I say above that Singer and Lennox went at it hammer and tongs in their debate, but the hammers were very small, quite familiar, and politely wielded, and the tongs were gently used and never pressed to the pinch. In short, one could call the debate a draw, but not one that much could be drawn from.
The positions put forward by both Singer and Lennox were well known in the busy atheist-theist debate circles.
Singer, the atheist, asserts that there is too much suffering in the world for him to believe in God, that science explains the universe without God, that morality doesn't need God, and that the Bible is a fairy story.
Lennox argued that the latest science dealing with the Big Bang has not only affirmed that the universe was created out of nothing but that it was also finely-tuned, that the intelligibility of the universe argues for an intelligent cause, that morality needs God as a foundation, and that the biblical testimony to Christ's resurrection is indeed historically verified.
Again, each debater stated his case with the utmost respect for the other. There was certainly none of the media circus atmosphere pervading our own raucous and often raunchy television debates. No interrupting. No shouting. No name calling. No personal attacks.
All to the good. We in America, and I suspect elsewhere, are so habituated to on-air rudeness and incivility, that the wonderful civility of Singer and Lennox is more than welcome. But one can be polite, and still be very pointed. One can be civil, even in a dual of swords.
Given what is at stake in THE question of questions, "Is There a God?”, we need more than a polite display of each man's position. We need a real clash of ideas, a real engagement where, even while all the rules of civil swordplay remain in force, the force of the stabs and thrusts is real.
At the end, at least this viewer felt that he had been shown two entirely respectable positions, and that it ultimately didn't matter which one was chosen. Nothing, it seemed, hung on the debate.
The fault in this, I think, rests with John Lennox. He is an infinitely admirable man, but in bending over too far backwards in deference to Singer, he gave him the benefit of the doubt to the point of injustice. Lennox praised Singer's ethical arguments, saying they were quite sound, and that many an atheist was far more ethical than all too many a believer. He did mention in passing, that he had a disagreement with Singer about infanticide and euthanasia, but this was put in a manner that would lead the audience to think these minor matters—a mere gentleman's disagreement.
I imagine Lennox did this out of a kind of charity. The problem is that charity—love—must be united to the truth. Lennox owed it to Singer, and to the audience, to point out that Singer is an infamous advocate of infanticide—not just for killing babies in the womb, but pushing to have the right to kill children up to 28 days after they are born (and is willing to go even longer). He's also a big proponent of euthanasia. In the first edition of his Practical Ethics, he stated rather boldly, "not…everything the Nazis did was horrendous; we cannot condemn euthanasia just because the Nazis did it.” As you might have guessed, that little gem was taken out of the second edition. If that isn't enough, he thinks people having s*x with animals (especially their pets) is just fine.
These positions derive directly from Singer's atheistic principles. In this, he is to be commended. Unlike many atheists, Singer knows exactly what it means to eliminate God from morality. It means the reduction of morality, of good and evil, to pleasure and pain. That is why Singer hangs everything on the elimination of suffering and the promotion of pleasure. If keeping a baby seems, to the parents, to increase the suffering in the world, or even the inconvenience in their own little world, the baby may be cheerfully eliminated. If an elderly woman appears to have her quality of life reduced, or is at least inconvenient to her children, that too can be taken care of with the prick of a needle—just as one would with the senile family dog at the vets. And since a grown chimpanzee may feel more pain than a newborn human infant, well then the chimpanzee has greater moral status than the human infant.
None of this was mentioned by Lennox. Therefore, Singer didn't have to defend any of his well-known incendiary positions. That is unjust to the audience, for in his writings, Singer makes clear that his radical positions are simply a direct inference from his atheism.
In this world, increasingly barbarized by crassness, crudeness, and incivility, the gentlemanly behavior of Singer and Lennox was welcome. Yet, civility cannot be divorced from civilization, that is, from the fundamental moral arguments that bind a society together and elevate human beings above the beasts. There is such a thing as refined barbarism, a smooth union of impeccable manners and moral savagery. If the former hides the latter from us, we need a good debate to uncover the latter.
 
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