God Exists

Apologies for the screwed up formating in R3 Non-Cognitivism 1. A Human has the primary attributes because it is composed of physical things and this gives it intelligible meaning. Pro wants me to give “a “primary attribute,” that cannot be expressed in terms of its essence, i.e. “secondary attributes,” SA.net offers an example and I gave one in a past debate Firstly, if one were to say that, “The dress is beautiful”, and I were to respond by asking, “What is a dress?”—it would hardly be a help to me for that individual to respond, “It has a nice design and is comfortable”. While it being comfortable and being designed attractively may play a factor in its being called beautiful, my question has not been answered. I have not asked for further secondary characteristics of the dress, but rather what the dress is itself that it has the capacity to be called “beautiful”. [1] If I say a computer exists and you ask “what's a computer”, is it meaningful to define it as“Having tons of information, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, it can talk if you tell it to, a great tool, has solved many problems, it can be bright and sometimes dim.” This doesn't give us any meaning. 2. Pro defines God as “a hierarchical series of motion mandates a mover with no potentials” This isn't a meaningful definition at all. I asked what God is, not what it mandates. “this structure of attributes assumes much that classical theism does not accept” Then the “God” of classic theism can't be considered meaningful. The attributes are set by the laws of logic and the fundamental meaning of what it is to define something. Pro hasn't given a meaningful definition of God in this debate. Any arguments for this thing called “God” are useless as the very thing is meaningless. First Way Newton's laws agreeing with Aristotle’s principle of motion are completely irrelevant. It still eliminates the need for a first mover. Since, if two bodies are at rest, by the laws of gravity they will move toward each other, eliminating the need for a first mover. Pro then claims that relativity poses no threat to the argument. Aristotle's theory of motion assumed that there exists absolute motion [2] [3]. This is wrong. “The theory of relativity also resolves the question of absolute motion. When one speaks of an object as being in motion, such motion is usually in reference to another object which is considered at rest. Although a person sitting in a car is at rest with respect to the car, both in motion with respect to the earth, and the earth is in motion with respect to the sun and the center of the galaxy. All these motions are relative. It was once thought that there existed a light-carrying medium, known as the luminiferous ether, which was in a state of absolute rest. Any object in motion with respect to this hypothetical frame of reference would be in absolute motion. The theory of relativity showed, however, that no such medium was necessary and that all motion could be treated as relative.”[4] “He declares that there is no reason to assume these given the information provided.” No! I said with that information there's no reason to assume a being. “Con next questions the inherent potentiality of material. It should be intuitively grasped by the reader that as a finite configuration in space, material particles have the intrinsic potentiality to translate to another point in space” Yes, this is what we observe. Why can't there exist some type of matter without potential? Quantum physics is very counter-intuitive, so it can very well be that we will one day see matter with no potential and able to move in points of space. Obviously you believe in a mover with no potential and can't it move in space? Pro derived omnipotence like this “Aquinas distinguishes between two forms of power: active power, the ability to act, and passive potentiality, the ability to be acted upon. Thus, as Pure Act, this being has all possible active power; that is, he has all possible ability to act, but no ability to be acted upon. Thus we can derive omnipotence” So, I'm not confusing passive potentiality. Pro threw “potentiality” into the mix without defending against my initial response to this way we get omnipotence. It's a change of terms. Pro says the omnipotence and omniscient paradox is a “metaphysical impossibility”. This begs the question, who decides what is and isn't metaphysically possible? If God or some part of God decides it, then God has made a stone that he can't lift, and this would mean something in God is limiting in nature. There could be a standard above God that decides it. This would mean that this standard must too have no potentials, to decide what is and isn't potential. This also puts us in another dilemma. Since God is bound by what is metaphysically possible, then is it possible for something to move without a first mover? If yes, then a first mover isn't needed, since it's possible for something to move without one. If no, then God himself needs a first mover to start this movement. If God is just in a category where it's only possible for him to be moved without a mover, then this would just be engaging in a special pleading fallacy [5]. If I'm understanding Pro, he's saying the cup resembles an "ultimate cup". This however isn't answering where the actual standard comes from. If it's external from the cup, that's completely fine, because it's a cup. If it's external from God, then the atheist can account for the objective standard of goodness without a mover. Not good for his argument I suggest Pro rephrase the opening argument to state it isn't an argument from the cause of the universe to prevent confusion in future debates. [1] http://www.strongatheism.net... [2] http://plato.stanford.edu... [3] http://plato.stanford.edu... [4] http://www.infoplease.com... [5] http://www.fallacyfiles.org...