explanation for these things?

09:04

He still has not answered the question. So maybe he will. Who knows? Because there is a reality and we share a common neuroanatomy to describe it in ways that are similar.

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So this gets at the problem of other minds. How do I know your red looks like my red? OK, these head scratchers that you get in philosophy 101.

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How do I know that you're not all a bunch of zombies and I'm the only one with the lights on? OK, my answer to this is the

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Copernican principle, which says we're not special. The Earth is not the center of the universe.

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You know, we go around the sun with all the other planets. We're not special. We're just a little corner of the Milky Way galaxy, one of a hundred billion galaxies.

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We're not special. So the chances of maybe the super special one human that's conscious and self -aware and the rest of you are zombies walking around and you only look like you're pretending to be conscious is very low.

09:59

So that's how. Right. But OK, Shermer is not is not helping himself at all here.

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And Turek clearly has the upper hand just in this first few minutes. He started, Shermer started to say something interesting, which is, hey, maybe we have a shared neuroanatomy.

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I'm not sure what he's getting at there. Maybe he means that the way that the body, evolutionarily speaking, is designed makes us to have the same kinds of shared thought processes that then when we communicate one to another, we can actually understand each other.

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But he didn't really go there. And then he started talking about the Copernican principle. So, again, like right now,

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Shermer is losing this particular aspect of cross exam. I'd be giving points to Turek and but hopefully he pulls it out.

10:45

You know, who knows? Shermer might save himself here. You're still not answering how these laws exist because they exist.

10:51

Even if human beings don't exist, the laws exist in the mind of God. Otherwise, you and I couldn't even communicate.

10:57

OK. OK. So first of all, they exist in the mind, the mind of God. That that doesn't follow from this at all.

11:03

That's a separate assertion. We can come back to that. When we talk about a law that that what you just said there is an assertion and you're using the laws of logic to say it.

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If the laws of logic are an objective, that statement couldn't be true. First of all, OK, so first of all, it's not true that there has to be a

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God or else that why would God make the laws any special? What's God got to do with the laws of nature? Nothing.

11:27

You're just saying that. Well, that's well, that's the very point. I'm not talking about laws of nature. I'm talking about the laws of logic. But you want to talk about the laws of nature.

11:33

Those are just words. We're using conventions, mathematical equations. Those are all human. Michael, I know you're not a postmodernist, please.

11:40

They're just words. No, they're describing truths. Yeah, but OK, yeah, but OK, the equation again,

11:47

I'm skeptical. You're a postmodernist, say say say Newtonian equations. They don't exist in the sun.

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The sun's just doing with the sun. It's just physical matter doing what it has to do. We describe it. So before there were humans.

11:59

No, there was no law. The sun was not burning before there was no law. No, the sun, of course, is burning, doing its thing.

12:04

But there's no law. There's no Newtonian equation to describe it. Well, there's no

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Newtonian equation to describe it in our minds because we're not here yet. But that Newtonian equation is still describing the truth of what was happening.

12:18

No, not the equation. Well, the equation describes what happened. Right. The equation doesn't do the work.

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The equation is our way of of describing how it works. Correct. So what is,

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Shermer, what is your explanation for why what we're describing exists?

12:37

What what what is the explanation? OK, but that existed prior to you and me ever existing.

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The sun was burning before you and I ever existed. OK, I think we're talking. Let me run to another question.

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Well, we're talking about two different things here. We're talking about the material reality of stuff that exists and then our description of it.

12:54

Right. Well, you're you're you're going. Yeah. And you're not answering either. So what what are we supposed to do here?

13:00

Except give points to Turek at this point with emergent properties, which appears to be a faith position.

13:06

Anyway, let me ask you this. If God does not exist, only molecules exist. What is the nature of the moral standard called goodness?

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And why are we obligated to obey it? What is that little ruler if it's not God's nature? OK, back to where I started,

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Frank, can you think of any reason why? OK, see, Shermer doesn't understand the question.

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And probably what he's going to do here is he's going to say, yeah, but I know right and wrong and I don't need the

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Bible to tell me so, which is, you know, the Hitchens thing, the Sam Harris, you know, thing.

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Maybe Dawkins does that, too. The problem with this is they're not talking to each other.

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They're talking around each other. And Shermer doesn't understand Turek. Now, not a knock against Turek, because Turek is very smart.

13:54

I would have if I were in Turek's position, I would be finding another way to word this particular question in a manner that actually helps

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Shermer out to to understand specifically what it is that we're asking. Now, Turek has shifted to the morality question, the moral argument, which, again, goes back to his opening statement.

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But the problem is that Shermer still doesn't get it. So now we're going to get probably another three or four minutes of something that doesn't really answer the question.

