The Following Arguments for the Existence of God are Valid - 1A

~Counterarguments~ 1. Argument from religious experience If I interpret it correctly, my opponent's main and only argument is the argument from religious experience. There are two versions of this argument. The stronger version is the one my opponent contends, that it is only possible to experience that which exists, and so that the phenomenon of religious experience demonstrates the existence of God. People experience God, therefore there must be a God [1] as demonstrated when he stated "God must exist for me to experience Him. " "If stood before a jury and gave my experiential testimony for the existence of God, is it equally as reasonable for you to come forward and give your experiential testimony for the nonexistence of God? Similarly, if I witnessed the murder of a man, and you did not, does your testimony really rebut my own? I dare say it does not! " --> This analogy would not work, as I am not using the negative "principle of credulity" [2]. ". .. approximately 80.58% people who believe in god. .. is to rebut approximately 6.5 billion experiential testimonies. .. " --> Well, technically that's wrong. Since there is only around 6.7 billion people living in the world [3]. But no matter, this is pure technicality. I will now proceed to refute my opponent's argument in two points: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A. Reliability and Subjectivity of Experiences It is very well known that the human brain is fallible in many ways, ranging from overgeneralizing patterns [4], to tricks of the eye, and even to hallucinations. So already, there are many people who's experiences can be accounted for by these three common factors. But you would obviously ask how the great majority of the world can be tricked by the eye, or hallucinate. Billions of people can't simply indulge in some mass hallucinations, and you're right. They aren't in some mass delusion of epic schizophrenia. However, what they are afflicted with is bias. What makes believers gain faith in their religion is not based solely on experience, but based on experience with a religious view in their mind. Most would account personal experiences as finding their lost Yu-Gi-Oh card, or having their mom survive cancer. They attribute such experiences to their god, and with the fallibility of the human brain, this seems very convincing. Experiences are not only unfalsifiable (since they can't be recreated or experimented with), but many times there could be many other factors or reasons for their situation. When someone explains an event of which there could only be a supernatural event, many times there is a fully natural explanation. By my opponent's same argument, he could feasibly validate the existence of ghosts, aliens, and many other pseudo scientific stuff. It is HIS burden to show how personal anecdotes can be used as scientific evidence. Quite a heavy load indeed. B. Religions and gods that are Mutually Incompatiable One problem with experiences is that they aren't selective: they can't help you decide WHICH god is the real one, since obviously the vast majority of deities are mutually exclusive. The god from Christianity can't be real whilst the god from Hinduism be real also. So if, stemming from my opponent's cited source [5], there are 2.1 billion Christians, and 1.5 billion Muslims, we already have a contradiction. Both of these religions can't be true, yet if we apply your argument then conceivably they can. Obviously there is a contradiction here, unless my opponent can demonstrate that one of these religions, or all of the many other religions, have entire FAKERS per religion. This, I would dare say, would be quite a task. ~Conclusion~ I have rebutted my opponent's only argument, and given two clear reasons why his argument from religious experience is NOT valid. I will save further arguments and points when the debate progresses, or stemming from my opponent's reply. ---References--- 1. . http://www.philosophyofreligion.info... 2. . http://www.philosophyofreligion.info... 3. . http://www.worldometers.info... 4. . http://books.google.com... 5. . http://www.adherents.com...