There are no good reasons to think theism is true

Burden of proofCon tries to use the resolution to stack a huge burden of proof in his favour, asserting that even if I defeat his arguments , I “must somehow show that there exists no good arguments for theism”, even arguments he doesn’t present. Note, I already explained the resolution in my first post, and if Con disagreed, he shouldn’t have accepted the debate. Just to be thorough, I’ll give 3 further reasons why he’s wrong.The corrosive PoEIf the PoE is justified, then whatever is responsible for the fine-tuning, for example, it is not (as my PoE conclusion states) All powerful AND All good, which would single-handedly disconfirm theism. The dishonest gambit and debate contextAlso, Con puzzlingly takes the resolution as an absolutist claim, even though such a claim is regularly accepted by Con to be generally applicable within a debate context, and I can prove it.Con says,“Craig has clearly won, by some margin each of his debates save two in his career.” (1)Referring to apologist Bill Craig, Con must also know that Craig lays out a debate contention which is logically equivalent to the debate resolution:“I’m going to defend 2 basic contentions. First, that there is no good argument that atheism is true.” (2)Note that the form of Craig’s claim and mine is identical. Given Con’s explicit familiarity with Craig’s debates, and the fact that Craig makes a similar claim in almost all of his debates, yet only ever addresses arguments for atheism presented by his interlocutor, we can only conclude that Con is unwaveringly charitable to Craig, yet intentionally obstructive to me. Such a huge double standard is not only dishonest, but also wrong, because, as Craig argues (3), there is such a thing as debate context, and given this, the resolution must be seen within that context of a debate.I also submit that this to be poor conduct from Con, both trying to change the resolution and holding a gross double standard.WSA Evidential PoECon begins by noting that:“My opponent lays out a form for a logical problem of evil” The problem here is that my argument is evidential, as even the title of my argument explicitly states. If he’d read my post at all, he’d have known that I centred my case around gratuitous evils, which is the unmistakable hallmark for this kind of argument. For those unfamiliar, basically Con attacks a problem which almost everyone agrees is defeatable, while the version that I use is seen as perhaps the biggest challenge to theism. While retreats to the possible and such do refute the logical version, they are completely useless towards my evidential PoE, so Con’s brief criticism sets fire to a straw man. It’s a huge blunder from Con, and alone affirms the resolution if continued to be unaddressed. Extend argument.Con’s case for theismBefore I deal with Con’s 3 arguments separately, I want to offer 2 general criticisms of his approach.Incomplete theismAll FT shows for example (if correct) is that the universe is designed, which is compatible with Bostrom’s simulation hypothesis (4), for instance. In fact, even conceding all 3 arguments together, none of them would give us any reason to prefer theism over Stephen Law’s evil God hypothesis (5). So at best, we have a case for theism which is hopelessly incomplete, falling drastically short of the definition given.Unjustified argumentationKey premises of Con’s arguments are often just assumed (such as P1 of his contingency argument). This is apparent throughout his post, to a greater or lesser extent. It’s a big exercise in question-begging, assumptions and scant detail.Both of these problems are immediately apparent in ALL of Con’s arguments, rendering them totally worthless even before they have been refuted.Contingency3 fallacious tacticsThe biggest problem with this argument is simply that Con fails to justify any of its content without assumption. No defence or even a mention of PSR is given (P1), and P2 challenges me to “assert a valid proof” of an alternate scenario for the existence of the universe, which is clearly an argument from ignorance, as well as appealing to a multitude of unmentioned scholars. Given these problems, I’ll let Con actually make the argument before I address it in detail, but I will lay out one problem with P2. Theistic explanationThe problem here is that God explains nothing. No attempt is made to even sketch out how, or why the universe has the features it has. Even worse, God (as an explanation) is essentially unfathomable. Agential causation outside of time, for example, seems at the very least, unexplained, if not downright confused. Lastly, there are alternatives to P2, even if they’re in infancy, such as M-theory (6).The FT argumentThe implicit value problemFT assumes that these constants are intended for our kind of life, but why suppose that these constants are set with us in mind? No justification has yet been given for this implicit value of life (from the perspective of the universe), and without it, I see absolutely no reason to suppose these constants were geared for our purpose. Problematic probabilitiesThe only way to calculate probability is to presuppose that all probabilities are the same, but this is incredibly problematic for FT, for we have no reason to believe each value is equiprobable. As Nicholas Everitt points out,“ we have no grounds for saying that each combination is as probable as every other. To determine that, we would per impossible need to observe lots of universes and see in each universe what values the forces took.” (7) Indeed, we don’t even know if the values could be changed independently of one another, much less what differing combinations of these values could lead to. Also, as even these Christian philosophers recognise:“there is no meaningful way in such a space to represent the claim that one sort of universe is more probable than another.” (8) The normalizability problem means that the sum of possibilities lead to an infinite number, and do not (as probabilities demand) equal 1. Both limitations simply preclude us from making such calculations meaningful and totally defuse FT. Alternative explanationsA many-universes model would explain FT better than design because such a postulation is qualitatively more parsimonious than a being which theism entails, as well as this being a much discussed scientific possibility (9). Con is yet to discuss these alternatives, let alone dismiss them.Personal interactionAgain, generously assuming Con provided a plethora of testimony, this argument still has many problems. Contrary experienceCon anticipates this, but explains them by reference to creatures who aim to “thwart the Designer’s plan”. Obviously, he begs the question here. Why not assume theist experiences are illusory, precipitated by an evil God? Also, many people (myself) have had no such experiences or belief, which is actually the primary motivation for a powerful argument against theism, particularly Christianity (10). Demographics of theismAlso, the fact that such experiences are expressed within specific cultural terms is surprising on theism, but not on atheism (11). Do these creatures have border restraint? At the very least, such experience fails in establish theism, and probably do the opposite.Sources1. http://www.debate.org...2. Craig vs. Hitchens debate (14:22 - 14:31)3. Craig vs. Law (1:33:00)4. http://www.simulation-argument.com...5. http://www.uu.blymiller.com...6. http://en.wikipedia.org...7. N.Everitt, The non-existence of God, P1118. Tim and Lydia Mcgrew and Eric Vestrup, Probabilities and the Fine-Tuning Argument, P2049. http://www.scientificamerican.com...10. See http://www.debate.org... 11. S. Maitzen, Divine Hiddenness and the Demographics of Theism.