14:23

And we're not going to get anywhere. Frank, can you think of any reason why sexually molesting a child is bad?

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I can think of. Yes, I can think of reasons, but they're all based on moral principles which require God. No, they don't.

14:35

Sure, they don't. Really. Do you really need God to tell you and explain to you why it's wrong to molest? No, not to tell me why it's wrong.

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But you don't need God to know right and wrong. You don't need God to be good.

14:47

You just need God to justify what it is. No, no, right there. Stop right there and leave out the

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God part. I know why it's wrong. Full stop. You know why it's wrong. But why is it wrong?

14:58

So independent of you knowing it. So Plato refuted this two and a half millennia ago. Really?

15:03

It's called the euthyphro problem or the euthyphro dilemma. No. That is, if God says, say, murder is wrong, although technically by definition, that's what murder means, wrongful killing.

15:15

But in any case, are there reasons why God is saying that? Yes, God has his reasons.

15:22

OK, give us the reasons. Made in the image of God. And skip the middleman. All we need are the reasons why.

15:29

But you see, that that implies a moral principle. When you like before you said the reason you shouldn't sexually molest a child is because they're sentient beings and you wouldn't want them doing it to you or vice versa or whatever.

15:40

Those are all other moral principles that need a source. What is the source on atheism? The source.

15:45

What is the standard? Leave atheism out of it. Atheism isn't anything. It's just lack of belief in God. Full stop.

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We could talk about civil rights, civil liberties, the rule of law. Where do rights come from? We OK, I think rights come from the basis of it is human nature and what all of us want.

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Now, I think we're born with an inherent, innate sense of right and wrong.

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We know from morality just means it's there. It's just there. And we all somehow share it because it's just there.

16:18

Research like in Paul Bloom's lab at Yale, for example, with tiny infants. These are like six months to a year old babies.

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And they are shown a little puppet show. So imagine there's this ramp and this puppets pushing this ball up the ramp and one puppet comes up and bashes the ball back down and fighting the little puppet.

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And then let me finish. This is a great experiment. I'm making an argument for. I'm not disagreeing that we all know right from wrong.

16:43

That's not my point. My point is not epistemology. How do you know right from wrong? My point is, what is rightness on an atheistic, materialistic worldview?

16:50

On a humanist worldview. Thanks for clarifying, Frank, because before it wasn't really certain in your particular question.

16:58

So it might help Shermer out if you did not assume that Shermer fully understands what it is that you're asking and kind of, you know,

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I mean, I hate to make this phrase, but kind of dumb it down, you know, especially for the audience. Right and wrong is determined by a combination of our innate moral sense, our upbringing, what our parents teach us, our family.

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So when Shermer says it's our innate moral sense, he means it's just already there. It just is. They are social communities and so on, which, by the way, have changed a lot.

17:29

You guys would have been in favor of burning witches and enslaving blacks centuries ago. You don't believe that anymore.

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Maybe 50 years ago, most of you would have voted, probably about 90 percent would have voted that blacks and whites getting married should be illegal.

17:45

It's not God's plan. God separated the races by continents. These were arguments made in the 20th century.

17:52

Okay, nobody here would argue that today. Michael, your book, Gay Marriage, most of you are probably against this.

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I contend probably half of you tonight are already in favor of it or at least let it happen. In 10 years, we won't even be talking about gay marriage.

18:04

Michael, why are any of these things? Right and wrong, right and wrong shifts over time. And it doesn't come from religion, doesn't come from the

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Bible. There's no reinterpretation of when Paul said this, he really meant gays should get married. No, that's not how moral change happens.

18:18

It's not happening through religion. I'm not talking about moral change. I'm talking about the grounding of morality. Right. If we're just molecules, well, then if we do it, then who's to say

18:26

Hitler was worse than Mother Teresa? Who's to say that that if there's no standard beyond. Okay, just a just a little side note.

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And this is again, this is like a little inside baseball. No judge wants to hear about Hitler. So bringing up Hitler in a debate, you know, there are just so much more better, more nuanced examples to go to.

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Hitler is so easy. Judges are just so tired of that. They really don't want to hear that. Neither of them. How can you say

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Hitler was wrong? Can you think of any reason why Hitler was worse than Mother Teresa?

18:59

If you say because he killed people, then you just brought another moral principle in it's wrong to kill people. Why is it wrong to kill people?

19:05

How about the survival and flourishing of sentient beings is a good and the more we promote that and do it, that's good.

19:11

Harming and killing people is bad. Michael Hitler says, no, Hitler wants to flourish his sentient beings, not you.

