God Exists

Thanks to my challenger for this debate as I hope to learn more about the subject and current evidences / arguments pertaining to it.To make clear my original opening acceptance and definition of Atheism I want to refer the reader to my reasoning behind taking this stance. I have given a more detailed explanation of my reasoning in the 5th comment in the comment section.Con I agree mostly with your definition of God’s attributes, but I would like to change one thing. If you could replace “all” with “maximally” I’d agree more, and is the stance I will take. I don’t think it will change any of the arguments presented, but it does have some significance in other arguments pertaining to the attributes of reality in relation to the infinite.For the most part I will be refuting Con’s arguments as there are many, and hopefully be able to provide positive arguments in detail in another round.RebuttalAn Extraordinary Claim Demands Extraordinary Evidence!So the unicorn Con presents here is definitely extraordinary. Does this mean we should automatically discredit Con for being a crazed fairy tale realist? Perhaps, but what if Con shows us evidence for his claim? The evidence would have to suit the claim, i.e. we need to see some foot prints, fairy dust, unicorn droppings, or other things to indicate the story to be true.First I think we need to understand something about evidence. There are facts, and then interpretation of facts. These interpretations, when compiled together, can often provide strong or weak probabilities for objective realities and so give us “evidence.” Even if we can’t put an exact number on the percentage of probability, we can still have a sense of strong and weak. Now if I can prove that God can even possibly exist then I have defeated Con’s truth claim behind his resolution of “God does not exist.” If this is not your resolution please let me know.So God existing is an extraordinary claim, so is their extraordinary evidence? Like I said before the evidence has to suit the claim, so in claiming “God exists” we need to look for evidence pertaining to origins of the universe, the meaning of existence, the meaning of man, qualities of design, objective morals and duties, and last but not least, why is there anything at all instead of nothing? These are not the only things we need evidence for, but are some of the most common topics, and as I stated before, there need be only a possibility of God to disprove the absolute claim of “God does not exist.”Here is a list of some of these evidences used in modern Apologetics. 1. Cosmological Argument (origin of the universe) 2. Contingency Argument (why anything exists in stead of nothing) 3. Moral Argument (The presence of objective moral values and duties) 4. Teleological Argument (Fine-tuning or design argument) 5. Ontological Argument (Possible world rebuttal) 6. The argument for Christ and his resurrection (Historicity of the OT and NT scripture, and how it helps us in understanding the meaning of man)(Some referenced from an essay from the Campus Crusade Initiative)That was a list of “extraordinary” evidence for the existence of God. So to say there is a complete absence of evidence is false, but I will accept the position of not believing these evidences to be valid. If so I’ll be glad to hear your reasons, but to say there is an absence of evidence is wrong. Also this entire concept is a logical fallacy of “an appeal to ignorance.” This is more commonly called “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”Con doesn't use this argument of no evidence to support his truth claim "God does not exist," and turns to a set of arguments that try to show how God cannot exist because of his own attributes. The Argument of Incoherent AttributesPremise 1: Any being with contradictory properties cannot exist.- I would like to point out that for this premise to be true Con would have to be asserting properties of the same parameters. In his example of the invisible pink unicorn being a contradiction because it being invisible and pink is presupposing “invisibility”, and “pink” to be perceived in the same parameters. Maybe the unicorn can only be seen by an entity that can perceive the entire spectrum of light and in being able to do so see’s the unicorn as pink. So the unicorn is still invisible to some, but pink to others. Now if we add to the argument set parameters we get a true contradiction: The invisible pink unicorn is real to all humans with sight obtained through the brains interpretation of light, and who are not considered to be color blind. Obviously in these parameters the unicorn is now in contradiction with itself and so thus does not actually exist.- The point I’m making here is that “Attributes” can be subjective, and they can also be objective when considering set parameters.Premise 2: God is a being with contradictory properties.- This is the main premise I will be attacking. All of Con’s arguments based on incoherent attributes are based on God being omniscient. The problem is that Con does not have the correct definition for omniscient. Since this word is the cornerstone of his arguments, I think we should have the proper definition. Omniscient: S is omniscient =for every proposition p, if p is true then S knows p. (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) So God knows only and all true propositions! Since there are constantly new true propositions, God’s knowledge is constantly changing as he acquires new beliefs. - So God does have the experiential knowledge of learning, even though experiential knowledge is not a requirement of being omniscient. Only propositional knowledge is required to be omniscient. - So one could object here that God already knew what was going to happen, so he didn’t actually learn anything new. The answer is that God has learned, or come to believe in a new truth. The truth here is the tensed version of the proposition. Take for example the fact that I’m a Paramedic. At one time I was not a Paramedic because I had not yet been licensed. At that time God knew the true proposition “I am not a Paramedic.” He also knew that I eventually would be a Paramedic, but he did not know the proposition that “I am a Paramedic” because at that time I wasn’t. So as time progresses new propositions become true, and therefore God learns knew propositions. (Omniscience, Tensed Facts, and Divine Eternity by Dr. William Lane Craig) Conclusion: Therefore, God does not exist. - In showing how premise 1 is problematic, and how premise 2 utilizes a wrong definition for omniscient, the conclusion is absolutely false.How does this new definition of omniscient manifest in Con’s 3 arguments based on incoherent attributes?1. The first he shows a man taking pleasure in sin, and how God can’t know what this is like because God does not sin. Well God does not break the definition of omniscient here because he does not have experiential knowledge of sinning, however he does have the propositional knowledge. He knows that one will feel guilt, remorse, or being wrong. Or he knows the heart of the “terrorist” whose heart takes pleasure in suffering and killing, and God would then know the true propositional realities of the emotions that would manifest from acting in sin.2. His next argument about making a mistake again relies strictly on having experiential knowledge. Once again he has the true propositional knowledge of what one would feel when they make a mistake without ever having made a mistake Himself.3. His last argument is false even if being omniscient required God to learn experientially as I already showed in my definition of omniscient. God learns new tensed truths constantly, even though he already knows all tenseless truths.So these arguments Con has presented us, in regards to God having incoherent attributes, crumble under the true definition of omniscient. All sources referenced in the comments.