Who Wins the Cain-Foster “Debate” on Atheism?
Is atheism or theism “not an option”? That is the question posed by two very different Medium writers.
Two of the writers I most often read on Medium are in a sort of debate. Dan Foster is editor of “The Backyard Church” which advocates for an orthodox Christianity far removed from the American Nationalist Christianity that has been so discredited and in turn has discredited all forms of Christianity for many. Benjamin Cain is a philosopher who is adamantly anti-theistic and who displays a great distaste for most anything religious but reserves his greatest barbs for anything resembling orthodox Christianity. At least that’s my reading of the two.
The subject of this “debate” is atheism. Dan Foster’s post “Atheism is Not an Option” has produced a rather furious response from Cain who responded with “The Inevitability of Atheism.”
Cain’s defense of atheism primarily uses a rhetorical device known as ad hominem, or attack on the person rather than the content. The name calling begins immediately when he points out that Foster is a preacher. And a preacher to Cain is a sales person. Foster, Cain says, uses all the rhetorical tricks of those selling junk food, hair products and life insurance.
Throughout Cain’s defense he continually refers to almost anything Foster says in the most dismissive…
