God Probably Doesn't Exist

First, I will discuss my argumentSummary- because contingent things exist, there must, by logical deduction, be a necessary being (essence=existence). Then from there I deduced various traits which a necessary being must posesss. These traits included, simple, eternal, immaterial, omnipotent, perfect, all knowing, and a few others. Pro has not so much argued against my central argument (contingent things lead us to a necessary being) as it seems as though he hasn't objected to any of my premises or defenses of my premises, so as of now they stand. He has raised the point about the universe being necessary, which isn't really central to my argument (my argument works with any contingent things), but an interesting side question which I'll address: We know something is contingent if its essence (what it is) is distinct from the fact that it is. Now, it is clear that the essence of the universe is not the same as its existence. The essence of the universe consists of the essences of the parts of the universe, that which makes up the universe. Further, a necesary being must exist for all of eternity (if it had a beginning this would mean that it came from non-existence, yet a being that exists by the necessity of its own nature cannot fail to exist as this is a self-contradiction). However, the universe had a finite beginning (as modern cosmology strongly suggests). Also, a necessary being must be simple because it exists by its own nature and not through its parts yet the universe is not simple as it is composed of many parts (e.g. regions in space-time, physical objects, planets, people). "However, there is no reason why some type of non-seitnet mindless immaterial necessary powerful force can’t contain all needed information" -proThe problem with this is how does an immaterial being contain information at all except in the form of ideas or thoughts? That doesn't even make sense. The being does not have parts, cannot change, has no location, etc. However, I will elaborate on my argument for why the necessary being has to have intellect. Now, the necessary being is the cause of all contingent things (this was demonstrated). Any real effect must in some sense be contained in a cause. By real effect I mean something that actually has positive existence rather than a privation (e.g. the effect of blindness for instance need not be in the cause because it is a privation rather than having positive existence). There are two reasons why the effect must somehow exist in teh cause:1) Induction- This is the case of all that we see in the world. For instance, the makeup of a human being is in her DNA which exists in the chromosomes of the sperm and egg cell which make her. If we come across a puddle of water that is red we know right away that there must either be some rust, a spilled red drink, possibly blood or red paint in the water because water is not itself red. A house which is built by builders must first exist in the minds of the builders. Notice in these examples the effect does not exist in the same sense in the cause in every case. The point is that the cause has the principle for the effect's existence. 2) If the effect did not exist in the cause in some sense, it could not exist at all. This is because causation means bringing together essence and existence. That which does not exist cannot do this obviously. That which does exist however must either contain in itself the essence, be of the same essence, or have access in some sense to that essence. Otherwise, there is no way in principle for the cause to act, as it cannot join an essence to an act of existence if that essence is outside of the access as it were of the cause. Also, if the effect did not pre-exist in some sense in the cause, it would come from nothing. Yet out of non-being, comes non-being because to come from non-being is by definition to not come into existence. Hence, the necessary being must contain the essences or the principles of existence for the rest of contingent reality. However, it cannot be of the same essence as it is simple and immaterial. Therefore, it must contain the essences by way of idea. Another argument which I will only mention briefly is that the necessary bieng is infinite (look at my first post). If it lacked cognition, yet humans had it, it would be more limited than human beings. Yet this contradictions the infinity and perfection of the necessary being, hence by deduction it must have cognition in some sense. Pro's arguments1) The problem of Evil- I disagree with premise 4, yet suppose I concede it. What follows is that God desires to eliminate all evil and that He can. This means that He will do so. However, the argument does not demonstrate that God has to right now as that doesn't follow. The argument just shows God will eliminate evil at some point. So in order to salvage your argument, you must change the premise to "If God is morally perfect, He would've prevented all evil" or "If God is morally perfect, He would desire to eliminate all evil right now." Same basic idea. The problem is that neither is necessarily true. Suppose evil enters the world against God's will (as a consequence of sin say). Then there exists some evil E. God has the choice to eliminate E or to allow it to remain. God is powerful so say God forsees that He can bring about a great effect G out of E if He lets E remain. On the other hand, if he eliminates E he can also bring about good effect g but its not as grand as G. Is a morally perfect God OBLIGATED to do either? Is it possible that God chooses to allow for E in order to get to G?The problem with the argument from evil is that you have to know that a morally perfect God does not have morally sufficient reasons to allow for evil in the world. God can allow for evil if He forsees a greater effect may be brought from the evil. 2) The argument from atemporal minds- God's mind is non-sequential. This is because God is eternal. So you have to alter the argument to be the argument from "atemporal will" as it were. God's freedom does not mean:God one day has not made a choice, sees His options, considers them, and without compulsion chooses one of them.God's freedom does mean:God's infinite will is not altered by internal states, emotions, bias, limits on power or knowledge, etc. God's will pressuposes nothing and is influenced by nothing other than Himself.Because of this, there is no reason to say that God's will can't be eternal and free. As long as I have had the ability to reason, I have had the will to live. There was never a time when this was not the case. Does that mean my will to live isn't free? Does that mean my will to live is not contingent? No and No. It is free from the first moment because I was not coerexed but my will itself is what recognizes the good of life and continues to will to live. It is contingent because my life is dependent on my will to live which is dependent on my will which is dependent on my intellect which is dependent on my very being. Further, you say "without a chance to chose" but that implies that in order to make a free choice you need TIME to make that choice. On the contrary, a free choice is one that implies no compulsion, not necessarily a time when the choice wasn't made. God's choice is eternal and constant although also free of any sort of external compulsion or internal necessity. It isn't necessary that God creates the universe, as it is a consequence of His will alone. Yet His will chooses to create not out of any necessity. Simply because something is eternal does not mean it is necessary. Something may be eternal but contingent. http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com...; http://www.newadvent.org...Take a look at the above links if you have time. In the second link, look at the question of what God wills by necessity and what God wills by freedom. 3) The argument about minds-Suppose I concede your entire argument. What does that show? It shows that human minds are dependent on the brain. However, it does not show that minds as such are dependent on a material organ. In order to show that, you would have to show that an immaterial mind is either metaphysically impossible or it is a necessary metaphysical condition for an organ of some sort. You did not do this, you simply provided evidence that the human mind is physically dependent. To argue that this shows minds themselves are is like arguing "human life depends entirely on the brain- when the brain dies, a man dies-- therefore, life as such is dependent on the brain." This is obviously untrue as plants survive without brains. This is called arguing from a particular to a universal and is fallacious. In any case, I will not concede your point. I think that consciousness is in principle an immaterial capacity. Certainly it relies on the brain in many senses, however, the function itself is carried out by something immaterial. This is because subjective awareness cannot be predicated on material things, either in their fundamental parts, or in any arrangement. I can never "see" your experience, no matter what technology I have. I can measure brainwaves, detect which parts are metabolically active, stimulate certain areas to cause experiences, but I cannot actually have your subjective experience. I may be able to deduce what kind of subjective experience you might be having from the activity of your nervous system, but I cannot have the first-person experience. This implies there is something non-physical about subjective consciousness. Since it is at least in part immaterial, even if our heavily use the brain, it shows minds themselves are in principle immaterial, hence can theoretically act without a brain even if we never directly observe it.If I see a forest fire it would be wrong to conclude that because the fire I see depends on a living thing all fire as such does. I know that fire in principle does not depend on life but on fuel. The conclusion then should be that it is at least plausible that a mind exists in an immaterial being