Jesus Christ is the Son of God

1. Pro begins by claiming that the existence of a god is self evident. He seeks to prove this by quoting a passage from the Bible, Romans 1:19-20. He then moves to what is essentially the watch maker argument. I will begin showing that these are insufficient "proofs" for the existence of a god. 1A. The Bible proof. Just because something is written in a book, that doesn't make the thing in the book true. This seems rather obvious and shouldn't need to be expanded upon. I will a bit though. Any book can make a claim. The Koran makes claims. The truthfulness of the claim resides outside of the book. Pro would need to demonstrate that all claims in the Bible are true in order to use the Bible claim as a proof for something. Claiming that the passage is true is an assumption made by Pro. Assumptions don't prove things. 1B. The passage is clearly wrong. The passage claims the existence of a god is self evident. ". .. God is plain to them. .. God has shown it to them. . .. his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, . .. So they are without excuse. " Evidence that the passage is wrong is the existence of those who don't believe a god exists. I myself see no evidence that a god exist. The demographics of DDO, 33% self identify as either atheist or agnostic. [1] World wide, the number of atheist/secular/agnostic people total approximately 850 million people. [2] Clearly if the existence of a god was self evident then there should be no atheist, no agnostic people, and no secular people. Clearly the passage has it wrong and isn't proof of a god existing. Pro's next argument takes us to the watch maker argument. This fails due to the analogy fallacy. [3] Yes a painting needs a painter. That is because paintings don't occur naturally. The painting is not a natural object. The universe is a natural object. Paintings =/= universes. Buildings =/= universes. Books =/= universes. In order to claim a universe needs a builder, one must demonstrate that universes don't occur naturally. This claim, at the moment, is beyond the ability of human knowledge. The analogy fallacy is when one incorrectly equivocates two different things. Then it is said that since thing A (painting) needs a painter, thing B (the universe) needs a builder. This is incorrect. Paintings don't equal universes, so one cannot claim that because one needs to be constructed the other must also need to be constructed. I would also add a short side note. Even if we could prove the universe was constructed, the only thing that would tell us is that something, or several somethings, had the ability to construct it. That doesn't tell us what the something is. Maybe it is mortal and no god at all. Maybe it is a collection of advanced scientist who created our universe. Maybe it was 3475 gods that did it. This argument is no proof of any god. Next Pro moves to an argument of improbability. ". .. there has to be a God. Everything is in the right place for life on this planet and it is (far) too awesome to just happen by chance. " There are approximately 100 billion galaxies in our observable universe. There are approximately 100 billion stars in each galaxy. Our own star has 8 planets. Lets just use those numbers, 100 billion x 100 billion x 8=800,000,000,000,000,000,000 possible planets in the observable universe. It is a statistical certainty that there are planets, and many planets, in habitual zones throughout the observable universe. If this was the only planet, I would be completely on board with this argument. That would be incredible. But there are just to many to marvel at the fact that we happen to be on one that harbors life. Also this falls under the anthropic principle. Life will always find itself in a place that harbors life. That should be of no surprise. This is the extent of Pro's "proof" for the existence of a god. As I've shown, all of these arguments fail and fail for often more than one reason. To this point Pro hasn't established that a god exists. Pro than move on to try and prove Jesus existed and still does exist. He claims that "Roman-Jewish Flavius Josephus confirmed the existence of Jesus Christ in two references in his historical work. " I've gone to the link Pro has sourced for this claim. Josephus was born in 37 A. D. [4] (same source Pro used) I'm going to be very generous here. Lets say Josephus began recording his historical accounts at the age of 20. That would mean in year 57 A. D. Josephus would begin is historical accounts. Jesus is believed to have been crucified around 30 A. D and 33 A. D [5] (if he existed) Josephus would have no first had knowledge that Jesus existed. He was born after the crucifixion. When Josephus would've began his historical accounts of Judea at that time early Christian would've been claiming Jesus existed and Josephus may have noted that in his historical writings. But Josephus himself would have no first hand knowledge that Jesus did exist. This is insufficient proof that Jesus did exist. I would like to also had that historian Dr. Richard Carrier has a peer reviewed book coming out in which he argues that it is more likely than not the Jesus never existed. Here is a youtube video in which he makes that case. [6] I'm not arguing that this proves Jesus didn't exist. However, if an academic historian is willing to right a peer reviewed book arguing that Jesus didn't exist, it stands to reason that there are good reasons to believe he didn't. Which at least should demonstrate that claiming Jesus did exist is still very much in question. Pro, "Jesus Christ continues to exist. " Unless Pro can prove this, this is just opinion. He claims this is supported with personal experience. That maybe. But, personal experience offers us no evidence and is untestable. Pro quotes 1 Corinthians that offers us no evidence supporting the proposition. Not sure why it is included. He quotes Biblical scripture that states Jesus is the son of a god. Of course all of us already know that Biblical scripture makes that claim. Text doesn't prove text though. Would we expect to find any other claim in a Christian document? No, of course not. Citing a Christian document that says Jesus was/is the son of a god takes no steps in proving that claim is true. How does Pro know those passages are true? Pro's final challenge. Pro's claim, "If you are in pain, sick or injured, then this is for you. " I will let the voters test this as I will as well. Say these words. "In the name of Jesus Christ, ALL sickness and disease GO. Be healed and made whole right now. " I will let the voters assess their experience. For me and my 18 year old daughter, we tried Pro's challenge. My headache is still present. My daughter has light scoliosis and her back still hurts. It failed for both of us. Conclusion. I don't believe Pro has meant a reasonable burden of proof. His arguments for the existence of a god fall short. His arguments for the existence of Jesus falls short. And the only link he has to support his claim that Jesus is the son of a god, is a Christian document that would absolutely make that claim for biased reasons. Thank You Pro. The floor is yours. 1. . http://www.debate.org... 2. . http://atheistempire.com... 3. . http://rationalwiki.org... 4. . http://en.wikipedia.org... 5. . http://en.wikipedia.org... 6. . https://search.yahoo.com...