19:18

Why is he wrong? So he was wrong because it's violating the sense that every autonomous person has of a desire to live and fulfill their destiny.

19:29

Why is that a moral principle we ought to obey? We're born with it. We're born knowing it, but why should we obey it?

19:35

We get it from like, for example, our constitutions that we write and we say, this is what we're going to do.

19:41

Social contract. So if we write a constitution that says gay marriage is bad, you're for that. No, no, no.

19:46

Oh, OK. So there's a standard outside the constitution you want to impose on it. Based on our nature.

19:52

Yes, it comes inherent with the species. But it wasn't in our nature, Dr. Schirmer, before to affirm homosexual marriage or gay marriage.

20:01

Imagine you're walking in the forest and you see a fridge and you walk over.

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You're like, wow, this is out of place. You open up the fridge and it's stocked full of fresh food, your favorite foods, whatever those are, right?

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If Frank Turek and Michael Schirmer were walking in the forest and found this fridge, sort of in keeping to the analogy here,

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Frank Turek would walk up and say, well, where did all this food come from? And Schirmer would say, well,

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I don't have any trouble seeing that there's food in the fridge. You see how there's like, they're not having the same conversation.

20:32

They're talking around each other. And that's why this is so frustrating. We're born with a sense of a desire for life, freedom and autonomy, which is why women have been fighting against the church for 2000 years to have reproductive rights, freedom from oppression, from males and so forth.

20:51

And we have all been bending to this because women say, that's what we want.

20:56

Unless it's something we want because we're born with it. Unless the woman is in the womb. Okay.

21:02

Now let's, let's talk about that for a second. Let me, let me go to a new subject. No, no, no, no.

21:07

Wait, wait, wait, wait. No, no. You brought it up, you brought it up. I should, I, and here maybe, would it be immoral for me to stop you?

21:17

It might be a good time to, uh, to use Bill Maher's line that Republicans are pro -choice all the way up to the time where their mistress gets pregnant.

21:28

And also, uh, conservatives seem to be, uh, pro -life all the way up until birth.

21:33

And then after that, just war, it's perfectly okay to kill innocent civilians in Iraq, it's perfectly okay to put to death, uh, people on death row.

21:43

You've already argued that it's justifiable to kill certain people, even innocent people due to some other cause.

21:51

All right. So we're already on the same page. No, no, no, no, no. Michael, what you just brought up, there's a difference between an innocent child in the womb and a guilty murderer on death row.

22:00

Okay. The cross -exam is starting to devolve and it's shifting away from its original point and Turek is letting it happen.

22:09

And I think at this point I would be, um, maybe withholding some points for Turek because the bottom line is

22:16

Turek needs to press Schirmer, um, number one on the issues that he was asking about, which actually go back to his opening statement, which is what you're supposed to do.

22:24

But then when Schirmer starts to shift and talk about things, and even Turek brings up things that are ancillary to, um, the original points that he was trying to make by asking questions in cross -exam, and it seems like Turek did that,

22:37

I don't know, for some kind of emotional reaction from the crowd or something like that. Um, but the bottom line is that Turek now is actually doing a disservice to his own arguments.

22:47

And now the, the conversation has shifted a bit to abortion.

22:53

Um, when originally it was about the grounding of morality. So we got to be extremely careful as debaters to number one, stick to the points that we want to make by asking those questions and then not letting your interlocutor change the conversation and leads you into a new discussion that wasn't part of your original one.

23:13

We bomb using drugs. That's why we try and minimize those because we know that person's valuable.

23:18

Okay. Let me go on to final question. Only got three minutes left. Good. What we can do is dialogue Frank. We don't have to put a stopwatch on it.

23:24

I want you to put me on the spot. What blind natural laws can create computer code, billions of letters long.

23:30

Okay. First of all, you were wrong about that business about DNA. It's perfect. There's not a single. Well, no, there could be mutations in it.

23:37

This is not, not just mutations. Uh, 8 % of our DNA is viral DNA.

23:42

This is called lateral gene transfer. It was discovered in the sixties and seventies. There's a new book out called the tangle web, a tangled tree.

23:51

Uh, David Quammen. I just had him on my podcast last week. He talks about all the new research on this eight since the human genome project, 8 % of our genome is viral.

24:00

How did it get there? It came there from viruses. Two and a half percent of our genome of everybody who's not in Africa, does not have an

24:08

African origin is Neanderthal. Give me the explanation. Um, so for Shermer now,

24:15

Shermer actually has a solid reply. Now, whether you, you know, are taken with Sherman's position or not, that's a solid response to Turk.

24:25

Um, and I take Shermer's word at having the expert on, and I have to go back after this recording and double check his sources, but, um, just for the purposes of cross -exam that's a pretty solid response.

