Atheism is more Probable than Theism

INTRODUCTION First let me apologize if I did not accord with the debate format as my opponent wanted. I consider rebuttals to be statements. I thought he meant that that second round is only for initial/main points while later rounds are only for responses but no new arguments. If he had used the terms “positive and negative” arguments, I would have understood. Sorry again. ARGUMENTS Negative Arguments [1.1] Con attacked a straw man. God could have prevented the evil but did not. [1.1A] I did not attack a straw man. The first argument (from Bradlaugh) was about evil originating in God due to its finiteness, with the implication that God is responsible for this because of this. I directly responded to this. My opponent’s response that God could have prevented it, but that is a separate point; it belongs below, not here. This is a minor point anyway. I do not think my opponent realized that he was presenting two separate arguments under his first contention, the first of which I’ve never heard before. [1.2] Con’s argument assumes that the ultimate end of evil is good. A doctor amputating a leg to rid one of gangrene is an example of this, but it does not apply to God because the doctor is limited while God is unlimited. [1.2A] My opponent does not explain what being limited or unlimited has to do with whether or not the ultimate end of evil is good. [1.2B] My “assumption” of the ultimate end of evil being good is only based on the definition of God that we agreed to at the start of the debate: God is omnibenevolent and so will bring evil to a positive conclusion. And even if evil does not come to a good end, it will still all be eliminated regardless,unless this universe is eternal, which is a view no scientist I’ve heard of subscribes to. [2.1C] My opponent’s argument about the doctor amputating a leg when he does not have tois very odd. It’s actually an inversion of the problem of evil. He is arguing that it is “mad” for a doctor to do remove an evil if doing so is unnecessary. I completely agree. That was my original point. He asks why we would call God good for doing this when we would call a doctor mad. But where do we see God doing this? This is an enitirely new atheological argument that does not belong in the debate. [2.1/2.2] If God is all-loving, then he would desire a relationship with all of mankind. But he does not have a relationship with all of mankind. In order to have a relationship with all of mankind, God must reveal himself in a way that would allow that relationship to occur. [2.1/2.2A] Just because God desires something does not mean it is going to happen. Free-willed human beings have the ability to (at least temporarily) screw up God’s plans. God cannot force us to have a relationship with him if we are unwilling. And as I already explained, we have reason that can allow us to form conclusions about God. My opponent and I are doing that right now in this debate. Why a revelation? I’m sorry that my opponent ignored this point. I don’t know what kind of revelation my opponent has in mind, for he has not said, but I imagine that the average kind of revelation would be both unnecessary and an indication that we are unable to reason. [3.1] I defined God as having the attributes of the Judeo-Christian God. [3.1A] My opponent says he is referring to the Judeo-Christian God, yet he ironically agrees with me that there is no common consensus on the specifics of the Judeo-Christian God. So how can he expect his argument to hold up? I defended a very likely use of the word “incomprehensible”, the way I actually hear it being used by theists in everyday language. [3.1B] To even further explain the compatibility between incomprehensibility and other attributes of God, incomprehensibility, in typical dialogue over God, refers to the “how”, “why”, or “what” of God, not the “that”. There is absolutely no contradiction between believing that some humans kill other humans without being able to comprehend precisely how or why it occurs (psychologically speaking). Lack of “how” does not entail lack of “that”. [3.2] Omniscience is the quality of having all knowledge, all things possible and actual. [3.2A] That is exactly my point. As I explained, knowledge of the future is not logically possible and so God’s omniscience does not extend to knowledge of the future and hence does not interfere with human free will. Asking for knowledge of the future is like asking for knowledge of the color of Wednesday. It isincoherent. Similarly, when people say that God can do all things, they mean all things that are logically possible for him to do (raising the dead, giving sight to the blind, giving hearing to the deaf, as opposed to making square circles and 2 + 2 = 5). It is just a shorthand way of saying it. I really expected my opponent to know this. Many atheists do. Bottom line, his attack for contention 3 is on a straw man God, an obscure deity that no one I know believes in. Positive Arguments [1] Modal Cosmological Argument I did not have enough time to respond to this but will do so next round. Fair enough. I await his response. 2- Argument From Beauty It does not follow from the fact that we can understand beauty that there is aGod. I explained why beauty entails God’s existence. Without argument, my opponent simply says that it does not follow. I’ll reiterate why it does: Something either has a natural origin or a supernatural origin. Neither beauty itself, nor our ability to experience and appreciate beauty has a naturalistic origin. It must therefore have a supernatural origin. The point about Neanderthals possibly being able to produce some kind of art does not change my point. It only means that they should be considered homo sapiens, as the first article says (the second article was removed from the site; the third link was also taken down. I would advise my opponent to check for these problems before posting links). I anticipate what my opponent will say to this and what he may have meant when he said he does not see how my theistic conclusion follows from the reality of beauty, but I will wait for him to actually say it before I rebut. CONCLUSION My apologies to Pro again for misunderstanding how he wanted the rounds to go. Believe me, it was not intentional. My arguments still stand after Pro’s response. His problem of evil cannot get around my objection about the eventual elimination of evil. His demographic argument still ignores the fact that humans can use reason to form proper concepts about God. His incoherence arguments are misplaced and rely on superficial understandings of the terms involved. His response to the AFB is undeveloped and I await his criticism of the MCA. Note: Pro said that my argument was against the problem of evil was a straw man. First of all, when one is accused committing the straw man fallacy, it makes no sense to say “his argument was a straw man”. The correct thing to say is “You attacked a straw man” or “You turned my argument into a straw man”. Second, when one says that his opponent has attacked a straw man, one must make clear two things: A- what was the real argument he was making, and B- how was it misrepresented. Pro did not do this.