Glyn Barrett Tells his Congregation about the Debate he Wished had Happened!

Glyn Barrett Lead Pastor of !Audacious Church

It happened again. A popular (?) pastor, Glyn Barrett of !Audacious Church, has decimated a large group of university atheists (Cambridge, no less) in a debate that was completely stacked against him. Or, maybe not.

I'll leave a number of links at the end of this post where you can get the whole story.

But here is Pastor Glyn Barretts triumphant version of his story, transcribed from a video, who's link will be produced at the end of this blog:

A little while ago I was invited to a University to speak at the Atheistic Society.

When, Glyn? What was the date?  And the "Atheistic Society"? Really? Check the links at the end of this post for the full story.

They said: "Pastor Barrett we would like you come and get involved in a debate with all the atheists.

All the atheists? At once?  Seriously?

I said: "Fine."
I said: "What's the heading, whu, what's, what's the caption, what're we debating on?"
And they said this: "The debate is this, the premise is 'There   is   no    Gawwwd'"

You found a group of university atheists that make this positive claim? None of them had any philosophy training then.. OK. In general, most atheists won't claim that as it is not possible to prove or disprove the existence of leprechauns, or gods, or Glyn Barrett's god.

 So, OK. That together the president of the "Atheistic Club", he will stand up, and he will share for fifteen minutes on how there is no god, and the we're going to give you ten minutes to prove to us that there is a God.

Wait. Now it's just the "lead" atheist? Not all the atheists? Why didn't you call them on this and mock them for changing the rules at the last second? Oh wait, it's your fantasy... Fair enough.

Anyway, here we have Glyn Barrett espousing xtian persecution porn: the evil atheists will take fifteen minutes to make their point while the poor persecuted christian debater only gets ten minutes.

Here's a bit of advice, Mr. Barrett, don't accept debate terms like this, it shows that the people who have set up the debate are, well, dishonest... Of course, since this never happened...

I said, "Bro, I don't need ten minutes, I only need two minutes"

Aaaand here comes Glyn Barrett, the Christian warrior hero. Taking on the evil atheists at a great disadvantage...

He said: "Come on down"
So I went down, I won't tell you which university it was, but I, I drove to Cambridge. And when  I got to Cambridge(audience laughs). I go into this lecture hall, right, and there's, I don't know, a thousand, eight hundred, thousand students there.

You won't tell us, and then you tell us...

Cambridge, eh? Very prestigious! You took on the "Atheistic Society" at a very prestigious University. And, you were the only christian in a lecture hall of eight hundred to a thousand evil atheists... Glyn Barrett sees himself as the noble Christian being thrown to the evil atheistic lions.

In general, debates are attended by people on both sides of the issue. In fact, you should have invited your church members to attend. But, since, Glyn Barrett, this whole debate is fictional, that would have been impractical.

Aaaa, and the lead atheist he gets up and he's preaching, and he's spitting, he's frothing at the mouth, and he's eloquent, he's brilliant: "How can any rational person believe that there is a God. You gotta be stupid to believe that there is a God" , all of these sorts of things, sorts of things that you've heard.

So, to you, Glyn Barrett, "preaching..spitting...frothing" is eloquent and brilliant?

Are you sure that's what the "lead atheist" said? (Of course not, it's a figment of your imagination) Because that's not an argument for or against the stated "premise" of this debate. Your debate opponent lost right there, you could have gone home.

And then I said: "And now we're gonna get Glyn Barrett and he's gonna come up and tell us why there is a god."

Why would you have to do your own introduction? Oh well,  In general, at real debates, introductions occur at the beginning of the debate. They are generally polite, and do a really good job of telling the audience about the background of the participants in the most positive light.

Have you ever read the verse led like a lamb to the slaughter?(audience laughs)

I presume, Glyn Barrett, you are foreshadowing the slaughter of the atheists here, and not leading your self to your embarrassment on the internet. So badly embarrassed that you had to remove the video of your triumphant debate from the internet..

So I get up on stage, and there's boos and hisses and all these sorts of things and, and I come up the front and I just said to the guy, I said: "Listen, ah, you spoke so eloquently",

Boos and hisses? Really? You should have walked away at that point. That seems like a very dangerous position for you to be in. But it never happened. Ah, Glyn Barrett, you really need to get over your love of Christian persecution porn. And, in a real debate, you'd already be on the stage.

I said, "Come and join me on stage."

Again, your opponent would already be on stage. Please, Glyn Barrett, at least review actual debates before you make up your stories about them.

So he came 'n joined me at the podium at the front there, 'n, and I said, "You believe there is no God". He said,  "There  is  no  God.. You cannot be a rational person and believe there is a God".