24:36

Now, does it actually handle the 92 % of the genetic code? No, but, um, at least

24:43

Shermer has something here. So maybe he can, uh, flesh this out a little bit further in a cross -exam explanation for why

24:49

God put Neanderthal DNA, two and a half percent into our genome, what's the purpose of that?

24:55

I don't know what the purpose is. Cause I'm not a biologist, but my question to you is, is the DNA a computer program or not?

25:03

Okay. These analogies we use, it's not a computer program. This is just a metaphor we use to try to understand.

25:10

Shermer is also correct. It's not a computer program. And Turek is being a little, um, inarticulate here in sort of speaking as if it was instead of it's like a computer program.

25:20

It's not a metaphor. It's it's one -to -one correspondence. It's like computer code. It's like, so that's what he should have said originally.

25:27

It's like computer code. It is not computer code. As soon as you get yourself into trouble that way, your interlocutor can have a field day pointing out that you've misspoken.

25:38

All right. It looks like it's Shermer's turn. So let's go ahead and see Shermer shine. I mean, this is opportunity. So hopefully he can push back on Frank here.

25:44

Here we go. Here we go. Everybody know how to use an iPhone? Come on, Shermer. When I'm not following you,

25:51

Frank. So for example, from your beginning points, how you're deriving that there must be a single personal creator who cares about me from the fact that the gravitational laws are a certain way.

26:06

I haven't gotten there completely yet because this is just, this is just theism at this point. Could it be a committee of gods?

26:12

There could be two or three or a dozen. It could be like a, like a board of directors that run the universe. I don't,

26:18

I don't. Okay. Shermer started out well. Okay. The question is why is it only that a personal being is the answer to the question, why is the universe here?

26:32

Why does everything exist? Right. When maybe there's other alternatives. Now science has some alternatives.

26:39

Okay. Whether or not you think they're great, they do. But then Shermer takes back, he undercuts himself by saying, could it be another

26:48

God or other gods? The whole point of the debate is what best explains reality, theism or atheism.

26:54

So he starts off well, and then he, he hurts himself. Uh, and it's, that's not great.

27:00

A couple of reasons. Uh, although you, you, you look at the platypus, you might think so. Well, but I mean, uh, but I mean, uh, deism could be, that could be it.

27:09

God set up the whole thing. You're right. And runs the show. It could be deism, but when you go further, you realize that God has intervened in the world since the beginning, but, uh, back to your point.

27:19

Uh, one argument, which I didn't bring up is the idea that the, that everything that exists materially is composed and it needs to be composed by an external force.

27:32

Now the force that composes the universe and composes matter can't be composed itself because then that being would need a composer as well.

27:40

So what you're getting back to is an immaterial, spaceless, timeless composer.

27:46

That is pure actuality. No potentiality. That being is, is, isn't composed at all.

27:54

It's spaceless, timeless, and immaterial. Who created it? It can only be one of them. If you're timeless, do you have a beginning?

27:59

Yeah, of course. If you're, if you're, let me say that again. If you're timeless, you have a beginning. You can how you're not in time.

28:06

So now you're okay. Look at the end of the day, you're going to respond based on your research, based on your prep time, your practice, all that stuff, role -playing for this debate.

28:16

I'm sure I'm assuming, uh, both Frank and Shermer role played these things before they got up on stage here.

28:22

Um, and so in the moment you're going to say stuff, I don't think this was probably the best response. What Shermer is asking about is intentionality.

28:29

Okay. And that's where Shermer, I think doesn't quite, um, he either disagrees with Frank or he doesn't quite understand what

28:35

Frank is getting at here. Why is it that, uh, a, a being has to be the answer.

28:42

Now, Frank talks about, uh, being things being composed, which is fine, but what he really needs to explain is when you have a universe that, that exists now, but once in the past did not exist, which is big bang cosmology, right?

28:59

What explains the universe coming into existence in the first place? Now, inanimate objects have no way of creating or causing.

29:08

The only thing that causes is something that is intentional. And the only things that are intentional is a mind.

29:15

Now, Frank probably should have walked through that, but he doesn't. And so Shermer, I think, isn't really going to understand and probably continue to give pushback on Frank's responses here to his question.

29:27

Depending on the laws of logic that are failing, because first of all, we don't know of anything that came from nothing.

29:33

There's no example of this at all. For example, quantum physicists tell us that the things that are bouncing off all of this right now, photons of light, they come from the inside of atoms.

29:45

They're not in the atoms. They're not sitting there waiting to burst out. They pop out of the atoms, out of nothing, out of the quantum foam.

