The Inherent Evasiveness of Apologetics

At its core, apologetics is an exercise in excuse making. Its whole purpose is to rationalize a set of beliefs that Christians are already invested in. Methodology doesn't matter. The goal is not open exploration. All that matters is fending off doubts, and this must be done at all costs. Thus apologists develop an instinct to be automatically evasive on any topic that sounds like it will challenge their established faith. In this video, I examine an interesting case study in this phenomenon, which is Mike Winger's response to a series of objections to belief in God. The objections bring up real issues with the Chrisitan faith, but they tend to be imprecise with their language, often overreach by claiming that they PROVE God does not exist. This presents Mike with a choice. He could thoughtfully engage with the real issues at hand, or he could dismiss them based on technicalities since the goal is evasion at all costs. How he response when given an easy out tells us a LOT about apologetics.

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MUSIC CREDITS

[paulsmart]

It's fun how apologists have collectively realized they can't answer the problem of evil so they all agreed to just pretend they did already.

[rcketmse]

It's pretty irrelevant about #3 but something I found funny was how he gets "timeless" as the opposite of time, and "spaceless" as the opposite of space existing, but the opposite of energy isn't "incredibly powerful" it's the lack of energy. Suddenly the antithesis breaks down because it's inconvenient to the attributes they want their god to have.

[LS-zuoy]

Spaceless, timeless, incredibly powerful and cares what you do with your genitals. Ok, Mike...

[DoloresLehmann]

It's funny that you can listen to an apologist and instantly know which other apologist he's borrowing his arguments from. It's like they're just passing them around in their in-group and never encounter a fresh thought.

[wax]

Well, he did say he would provide answers, he didn't say they had to be accurate or true.

[MatthewCaunsfield]

Mike's obliviousness to the remark about how geography leans to choosing a person's religion (or lack thereof) was priceless 😂

[BernardBerserker]

You have to give Mike some credit here. He fumbled his answers so bad, even weak arguments sound more convincing afterwards.

[coreyfaller]

Nice touch by Mike to give the atheist's questions with a dutch angle and red background lighting, then give his " holy" response with the normal angle and blue lighting. All we are missing is the treacly music.

[brianstevens]

Mike is like a pond that looks deep but when you walk out into it you barely get your shoe's wet.

[DannyWJaco]

I had to stop after #4. Good job Zod recognizing the gaslighting techniques. I tried not to use the G word but Winger confirmed it in the first two questions. “Honesty....is such a lonely word. Everyone is so untrue.” — Billy Joel

[gatorboymike]

A lot of the original list's arguments fall under the heading of "That doesn't disprove a god per se, but it does raise the question of why it would be so if there was a god."

[nagranoth_]

I find it highly amusing Mike points out that babies don't know anything while it's christians who claim "you're born with inherent knowledge of god you just reject it."

[cdsworkshop]

My rebuttal to the argument about people's religious beliefs (or lack thereof) being based on where they're born is that most atheists actually were religious at one point and still live in areas where most people are religious. They grew out of religious belief as they developed mentally and started to realize how illogical it all is.

[vanillabatcave]

I like how he's also critical of the atheist, shows that he cares about truth

[AcidProphet]

"I use this infallible logic to prove god exists"
also "logic doesnt matter, becouse god's mind is above us."

[dougt]

RE: Mike's objection to reason number 9. Probably because I'm an engineer by profession but I can't help but laugh when Christians bring this up because their own holy book says their God's plans and desires are constantly being foiled and end up as failures. Creation attempt #1 Garden of Eden? Fail. Creation 2.0? Also fail, had to be flooded. Third time's the charm creation? Oops Tower of Babel, have to hit the reset button again. Creation 4.0? Still broken, have to send down Jesus to try to fix it. But whoops Jesus only half finished the job before floating off into outer space. But at least he promised to come back and finally finish the job with God's 5th do-over.

I ask Christians who say that creation is so well-designed just how many do-overs and mulligan's does your God have to give itself before its creation is finally going to function properly?

[bookardtdb]

What matters is that he wasn’t able to get away with it this time. Well done friend 🤟🏾

[ponyboygarfunkel]

Our friend, Pinecreek Doug, did a nice job with Winger using honest and open dialog. Winger could not take the heat, so he finds crap like this to kick around.

[PrometheanRising]

For me, at the point where he says 'atheists believe that the universe came from nothing' it becomes clear that he is a liar. There is no way he actually thinks this. He has been in the game too long for that.

It is basically the same as when anti-evolution theists get a detailed and clear refutation of one of their points(often by an actual biologist), and then you see them down the road making the exact same argument in a different venue counting on the lack of awareness of their audience.

[mball]

More people need to take Mike to task. This was a great video