Science has shown/is about to show God to be implausible/unecessary as an explanation

This is my response. I will quote you when necessary. I will number each part of my response to correspond with your paragraphs to avoid having to quote your argument an excessive amount. 1) In response to paragraph 1: You say: “He argues that there is a temporal beginning to the universe, and that god is the best explanation of this temporal beginning” This is in fact a manifestly false statement. If you search the phrase “temporal beginning” on this page, it only shows up in your arguments and not mine. The term “beginning” does show up in my argument. Inthe following context: “God is nota necessary explanation for the beginning of the universe per se.” I clearly do not argue in the way that you claim that I do, hence you are attacking a straw man. Second point for this paragraph, I did say I support eternalism. It is not directly related to our debate1 In any case, eternalism is not the position that there is no beginning. It is the position that all times are equally real. If I draw a line segment, there is a “first point” on the line in the sense that it isnot circular and it does not proceed in one direction forever. Of course,eternalism might change our understanding of the beginning, but it is certainlynot a claim that the beginning does not exist. In either case, as I have saidabove, whether or not the universe had a beginning is irrelevant to the vastmajority of traditional metaphysical arguments for God’s existence. As thinkers no less great than Aquinas argue, the universe could have been eternal in the past and still be created. It has to do with his philosophical understanding of the nature of the world as being a combination of act and potency, essence and existence, etc. which is why he thinks it needs a cause. 2) “doesn’t even matter if the explanations Ioffer are implausible” Burden of proof is NOT my main concern in this debate so I won’t dwell on this and don’t want to get caught up in it. I will say this though: if the explanations are very implausible, they aren’t really alternatives to a theistic explanation. That said, my point is to show that science itself not only doesn’t explain what theists are trying to explain but couldn’t. This is what “My Argument” section of my initial argument is meant to show. 3) “Con doesn’t dispute that there is a95% probability of the universe coming into being, and Con doesn’t dispute thatif god existed, the universe would have a 100% probability of coming intobeing.” I will agree, I misunderstood and thought you were making a different argument. I thought youwere saying that the 95% chance of the universe existing is evidence against God because it would come into existence with a 95% chance without God…no God necessary. That is the argument I responded to in the section above. Yet, you claim that the argument you made is different, hence let me revise my response: First, it seems like you are making an argument like this: P1) Science shows usthat the probability of the universe coming into being is not 100% P2) If God exists, theprobability would be 100% C) God does not exist. This argument is valid. However, I dispute both premises without further qualification. Premise 1 istrue in this sense: given the physical reality which does exist (at least this reality if there are others…andnote by physical reality I mean any unified physical system, not necessarily our space-time region which we know to be our universe.), there is a 95% chance of the universe coming into being. This however presupposes an existence of a physical reality governed by specific mathematical laws. To say otherwiseis ultimately incoherent as I eluded to and would be happy to explain further.Hence, there must be something in existence prior to our universe for P1 to be true (if not temporally, ontologically prior). This however is something which needs a philosophical explanation for its existence. Hence science cannot provide this, nor can it provide probabilities… As for premise two, it is true with the condition that God wills the universe, of course, if He did not will it, the probability would be 0. On that condition this statement is true in the absolute sense. However, there is another sense in which it is false. If we step outside of the physical system itself and look at it from God’s perspective so to speak (of course by way of analogy), God can “actualize” anynumber of possible worlds (assuming God’s existence…which this premise does). In one (among possibly infinite) possible world, there is a 95% chance of the universe coming into being and it does not. In another, there is the same chance, yet this possibility is actualized. From the perspective of the physical system, each possible world is the same, namely 95% chance of a universe appearing.From the perspective of a God outside of the system and outside of time itself, they are different, as in one the possibility is actualized. If God exists, it is clear which PW He has chosen. This world, in the absolute sense, had a 100% chance of yielding our universe, yet from the standpoint of the physical system itself had only a 95% chance. Hence if God exists, He made a world in which the 95% chance of the universe coming into being would be actual. Since he is outside of the system, the argument works rendering your argument false. 4) This is a philosophical claim about the causal power of space-time. The philosopher must ask: in virtue of what does any point in time have power to cause another point of time? Further, even if it is true that each point in time causes the next, it does not explain the series as a whole. I do not want to get to far afield however as this is clearly entering into a philosophical discussion about time, not about power. My question is: “why does time itself exist” which if not immediately, must ultimately lead us beyond empirical science. Also, as a footnote to myfirst point: 1[althoughI brought it up to make a point about past times causing the present time. Ifall points in time are equally real, it is no good to appeal to a previouspoint in time as the efficient cause of the present time…or if one does dothis, it seems as though one has a classic essentially ordered causal series(due to the obvious simultaneous nature of the causes) which in that case wouldhave to terminate in a first member, if not a point in time, something with thecausal power to explain the series itself. See here: http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com...] 5) Remember, i am not making an argument for the existence of God. I was simply summarizingtwo main approaches to show that if they are false, it is NOT SCIENCE which could in principle falsify them. You seem to recognize this as you invoke a philosophical system of modal logic in which the concept of “contingent” is rendered meaningless. I oppose this system for a number of reasons, but, evenif it is correct, it is not modern biology, chemistry, etc. which shows this tobe the case. And THAT is exactly the point of this debate.