God exists.

As we draw to the close to the debate, Con has remained unable to address my central argument: the same sort of logic that is necessary to argue in favor of realism as opposed to solipsisim shows that God exists.Con mentions "inference to the best explanation," a form of abductive reasoning (which itself is a form of inductive reasoning), as an example of logical rules that I'm ignoring. However, that is exactly the type of argument I'm employing. Con claims there are "so many alternative explanations" for universal morality, but that doesn't matter because theism is the best explanation among them all. In making that argument, Con reveals that his arguments rely on circular reasoning, as shown below: God does not exist. Universal morality exists. Universal morality must not depend on God. As a result, any alternative explanation will be considered more probable than God's existence for universal morality, even if they don't really stack up.Self-Interest and Universal MoralityCon attempts to show that self-interest can lead a serial killer to do the right thing, but his arguments fall flat: The serial killer might get caught, and can never be sure that he won't. However, this won't matter if he is reasonably sure that he won't be caught and he judges that the pleasure he'll gain from murdering people will outweigh the negligible risk of being caught. He will feel guilty about murdering people. It should be obvious to any reader that there are many criminals who feel no guilt over their actions. Every person's conscience is different because it is shaped by genetics, societal forces, and nurture, so relying on it to account for universal morality is impossible. The serial killer will want to make friends. This makes no sense at all. Psychologists have long understood that extraversion is a quality that varies from person to person, and some people simply have no desire to make friends. If the serial killer judges the benefits of murdering someone to outweigh the negatives, there's no moral argument Con could make to convince him/her. All these problems stem from the fact that Con is unwilling to accept pragmatism as a moral axiom. Because he rejects pragmatism, the problems outlined above would essentially mandate the acceptance of moral nihilism. However, if pragmatism is correct, it means that more pragmatic moral theories are more likely to be true, so the human experience of universal morality can be accounted for.Again, the situation is exactly the same with realism. It's true that solipsisim is a simpler explanation of our experiences that does not need to posit the existence of other conscious entities or that reality exists apart from our experience of it, but realism is far more pragmatic.ConsciousnessCon claims that the existence of an afterlife would necessicate the validity of substance dualism. However, that is not the case. In keeping with Occam's razor, any additional assumptions about the afterlife beyond the bare basics required for universal morality to be accounted for should be avoided. Judgment is the only thing that must be accounted for, not the ability to talk to dead relatives or anything else. They can be taken on faith, but cannot be justified logically.Out of TimeUnfortunately, I'm out of time now, but I really enjoyed this debate. Thank you Ockham for challenging me.