29:54

Okay. You quoted Stephen Hawking quite a bit. Hawking's point was that, not that the universe comes from nothing, that there's not this like creation event from nothing.

30:03

When physicists talk about nothing, they don't mean what theologians mean. They mean there's this quantum energy field out of which things pop from just the pure energy.

30:14

We know of no... It would help if he could actually quote Hawking in some form or fashion saying this to, you know, to further his point.

30:23

Nothing. Okay. This is one of these linguistic epistemological walls I mentioned that we're going to hit.

30:29

We can't conceive of nothing. Which by the way, this is cross -examination. Where are the questions? Why isn't he asking

30:35

Frank questions? Why is he sitting here expounding on it? He's defending himself in cross -examination.

30:41

Amazing. This is a wasted opportunity and the clock is against him and he's going to find his time run short before he can actually ask some really great questions.

30:49

It's not possible for any human brain to conceive of nothing. Sure it is. That's what most men think about. No thing.

30:56

See, the word itself, no thing, implies there's a thing of which there's no. There's...

31:02

That would not even be nothing. It'd be like my asking you, imagine yourself dead. You can't do it because to imagine something, you have to be alive.

31:10

Michael, don't go Lawrence Krauss on me. I mean, come on. Even, even, even atheists...

31:16

There's no... Okay, Frank. No, no, this is a... I'm not interested in Lawrence Krauss. If I say, if I say I had nothing for lunch.

31:22

That means I had no thing for lunch. I didn't eat lunch. It doesn't mean I had something called nothing.

31:29

Okay. Again, we don't know anything about what the universe was like at the very beginning.

31:37

As far as we know, it could be an infinite universe going all the way back.

31:42

Not a beginning infinitely long ago. Okay. When you start off a phrase in a debate, as far as we know, it could be.

31:50

You're getting into hypotheticals. And again, you're not helping yourself. It would be better if, uh,

31:55

Shermer could quote from some experts in the field of quantum physics, um, where they're saying essentially what he wants to communicate here, but that's not going to help him either.

32:04

That the big bang creation from the singularity point was itself just on the continuum of there's always been something by which

32:14

I mean the nothing of quantum. Uh, energy. All right. Let me, okay. So again, we're hitting a wall here.

32:20

I'm not saying I know what was there before. Nobody knows. And we can never know as long as we're in this universe, what was there before our universe?

32:29

It's just as possible that there were multiple universes. And by this, I don't mean, you know, multiple universes.

32:36

Now, I mean, a sequence of these from which, for example, a collapsing black hole that collapses into a singularity point, which is, which

32:44

Stephen Hawking's great breakthrough, uh, for his PhD thesis was that maybe this is how the universe started was a collapsing, something like a collapsing black hole singularity point.

32:54

It's entirely possible. This is pure science fiction at the moment that. This is pure science fiction at the moment.

33:01

Again, probably not the best phrase to be using to support your view. Super advanced extraterrestrials could engineer a solar system in a star to collapse into a black hole and create a universe.

33:13

You could have multiple bubble universes popping in and out. Did he just say extraterrestrials? It's entirely possible.

33:18

This is pure science fiction at the moment that super advanced extraterrestrials could engineer a solar system in a star to collapse into a black hole and create a universe.

33:29

You could have multiple bubble universes popping in and out. Michael, this is a simply an engineering. What would you call a being that could create a universe out of a black hole?

33:38

Michael, you're supposed to be the scientist. You would call that God. I'm claiming that any sufficiently advanced extraterrestrial would be indistinguishable from the

33:46

God you believe in. You are you are you are coming up with a lot of speculations with no evidence. As are you.

33:52

No. You have no evidence of this God. All you have. I have a gap. I can't explain.

33:58

It's not God. It's not a gap. We're not reasoning from what we don't know. We're reasoning from what we do know. If space, matter and time had a beginning, the cause must be spaceless, timeless and immaterial.

34:07

No. This is a missed opportunity by Shermer. So Shermer has a way of giving a rejoinder here, which is that there are alternative theories to the beginning of the universe that don't entail a beginning where the universe didn't exist and now exists in that sense, the way that Christian apologists talk about it.

34:27

But there's other possible alternative explanations. The problem is he kind of plays footsie with those things and doesn't really explain.

34:33

He provides no evidence, no quotations to support himself, really. And so he loses an opportunity here to do those things.

34:41

And it's really disappointing. That does not. What is it? No, no, no. Let me give you some of these thought, some of these like logical sequences.

34:50

Here's a guy I just made these up. Here's the paradox of perfection. If God exists, then he's perfect. If God exists, he is the creator of the universe.

