A Monotheistic God Probably Does Not Exist

The first thing I would like to point out to Con is that the title states that the a monotheistic God PROBABLY does not exist, not as you said 'does not in fact exist'. Either way this does not alleviate your position and burden of proof, it is still your job to show that a MONOTHEISTIC God probably does exist. 4. If God is omnibenevolent , he knew that an evil and unnecessary suffering was about to occur and that he could have prevented it, then He would have prevented it. The Con denies point four and seven of my first argument. The Con implies in his response to point four that all suffering that an all powerful, all knowing, and all good God is NECESSARY. He implies that all suffering must have a purpose, so what is the purpose? He accuses me of giving no support in favor of the premise, yet I give two examples of what I deemed as support showing evil and unnecessary suffering. Then he claims that it is REASONABLE for God to allow evil and suffering to exist for a greater good and declares that I have to show how his assumption is false, taking no responsibility for his statement. Even if suffering causes some greater good, why have some people, e. g. the Jews in the Holocaust, had to suffer so much, while others, like me, haven't? I will use my second story as an example of unnecessary suffering. In doing so I will show that God not only allows unnecessary suffering but caused it. If God is the creator of the universe ,which includes the earth we live on, then he is controlling all that happens naturally. The earthquake that generated the great Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 could of only been cause by God. This act of God created much suffering, to claim that is was necessary, which is the only stance my opponent has, is to assume that it had a greater good. This means that every human being who suffered directly and indirectly suffered justly. Could God not bring forth this supposed greater good by other means than gratuitous suffering? I implore the Con to show what greater good this God's caused suffering had. If God is all powerful and all knowing, how could God not have created evil? This debate is about the monotheistic God, the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim God. All three of these religions have their book in which they follow. When it comes to evil each holy book reveals something about God and evil. The Jewish and Christian bible says: ' I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things' (Isaiah 45:7, KJV). The Qur'an states: ' From the evil of that which He created. .. ' (Qu'ran 113:2). All three of these religions claim that God creates evil. Paradoxes: My opponent brushes off the said paradox problems by saying that such a thing cannot exist because it is only a string of words, not a meaningful concept and that philosophers like Thomas Aquinas have thoroughly refuted this objection. To merely say that it is semantic does not refute the paradox. The Con implies that omnipotence is not necessarily bound by logic. The paradox represents a reductio ad absurdum, with the conclusion that a truly omnipotent being cannot possibly exist. Can an omnipotent God create a rock so heavy that he cannot lift it? If he can then God has a weakness and his power is limited, or becomes limited. If he cannot then God's power is already limited, since there is an action he cannot perform. Either way, God has proved not to be omnipotent due to the logical contradiction present in both possible answers. I will now deal with the arguments made by my opponent. Before dealing with the task of my opponents argument, I would like to point out that he has only argued at best for a deistic god, not the God that has been stated in the terms agreed upon above. Perhaps my opponent is planning to do this in his future posts. I would encourage him do to do so promptly as to give us ample time to dispute back and forth on his proof of the agreed God. 1. If a substance is both (a) contingent and (b) exists, it requires an external cause 2. The sum of all contingent substances that exist is contingent and it exists (a and b) 3. Therefore, the sum of all contingent substances requires an external cause The argument merely postulates a god being the external cause of the universe. I will make this simple, who caused god? There is an infinite regress to this problem unless you say that god is necessary and not contingent, this is merely an unproven assumption. No one knows for sure how the universe began to exist, but science is doing there best to work through the possibilities. To paraphrase Stephen Hawking: Science has shown that it is possible for the way the universe began to be determined by the laws of science. That it is not necessary to appeal to a God to decide how the universe began. This doesn't prove that there is no God, only that God is not necessary. We are debating possibilities at best, it is more rational to accept the less complicated concept with the most evidence available. There is no empirical evidence for God or that he caused the universe to begin. At best science has given us better possibilities for our existence and requires no God at this point. Even IF your argument had proven that God exists, you still have the burden of proving that the God of monotheistic religion probably exists over the probability that he does not, and at this point you have not.