God debates: no consensus on who wins the argument

Russell vs. Copleston: A stalemate in the ring of God's existence

Why does the believer often seem to come out on top when debating the existence of God with an atheist? This question has fueled discussions for years. Confrontations such as Trevijano vs. Father Carreira, Bertrand Russell vs. the Jesuit Frederick Copleston, or YouTuber Dalas Review vs. Thomist philosopher Rigoberto all leave the same impression: someone spoke louder and left the feeling of having the last word.

The problem begins with the record. There is no referee here.

Who decides the winner of a debate about God

No one signs off on the result, and each side claims victory. One side argues that the natural judge is the agnostic, the only one without a prior stake in the matter. Another responds that the atheist doesn't even bother to sit at the table, considering the exercise a waste of time. A third, more cynical view, rules that victory goes to whoever writes the rules, using a textbook tactic: "I win because I set up the deciding committee."

This move has a technical term: moving the goalposts. When a believer presents an argument—the order of the universe, the complexity of the eye, the emotion of a symphony—and the atheist responds by caricaturing it, the former points to the straw man fallacy. When the atheist demands empirical proof of an immaterial being, the former reminds them that logic and metaphysics are not measured by a stopwatch. In the midst of this exchange, the audience is left with an impression, not a conclusion.

Volume is not an argument, but it scores points. Even those who see a clear draw in the face-off between the priest and the philosopher admit it: neither will convince the other, and tone ends up weighing more than substance.

The ontological argument that Kant had already debunked

One of the most frequent reproaches concerns a supposed intellectual superiority. It is claimed that certain atheists lack the type of intelligence required to understand the believer's argument. The star example is Saint Anselm and Gaunilo: the latter replied that, by that same rule, one could conceive of a perfect island that necessarily exists; the former answered that the reasoning only applies to the supreme being of reality, not to an island.

This counterexample has a poor fruta among philosophers. Kant, who was no amateur, had already invalidated the ontological proofs that Scholasticism had accumulated to justify the existence of God. And Russell, author of one of the ten most influential works of contemporary philosophy according to much of the critics, left the matter in the realm of the unprovable. Belittling an opponent's intelligence does not win a debate: it diverts it to a territory where there is nothing to gain.

There is one nuance that does withstand scrutiny. Those who abandon faith often do so through an emotional path, trinc a tragedy. Those who convert almost always do so through study, convinced by arguments. Neither route proves the existence or non-existence of anything.

The burden of proof and the clock that needs no clockmaker

Here lies the crux. One side demands that whoever asserts the existence of God must present the proof. The other returns the ball: that whoever denies it must demonstrate its non-existence. This tug-of-war, they warn, could last until the collapse of civilization.

The classic watch analogy—if there is a watch, there is a watchmaker—clashes with a counterargument repeated to exhaustion: order does not, in itself, prove a supernatural will. A snail shell is complex and ordered, and there is no proof that it requires a designer; better naturalist explanations exist. A watch requires a watchmaker because all evidence points to it; a shell does not. The dispute then becomes a question of who is responsible for making the next move.

Another objection circulates strongly: the world below also lacks much logic. People die for flags, for symbols, for homelands. Humans manufacture order where there is none, and that misinterpreted order is later projected onto the heavens.

Why science is revised and religion is not

Another axis of disagreement. Science has an inconvenient property for the believer: it works for everyone equally. Christians, Jovenlandeses, communists, and capitalists use the same formulas. F = m x a does not stop working just because someone does not believe in it. Religion and ideologies, on the contrary, handle unshakeable truths that cannot be refuted by an experiment.

To this, it is replied that scientists are people, with interests and frauds, and that the method is not always respected. The distinction, however, holds: a theory can be toppled with data; a dogma cannot.

The priest in the face-off with Trevijano took another route: art, aesthetic pleasure, and what science cannot yet explain. Science hasn't arrived there yet, but it is being studied, and the gap it leaves today may or may not be closed tomorrow. Seeking transcendence there is a risky bet, because the gap shrinks with each decade.

The point where analysis gets stuck

And yet, after 455 interventions, no one has moved anyone. Some argue that the believer wins because they are better equipped, with centuries of argumentation behind them. Others say that the winner is whoever is right, and that being on the side of truth—like defending that the Earth is round—smooths over any discussion. There are those who see a draw and add the final touch: if the format forces one to discuss something sustained by faith, the format itself is flawed.

The issue gets stuck exactly there. In a confrontation regarding the non-existence of God, no one will convince anyone, because there is no proof that closes the case in either direction. The only thing decided is who holds their ground better on stage. And that, with all due respect, has very little to do with the truth.