34:57

Perfect beings must create perfect things. The universe is not perfect. There's no God. OK, solid logic, utter bullshit as an argument.

35:06

It's fallacious. But that's the kind of stuff that all of these arguments are. No, it's fallacious, Michael. If this and then this and then this, none of those follow from the points ahead of them.

35:14

Define what you mean by perfect. Well, that's right. You define it because I can't. We don't have a perfect.

35:20

You can't define perfect. You just said the universe isn't perfect, but you can't define perfect. When you're talking about a world constrained by physical constraints, there's no such thing as perfect design.

35:33

What engineers like Neil do is they find design that fits their purpose. Like this iPhone,

35:40

I unfortunately have to recharge every two hours. Now, they could have they could have made the iPhone a lot bigger.

35:47

But if they did, I'd be lugging it around like a suitcase. You need to get the five. Well, whatever.

35:54

The point here is, is that the engineers have to trade off between size and portability and battery life.

36:02

So there is no perfect design unless you know what the intention of the designer is.

36:08

So, so the analogy there is fallacious or that statement you said. But let me just ask you this. This is an important point here.

36:13

All right. Up here. You see, you see right here is today. There's yesterday.

36:18

So Frank shouldn't be asking any questions. This is Shermer's time to ask Frank questions. And Frank is stealing that away from Shermer.

36:26

Now, Shermer shouldn't allow him to do that. But on the other hand, this isn't really helping Frank either. This isn't

36:32

Frank's time. Frank already had his time and it's over. There's the day before yesterday. There's last week.

36:37

Let's say we don't know how far back this line goes. The timeline question is, can this line be infinite into the past?

36:45

This would imply, if that's true, that it not that it had no beginning, that there was no beginning infinitely long ago.

36:57

The big bang would just be the latest beginning of this universe. There could be multiple bangs.

37:02

It could be multiple universes going all the way back. This would be like arguing there had to be a finite beginning or else we wouldn't be here tonight.

37:10

OK, no matter what would happen, you'd end up with this finite beginning. But let me ask you this.

37:17

OK, I forgot what I was going to ask you. Oh, on the design question, since you have the timeline up there.

37:22

So we now know the universe is 13 .8 billion years old and humans are roughly about 100 ,000 years old.

37:30

Christianity began about 2000 years ago. What was God doing? That 99 .99

37:36

percent of all that time. Well, if this is all beautifully designed and elegantly and teleological and purposeful and it's all here for us so that we would be here.

37:44

Boom. Here we are. Why the 13 .7889 billion years of nothing?

37:51

And then I think I'll send my son to this desert place in this Bronze Age culture where no one can write and I'll give them the message.

38:00

I don't know what I don't know what is going on. This is not anything that Frank talked about in his opening statements.

38:08

And Schirmer should be attacking. I think there's like six points in Frank's opening statements. He's not really doing that.

38:15

And now he's introducing some new concept that it wasn't even there in the original discussion at all.

38:23

This is a complete waste of an opportunity. And now it's a hypothetical, too.

38:29

I mean, how are you supposed to know the mind of somebody if they if they did something or they didn't do something? I mean, this is just a waste of time, really, is what it is.

38:37

What was the purpose of all that time? Augustine actually answered that question. He said he was creating hell for people who ask questions like that.

38:46

I'm telling you, my best friends are going to be there. Hitchens, Sagan. No, obviously.

38:51

It's going to be great. You guys should come. It's going to be party time. Now, Michael, that's a serious question, though, really, because if you're if you're building us into it as something purposeful,

39:01

I realize you didn't go there with your argument. It's a different argument. That's OK. How do you get to Christianity?

39:07

He didn't mention that. You know, Jesus died for us with 13 .788 billion years of nothing.

39:13

And then I think I'll come in now. We're just off topic at this point. This is a this is not good.

39:18

I have not read it myself. I just said I'm on the radio program. But I will say this, that that God's sacrifice is retroactive.

39:24

In fact, Hitchens asked this of me in the first debate we had. He said, what was God doing for all that time? And and he

39:31

Hitchens didn't seem to realize that Christ's sacrifice was retroactive to everything that happened before him.

39:38

So people that lived before him were still saved by his sacrifice. So when God came working through free creatures, a lot of people say he came 2000 years ago because he had a relative time of peace with a

39:50

Roman empire that built a road system and a language, Koine Greek, that was all around the known world at the time.

39:56

It was the perfect time for God to come and spread this message through people around the ancient world.

40:02

Did he did he die for the Neanderthals, too? Yes. If, in fact, there were Neanderthals who had the capacity to make moral decisions.

40:11

How about Homo erectus? Slightly smaller brain. If, in fact, that was a human, a human being. Yeah, not they're not humans.