Dubious, Glyn Barrett. We really need to see the video of the debate (which doesn't exist, of course), that is not a position that a philosophically minded Cambridge university atheist would take.

I said, "OK, help me out with this, I wanna show you something", and I drew a circle on a whiteboard like this (draws circle on a pad of paper for his audience)...

We all know what's coming. This has been done so many times. Glyn Barrett is simply "borrowing" this from Ray "Banana Man" Comfort, Josh Feuerstein and others(see the links at the end of this post).  It's called the God of the Gaps fallacy.

Here's  a small hint, Glyn Barrett, it's a fallacy not an argument. But, Glyn Barrett, by all means, continue. (Napoleon had something to say about this: Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.)

Glyn Barrett launches the God of the Gaps Fallacy!

I said, "This circle represents knowledge. Everything that can ever be know about any subject fits in there. All the sciences, all the arts. You're an intelligent man, you study at this university. How much do you know of everything that could possible be known?"

So he took a pen and he drew that (draws a secant chord line at the top of the circle taking up about 5% of the area of the circle) and he went: "I reckon I know about this much."

Well, that's pretty arrogant of the atheist leader here, isn't it? I can't help but to think that Glyn Barrett is projecting a little bit here.

I said, "Wow, you're intelligent!"
He said, "Yeah, I am"
I said "Brilliant!"
I said "So that's what you *do* know!"
He said "Yes".
I said, "And that's what you don't know".
He said "Yes".
"But this does exist, you just haven't discovered it yet"
"Yes"
"Therefore, could God not exist in the dimension you haven't yet discovered."
(Audience erupts in applause)

"Dimension"? Perhaps area would have been a better choice, but OK. So, in the bit that you haven't discovered, Glyn Barrett, could the Hindu gods exist? How about Allah? Or any of the other gods that you don't believe in?

Answer: "Yes"

Why yes, Glyn Barrett, all of those gods and other mystical characters could exist in the "Dimension" that  you haven't discovered.

"Therefore, sir, I would suggest you're not an atheist, you're an agnostic, and one step closer to knowing my Jesus."

And by that logic, Glyn Barrett, you should be one step closer to knowing everyone else's mystical beings.

Atheists can be agnostic. If you ask an atheist agnostic what god she believes in, she won't be able to name one. She doesn't have a belief in a god or gods, AND being agnostic she will make the claim that she can't know.

You see, Glyn Barrett, agnostic doesn't mean what you think it means; an agnostic is someone who believes that it is impossible to know anything about gods.

So your claim that the leader of the "Atheistic Club" is one step closer to Jesus is just inane. Why wouldn't place the person one step closer to Thor?

Here's a fun thing I noticed: while transcribing Glyn Barrett's story, I played it back at half speed, try it, it makes him sound really drunk, which could be a really good explanation for the story.

Here are the links that I promised:

• Glyn Barrett's sermon that started it all, thanks to Hemant Mehta, since Glyn Barrett and the !Audacuious Church took the original sermon down, for some reason....

• A website that exposes Glyn Barrett for the liar he is: !Audacious Lies

• Seth Andrews, The Thinking Atheist, has a great video called the "Debate that Wasn't There" about Glyn Barrett's debate "story".

• Hemant Mehta, The Friendly Atheist, first tackled Glyn Barrett's dishonesty with his blog post "Christian Pastor Tells Dubious Story of Defeating Atheist in a Debate in Under Two Minutes", then followed up with "Seth Andrews Tackles the Dubious Story of a Pastor Who Supposedly Outwitted Atheists in a Debate" and then "Pastor Glyn Barrett’s Story of Winning a Fake Debate Against Atheists Isn’t Even Original"

• Ed Brayton, of Dispatches from the Culture Wars, had this take "Pastor Makes Up Story of How he Vanquished the Atheists"

• Luciano Gonzalez, of the Sin/God blog: "Then There’s This Guy."

• There's a petition trying to drum up support for a real debate at Cambridge: "Petition for Glyn Barrett to Take his Argument to Cambridge and Document the Outcome"

• Here's a post on the Skeptics Stack Exchange: "Was Glyn Barrett invited to speak at a meeting for an atheist society in Cambridge?". It turns out neither of the universities in the Cambridge area even knew who Glyn Barrett was, let alone invited him for a debate. And neither university has a group called the "Atheistic Society".

• Here's a discussion about the !Audacious Church on the Cult Education  Forum

• Great analysis by the youtuber Xplore with James Peter:"Glyn Barrett Defeats Atheist in Debate - Audacious Church" 

This story is alive. I suspect I'll keep adding to this list of links.