The Debate: Devil's Advocate
I'm going to defend Russel's position because nobody else seemed to like him.
I don't think he was being a complete jerk with what he was saying. Granted, it is frustrating to have a debate with someone who refuses to see your side of the story, but from Russel's standpoint, the debate was futile anyway. Copleston was trying to argue from points Russel didn't think applied. It would be like someone trying to convince me to care about college football. I wasn't raised in the South, so I couldn't care less about "Roll Tides" and "War Eagles." Suppose a man named Jed Smith tries to convince me to root for Auburn. He claims that they are the best team because the coach and the athletic program. "That's all good and fine, Jed," I say, "but I don't see how the character of the coach or the nature of the program applies to my apathy for college football." I'm not necessarily disagreeing with the quality of the program or the coach's character, I just don't care about either.
Another problem Russel and Copleston experienced was in the question of if the world had a purpose. Copleston argued that it did, and therefore, if it couldn't make it up itself, God must have. Russel argued that the world might not even have a purpose, thus undermining Copleston's main point. If there is no purpose to the earth, there needn't be an external being who put it there. So imagine Jed comes back to me and says, "College football is the best way to have fun with friends and family because of the food and the exciting games. Auburn usually has the most exciting games, so you should root for Auburn." Then I say, "Actually, I don't think college football is the best way to get together with friends and family. In fact, I don't think there is a best way to get friends and family together." I just ruined Jed's argument because I disagreed with the premise. Now we will have to agree to disagree because we can't argue from the same page.
So Russel is a little arrogant, but he's not just ignoring the debate. He finds no reason to argue with Copleston on this particular subject because he can't agree on the premises presented. There you have it. I played devil's advocate.
P.S. I commented on Natalie and Ty's posts.
I don't think he was being a complete jerk with what he was saying. Granted, it is frustrating to have a debate with someone who refuses to see your side of the story, but from Russel's standpoint, the debate was futile anyway. Copleston was trying to argue from points Russel didn't think applied. It would be like someone trying to convince me to care about college football. I wasn't raised in the South, so I couldn't care less about "Roll Tides" and "War Eagles." Suppose a man named Jed Smith tries to convince me to root for Auburn. He claims that they are the best team because the coach and the athletic program. "That's all good and fine, Jed," I say, "but I don't see how the character of the coach or the nature of the program applies to my apathy for college football." I'm not necessarily disagreeing with the quality of the program or the coach's character, I just don't care about either.
Another problem Russel and Copleston experienced was in the question of if the world had a purpose. Copleston argued that it did, and therefore, if it couldn't make it up itself, God must have. Russel argued that the world might not even have a purpose, thus undermining Copleston's main point. If there is no purpose to the earth, there needn't be an external being who put it there. So imagine Jed comes back to me and says, "College football is the best way to have fun with friends and family because of the food and the exciting games. Auburn usually has the most exciting games, so you should root for Auburn." Then I say, "Actually, I don't think college football is the best way to get together with friends and family. In fact, I don't think there is a best way to get friends and family together." I just ruined Jed's argument because I disagreed with the premise. Now we will have to agree to disagree because we can't argue from the same page.
So Russel is a little arrogant, but he's not just ignoring the debate. He finds no reason to argue with Copleston on this particular subject because he can't agree on the premises presented. There you have it. I played devil's advocate.
P.S. I commented on Natalie and Ty's posts.
EXACTLY. It's even funnier in the end when Russell says, "Well if you don't believe in the question then its kind of hard to discuss now isn't it?" That was paraphrasing but point being, you hit it on the nail!
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