40:17

They're a different species of hominid. How about Australopithecines? Little Lucy with the little, you know, single type sort of chimp sized brain.

40:26

So in other words, there's a Christ Turek in his opening talked about the beginning of the universe. This is this this is his case.

40:32

He talked about reason and rationality as a feature of human beings. He talked about DNA and information in genetic code.

40:43

He talked about objective morality. He talked about evil and he talked about science.

40:49

This is way, way off the reservation here. And I'm just wondering where this is all going, because like I said, seconds are ticking away from here.

40:58

Sacrifice covers it all. Does my dog get saved? You see where I'm going? Yes, dogs go to heaven, but cats don't.

41:06

Clearly, they're demonic. Here, here, we have agreement on this. I will concede the point.

41:14

Let the record show there is agreement. No, no, no, no, no. I love cats. They taste like chicken.

41:20

Oh, wow. Oh my gosh. This is devolved.

41:26

I'm sorry. He believes in evolution. I'm de -evolution. Nobody's ever going to invite me to be a moderator again.

41:35

Or at least for the political candidates coming up. How about, Frank, how about not just time, what was

41:40

God doing for 13 .8 billion years, but space? I mean, we now know that there's roughly several hundred billion galaxies, each of which contain several hundred billion stars.

41:50

And now it looks like pretty much every star has half a dozen to a dozen planets, if not more. And moons and so on.

41:57

Oh my gosh, what about all those, what's, what's the purpose of all that other stuff if we're supposed to be the focus, just one little third rock from the sun in this tiny little corner of the galaxy?

42:07

What, why all that space? That hasn't been revealed to us, if there are other life forms out there. But all those life forms,

42:14

I should say, all that space out there actually demonstrates the majesty of God. I mean, if, if the clouds ended at the cloud tops, or if the heavens ended at the cloud tops, we'd go, hey, what's the big deal?

42:23

But when you see stars equivalent to grains of sand on all the beaches on all the earth spread out there, that would take us over 200 ,000 years at space shuttle speed to go between them, you realize the majesty of God.

42:37

This is why both the Old and the New Testament say the heavens declare the glory of God. In fact, in, in Isaiah chapter 40, in Isaiah chapter 40,

42:48

Michael, God, God is speaking and says, to whom will you compare me or who is my equal, says the

42:56

Holy One. He says, in other words, you want a comparison? Here's what he says. Lift your eyes and look to the heavens who created all these stars and named them one by one because of his great strength and mighty power.

43:07

Not one of them is missing. You know, I mean, Shermer's question isn't awful because it tends to go back.

43:16

This is finally something that actually connects to Frank's opener. Frank was talking about the fine tuning of the universe in the beginning.

43:22

And so now he's asking, well, what about all this space in the universe? Frank's response isn't awful, but I don't think it really connects with, with Shermer's answer either.

43:35

Maybe a better answer is that there was no space as a feature. I mean, the space of the universe that we see now is actually evidence that there was a beginning because everything was compacted down to a very, very finite point.

43:49

And so in the beginning, there was no space. The space is an example of the universe expanding over time, over millions of years.

43:57

And so, you know, that's why there is space. But I don't think emotionally speaking, this is really going to connect or even even on an ethos level.

44:09

This is really going to connect with Shermer just saying that space is a representation of the majesty of God.

44:15

It speaks to the base. It speaks to the Christians in the audience. But that's all it speaks to. How do you know that the

44:21

Christian religion is the right one? How much time are you going to give? So, for example, for example, there's a billion

44:29

Muslims who are absolutely certain you're going to hell because you chose the wrong religion.

44:36

And they speak with as much conviction. They have great arguments and so on. Or for that matter, my

44:42

Jewish friends and rabbis, they don't accept Jesus as their savior.

44:47

They believe the same God, the same book, at least the first part of the book, the Hebrew Bible.

44:54

And they know the arguments, you know, for the resurrection, the eyewitnesses, the missing, the empty tube.

44:59

They know all those arguments. And they go, nope, no, I don't believe it. So it's interesting to me from a scientist's perspective that you get so much diversity over such a long period of time and there's no convergence toward, yeah, that's the right one.

45:13

Like in science, like Big Bang Theory versus steady state cosmology, that was debated for a couple of decades.

45:18

Big Bang Theory eventually, not the TV show, but the real theory. One out because there was more evidence for it.

45:25

Or, you know, just pick any scientific debate. It's kind of setter shot for a few decades and then it starts to narrowly focus.

45:30

And then there's a convergence and a consensus. That's the one. These other ones are probably not true. The thing that's curious to me about religion is that you get this sort of smattering.

