The YouTube video of a debate held on December 20, 2025, on the topic of the existence of god, between Javed Akhtar and Mufti Shamail Nadwi has already garnered nearly 7.3 million views. A number of commentaries that have been written in different media platforms (here, here, here, here and here) touching upon different aspects of the debate including whether there was any purpose or relevance for holding a debate on such a topic.However, till now, I have not come across any view on the way the matter was dealt with in the space of the two-hour debate. The topic of the debate was posed as a question “Does god exist?” and the views from both for and against the point of god’s existence were argued passionately. Though the debate was well formatted, the exchange of views, it seemed, went in different directions.The topic of god’s existence is a philosophical one and there was no one (either the debaters or the moderator) who had a reasonable background on philosophical issues touching upon this topic. As part of philosophy of religion there are enough discourses on this matter but an extremely misunderstood notion of “contingency” and “necessary being” was presented by Nadwi as his opening defence, it appears clearly, only to confuse Akhtar. From whatever he (Nadwi) spoke, emphasising on this notion, it was clearly evident that he was using this expression without the least idea what it meant. Javed Akhtar, an acclaimed poet and lyricist and renowned for this work in Bollywood, responded and presented his narrative with his eloquence and common sense accompanied by a sense of humour.Nadwi went straight into the idea of the Universe having a contingent existence, and because it was contingent it needed a necessary being. This, he emphasised, was a logical argument he was making because, if he is to be understood correctly, any contingent existence needs a final explanation that cannot be accounted by another contingent existence and the latter again by another one and so on, as it leads to the infinite regress. The regress has to end somewhere and the only logical way to end it was to infer (it should be postulate, correctly) that there is a necessary being i.e. god. Therefore, the Universe being contingent is brought into existence by a non-contingent necessary being. This can be elaborated in the following way.The idea of necessary being in philosophy of religion stands on shaky grounds. Philosophers have dismissed it arguing that it doesn’t mean anything except that this being or idea stands by itself and needs no explanation. It contains an explanation only within itself i.e. has the reason for its existence in itself. By saying so, it is not clear what is meant. Any explanation has to take place by drawing upon something outside of itself. In other words, to explain A one can do it by appealing to B. As the chain of explanation from B to C, C to D cannot continue it is stopped at some entity X and that is stamped as god the creator who creates this contingent Universe.Definitely, this is no way to establish the existence of god. This, unfortunately, was not pointed out to Nadwi and he went on constructing one narrative after another on this shaky foundation giving an impression, with all the confidence at his control, that this was the best argument to make, which even the atheists cannot but accept.Akhtar, supposed to be defending the atheistic viewpoint, was completely unaware of such philosophical terminology (which, in fact, has not been accepted by philosophers themselves) was seen trying to evade this point and presented a picture of religion and god as one relying only on faith. Realising that Akhtar was unaware of this idea (which itself was false and should have been debunked), Nadwi, with lack of complete awareness on these terminologies, was urging Akhtar to comment on this idea of god as a non-contingent necessary being. Akhtar, finally, expressed his ignorance on this particular expression. This was the crux of the whole exchange that took place in this debate. It was a display of eloquence without any philosophical sense.Nadwi, being a theologian himself, gets caught in arguments of philosophers. The god of the philosophers is different from the god of a theologian. The god of a theologian is a benevolent, omnipresent, omnipotent and transcendental being who answers people’s prayers and judges people’s actions on his/her principles of morality that he/she has given to mankind- points that Nadwi does make. He equates this idea of the god of theologians with that of the philosopher and makes a complete mish mash of his whole narrative.Any debate on the question “Does god exist?” has to start, instead of demanding a proof of existence, with the question by the atheist to a theist “what is that thing or entity of which you (i.e. the theist) say it exists? What is your idea of existence?”In all likelihood, a plausible reply from the theist will draw upon the nebulous words like ‘infinite’, ‘transcendence’ and ‘immanence’ to explain her idea of existence when applied to god. To this one can respond, proceeding along the same line of enquiry, seeking for the meaning of these words and how the ordinary souls can come to know of it. Caught in the web of these words, the theist would be unable to provide any description of an empirical or a conceptual idea of god.In asking for the meaning of god, one is, thereby unmaking its meaning. It is a perfect encapsulation of Brandolini’s law working in the reverse. Also known as the Bullshit Asymmetry Principle, the law states that “the amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it”.Here it is just the reverse that is at work. Great amount of energy has been invested to create a false of notion of god – one that has been invented more out of fear and self-interest. Perhaps, it requires so much energy only to keep the idea of god sustained in the minds of believers in spite of the obvious contradiction between god’s perfect and boundless love for creation and letting so many people commit acts of profanity. Lest the believers point out this contradiction, one needs all the power to keep the nebulous concept of Providence going.But asking for the conceptual understanding of god doesn’t require much energy to refute this all pervasive idea of god. Described by theologians and theists as a being that is infinite they also argue that he/she is beyond the comprehension of finite selves as the finite cannot grasp the infinite – the point that Nadwi also makes. But if god is incomprehensible then how do we know about his/her existence. One also needs to question- why did god bring this Universe into existence? i.e. what was his/her purpose of creation?An atheist, therefore, should be concerned about pointing out the lack of meaning of god because of which she does not believe in god. She is not a person who holds a belief that god does not exist. There is a difference between the two that lies in the meaning making of a-theism.S.K. Arun Murthi taught Philosophy at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Mohali.