God probably does not exist

I think that when you define God as "a self-existent being" we can end the debate right now. There is no such thing as a self-existent being. There is no such thing-as self existent matter. It was all created during the Big Bang, which you are right to point out, probably happened. There is almost definitively nothing that exists outside of the laws of nature (i.e. something that needs nothing to bring it into existence). This is because we have been provided no evidence for such. The reasoning behind this is quite similar to the reasoning discussed in our other debate (http://www.debate.org...). Now, there is still some debate as to what the Big Bang actually was. But the mainstream theory seems to be that a singularity, which is an extremely dense but very small point that ignores many of the laws of physics, exploded 13 billion years ago. Although I am not an expert in astronomy/cosmology, my understanding of the concept of singularity is a dense point that contained all the matter in the universe. This, coincidentally, is the view of Stephen Hawking; "At this time, the Big Bang, all the matter in the universe, would have been on top of itself." So, to the statement "we're starting out with no materials, space, energy, or time to work with." We have all the materials in the universe to work with. Literally. For the space idea, the Big Bang was just an expansion of all the matter in the singularity. Anyway, opinions of scientists seem to differ enough to make it hard to judge whether we can see the work of a supernatural being in the world. Let me just point out that this was the case right after Darwin's work was published with the diversity of life. There is a lot to be said about the Big Bang. We don't know all that much, and there are some contradictory opinions among the top cosmologists. Thus, I will simply wait to pass judgement. Just because we do not definitively know whether or not the universe was created by a creator, does not mean we should assume that it was. Now, if the universe was created by a creator, then who created that creator. By all known ideas about physics, nothing has existed forever. We currently know of nothing that does not obey the laws of physics, except at the subatomic level. General Relativity falls apart as you get down to this level. I am no expert and in fact know very little about this kind of science. But, there is, definitively, not a consensus among the thinkers of the scientific world. I do not see how we should then decide that God has created the universe. Even if we did, that would also not provide sanctuary for one particular set of beliefs. Given that situation, Islam is just as probable as Hinduism which is just as probable as the Norse myths. Lastly, to the statement by Arno Penzias, if you had nothing to go on but on the Bible, this is what you would have predicted. - no evolution - all species created in their current form - 6000 year old universe - destruction of the city of tyre by Nebuchadnezzar - drying of the Nile So far, none of these have happened. In summary, the Big Bang occurred. But, seeing as the evidence does not clearly point to anything supernatural, we can safely assume that there is nothing supernatural involved.