45:39

This is our afterlife and this is the afterlife. Now, this is the afterlife. Well, which is the right one? Well, they're all true or not all true.

45:47

Nobody's going to say that. But what's your standard of objective standards say? Well, we know that's the right one because, look,

45:53

I can point to it. And when you point to it, why don't the Muslims go, oh, yeah, because it's not a process of chemistry that you'd have to be an atheist to believe in the process of chemistry that gives you all your thoughts.

46:02

We don't. It's it's there's a free will involved. In fact, the way

46:07

I show that Christianity is true. I go through the evidence that truth exists. God exists. Miracles are possible.

46:12

And the New Testament documents are telling us the truth about the resurrection. Because if Jesus rose from the dead, then whatever he teaches is true because he's

46:20

God. So I just have a personal policy. If somebody rises from the dead, I just believe whatever they say.

46:26

OK, now, well, Michael, Michael, you point out in India, there's a

46:32

God man named Sai Baba. He's dead now, but he had millions of followers. He could raise the dead.

46:38

He said he came back from the dead. He could perform miracles. Millions of people believed. Look, sometimes I believe in Sai Baba.

46:43

Sometimes people are deceived. But let's run a very quick experiment here. Well, wait, stop right there.

46:49

Sometimes we are right. Yeah, we can be self -deceived. I think we've just witnessed it tonight. OK, and I rest my case.

46:57

OK, thank you very much. No, Michael, we are going to do a short experiment here. This is for the Christians in the room.

47:03

Christians, I want to ask you guys a question. I want you to think of somebody, you know, who's not a Christian, whom you'd like to be a

47:08

Christian. Everybody got somebody friend, relative. OK, next question. Am I one of them? They're thinking about you,

47:14

Michael. Next question. Is the person you're thinking of on a relentless pursuit of truth?

47:20

They want to know if Christianity is true or not, or are they apathetic or maybe even hostile? How many say the person

47:26

I'm thinking of is on a relentless pursuit of truth? A hand and a half.

47:32

How many people say the person I'm thinking of is apathetic or hostile? Yeah, there you go. There's the answer. Free will.

47:38

They don't want it to be true. Most people are not on a truth quest. It's a nice tactic to connect with the audience there, get the audience engaged and interacting.

47:47

But again, I mean, in terms of real cross examination, well, I don't want to say real, but like cross examination in debate doesn't have space for talking to the audience for what is going on and what we've been seeing over the last several minutes.

48:03

I mean, this is really for me. It's very frustrating because there's so many missed opportunities on both sides.

48:10

Honestly, to to really engage in robust debate on this issue.

48:15

And it's it's very frustrating. Happiness quest, as my friend Andy Stanley says. You're saying this about Orthodox Jews.

48:22

They don't want to know what the truth is. I don't know what each individual person is. They are as deeply religious as you.

48:27

OK. But they don't accept Jesus as their savior. OK, so what I'm saying is these are different kinds of questions.

48:33

People have free will. OK, they have free will. They choose not to believe Jesus was the Messiah. They even believe that there is a Messiah. He just hasn't come yet.

48:40

That's pretty close. I mean, you got to let him in for that, right?

48:47

Hey, overall, Frank started strong when it was his turn to ask Schirmer questions.

48:53

Schirmer was incapable of answering any of Frank's questions directly. He latched on to secondary questions and really spent a lot of time, in my estimation, filibustering, not really articulating what his rejoinders were in the best sense.

49:10

Now, Frank kind of slipped up a little bit and missed some opportunities to articulate better his position as well. And then when we get to Schirmer's attempts to ask questions,

49:18

Schirmer doesn't really ask very many questions. He asks like a handful of them. The rest of the time, he's just talking, which is really, like I said, it's frustrating because these are missed opportunities.

49:28

Schirmer looks and almost it sounds exactly like Hitchens when Hitchens went up against William Lane Craig.

49:35

And some of the things that Schirmer introduced were completely not even part of the original debate at all, which leads to missed opportunities.

49:44

So Schirmer loses cross -examination. So those are my thoughts on the debate itself.

49:50

Once again, Schirmer lost many opportunities to really hit back against Turek's position with some powerful rejoinders of his own, which is why

49:57

I say Turek actually won the cross -examination very clearly, in my opinion. Who do you think won the debate?

50:03

Go ahead and leave those comments below and I'll take a look. We'd love to get your thoughts on that. If you would like me to take a look at a particular debate, go ahead and leave those in the comments as well.

50:12

And finally, if you like this kind of debate analysis, definitely check out our website, clearlens .org,

50:18

where we teach you how to effectively communicate your Christian faith utilizing the principles that I discussed in this video.