Does God Exist? Theism and Biblical Faith vs. Atheism and Agnosticism

I am not ignoring my OPP's argument I never meant to seem disrespectfulOrigin of the Universe:If my OPP is using "prove" in the strict sense of absolute certainty, we cannot prove or disprove Gods existence. But this does not mean that there is no good evidence or arguments for God, which might make belief in God's existence very reasonable. We know very little (if anything) with absolute mathematical certainty, so certainty is neither a reasonable or necessary standard. Like virtually all of our other knowledge, I think we can show that it is highly probable that God exists. It is also important for me to note that merely having a possible alternative explanation does not defeat the argument. What one needs is a more probable alternative explanation. For example, most people believe the earth is a sphere but a small minority still insist the earth is flat. Should the "spheroids" abandon their theory just because the "flat-earthers" have come up with an alternative? Of course not. The only way this would be necessary is if the flat-earthers were able to offer overwhelming evidence that theirs is the more probable theory. And that is unlikely in the extreme.Good arguments for God's existence are in abundant supply. Alvin Plantinga, arguably one of the world's more brilliant living philosophers, recently delivered a paper outlining two dozen or so theistic arguments. Characters will limit me to two. Argument #1: God Is the Best Explanation for the Beginning of the UniversePremise 1) Whatever begins to exist must have a cause.Premise 2) The universe began to exist.Conclusion: Therefore the universe has a cause.Whatever begins to exist must have a cause. Most of us have no problem accepting this principle. We assume its truth in virtually every aspect in our daily lives. Our experience always confirms it and never denies it. It has always been a fundamental first principle of philosophy and science that "from nothing, nothing comes." Even the atheist philosopher David Hume, who showed that we could not prove with certainty that the causal principle was true, still believed it to be true and thought so with certainty.Surely it is more reasonable to hold to this premise than to believe that things pop into existence out of nothing and by nothing.Secondly, we have both scientific confirmation and logical argument for the universe having a beginning. According to the standard Big Bang model, space, time, matter and energy all came into existence simultaneously around 15 billion years ago.Furthermore, according to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, given enough time the universe will eventually reach a state of equilibrium a cold, dark, dead, virtually motionless state. Clearly, if the universe is without beginning, then there has been an infinite length of time preceding this present moment. If this is the case, then the universe should already be in a state of equilibrium. This should be a cold, dark, dead, virtually motionless universe. There should be no galaxies, solar systems, stars or planets not to mention living organisms. Since there is obviously plenty of heat, light, movement and life, the past must be finite. The universe had a beginning.An infinite past is impossible, because an actual infinite cannot be formed by adding one member after another. It's like counting to infinity-you just never get there. Just like we can never finish counting to infinity, we can never begin to count down to a negative infinity. But to have a universe with no beginning, you would have to have an infinite number of past events leading up to the present. But this is impossible, because, by implication, the present could never have come to exist.Thus the Big Bang Theory, the Second Law of Thermodynamics and the impossibility of an infinite past all support the universe having a beginning.Since whatever begins to exist must have a cause, it follows logically that the universe has a cause.Taken together, these two arguments tell us that the cause and designer of the universe is an intelligent, immaterial, powerful, changeless being that existed in a timeless, eternal state beyond the beginning of the universe. This, I suggest, is close enough to the traditional Judeo-Christian concept of God that we can justifiably conclude that indeed, God does exist.My OPP stated : "God can microwave a burrito so hot that he cannot eat it. However, this would put a limit on what God can do." This analogy is flawed and is used by my OPP as smoke and mirrors to distract from the real question, "Does God Exist?"It is absurd to speculate on matters that power is incapable of accomplishing. i.e. How many nuclear bombs would it require to make 2+3=7? "God is capable of doing all things that power can do" - Power cannot do the intrinsically or logically impossible - such things cannot be done at allIn the world there are both possible beings(those that come into and pass out of, existence) and necessary beings(those that always exist). - presupposing the past eternity of the earth, all possibilities would be realized and that all possible beings would come to be and pass away, making it possible that the process would arrive at the ‘nothing exists’ possibility (since its had an eternity to realize all possibilities) then there would be nothing in existence today,(since from nothing comes nothing), this is absurd because, things still exist today! Therefore, necessary beings must exist in that at least ONE being has to continue to exist throughout all the coming into and passing out of existence of the many possible being.Objective Morality :Theism does have good answers to the questions of moral values, moral duties and moral accountability - the values are rooted in god’s nature - the duties are owed to God - it matters if we’re good or not because our ultimate destination is affected by our moral actions Atheism - the social contract is just an arbitrary social convention - determinism does not allow for free moral decisions - with no one to prescribe duties, there is no reason to perform duties - on atheism, moral duties are like rules of etiquette - it makes no difference in the long run how you behaveConclusion :My OPP is making a faith based argument from his own knowledge. Let me say that is the best way to make a faith statement. But ultimately, whether various approaches seem more logical, or intuitive, or neither, the following statement is true when it comes to the cause behind this awe inspiring cosmos: “Everyone Has Faith In Something.” Atheism takes faith. Theism takes faith. Make no mistake, life is a leap of faith. Ones evidence is math for their leap of faith. Another’s is an encounter, a story, an experience, an epiphany. No one knows exactly what the afterlife, if it exists, will be like. It takes faith to believe it exists. It takes faith to not believe it exists.Faith has clues, and ancient stories, behind it, dating back to the beginnings of humankind. For some, the diversity of those stories disproves them. For others, threads are visible in those stories, and they wind back to primal truth – not superstition. Science is in danger of losing its role when it ventures into statements of meaning. My OPP's argument is compelling, but not in contradiction to faith. For my part these debates actually lead me to greater belief in God, not away. And when you break it down these arguments put forth against God were created(for lack of a better word)just to disprove God as you can see they have failed to do so.