God's existence - it is reasonable to conclude a supernatural cause of existence

Let’s start off with defining some of these terms, so we can lay the groundwork for the rest of this debate. Reasonable: there are good reasons for thinking that something is true or correct [1]Conclude: to decide that something is true after looking at all the evidence you have [2]God: the spirit, being, or force that many people believe created and controls the universe, especially the god of the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim religions [3]Supernatural: things that seem to come from a power such as magic and do not have a natural or scientific explanation [4] Now that we have terms to understand Pro’s claim, I do not believe it is reasonable to conclude that God exists. To affirm this resolution, Pro must give good justification behind her claims. What I mean by this is, she would need valid and sound evidential support that God exists. The default position with any claim is to not believe, which is the logical starting point. If we were to invert it and believe every claim, the truths and fallacies would be blended together. The main reason I do not believe it is reasonable to conclude that God exists, is because that assertion hasn’t been demonstrated as being reasonable. I would argue that just about any other claim that has the same lack of evidence would be tossed aside, and we wouldn’t even be having this debate. I am here to argue that the idea of God should be no different. We should treat all unsubstantiated claims the same way, dismiss them until presented evidence. Laws of Thermodynamics I believe what Pro is referencing here is the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics where it states entropy of an isolated system never decreases. I’m not quite sure what the claim his here. If she is asserting that the Big Bang violated the 2ndLaw of Thermodynamics, then she is just wrong. It is a common myth [5]. I’m not quite sure what Pro’s point is. If she’s claiming there must have been a finite beginning to the universe, I would ask how is that relevant to the existence of God? Uncaused Cause Pro is using the First Cause argument here, which is not only a big assumption, but it’s a circular argument. Pro is basically stating that something can’t come from nothing because every effect needs a cause. Then Pro uses the God of the Gaps fallacy, which is making the claim that if something cannot currently be explained, it must be God. The problem with the First Cause argument, and why I called it a circular argument, is if what Pro declares is true (everything must have a cause) then what caused her god? And what caused her god’s causer? If Pro wants to use this argument, I contend that she is falling into her own trap. I also think it’s a giant assumption to believe ‘nothing’ caused the Big Bang. The truth is, we don’t know. It is an unfalsifiable enigma. What we do know however, is with the creation of the universe also came the creation of space and time. To claim something caused the Big Bang, would be proclaiming there was an event before time. There would be no ‘before’ if there was no ‘time’. Another assumption that Pro is making, is that the scientific laws that we know to exist within our universe, also apply outside of the universe. This is like having the air conditioning on in your house and stating that because its 60 degrees inside, then it must be 60 degrees outside. Physicist Steven Hawking insists that the universe didn’t need God to be created. "Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist [6]. ” Multiverse Thoeries My opponent dismisses any string theory, or superstring theory that might explain the universe because there is no empirical evidence. She does this in favor of God. I ask her; where is your empirical evidence of God? She finishes this argument with “why go with supernatural instead of alternative theories? because that's what it looks like. ” Well this is a very easy question to answer. Every proposed multiverse theory is possible according to scientific law or theoretical physics. The God you claim to exist is not. It’s just nonsensical to ignore science in favor of the supernatural. Bottom Line: If it Looks Like a Duck, and Quacks Like a Duck, it’s a Duck This is an ignorant statement that proves Pro has not learned from past human misconceptions. According to this logic, we should still believe the Earth is flat. We should believe the Sun revolves around the Earth. We should believe Mars orbits backwards once a year, because who back then knew of retrograde motion. These are all things that science could not explain in the past, and the all “looked and quacked like a duck. ” Humans have been attributing the unexplained to God or gods for millennia. Lightning was a bizarre act of nature, so God must be angry. We didn’t understand what micro organisms were, so viruses were considered punishment from God. “Once upon a time people identified the god Neptune as the source of storms at sea. Today we call these storms hurricanes…. The only people who still call hurricanes acts of God are the people who write insurance forms. ” Neil deGrasse Tyson [7] Spaghetti Monster This is another flat out untrue statement when Pro says “Atheists often talk about how the spaghetti monster disproves God, cause we could have been formed by it. ” First, atheists don’t try and disprove God; they just lack a belief in a god. An atheist knows God is something that can’t be disproven, just like nobody can disprove that an invisible leprechaun lives under my bed. Second, The Flying Spaghetti Monster was the ‘god’ that Bobby Henderson created in a satirical letter that he wrote to the Kansas State Board of Education protesting their decision to allow intelligent design in schools. It was to prove a point that he believed religious teaching should stay out of schools. The Flying Spaghetti monster reference is popular today as an analogy of what atheists think about the existance of God, or lack thereof. It's a reference point for theists and was never intended to "disprove God. "Summery My opponent didn’t present one piece of evidence to verify her resolution of the existence of God. Instead she used multiple logical fallacies and made giant assumptions. I think she made it clear that if she doesn't understand how something works, or came into being, she attributes it to God. That is not proof of God. That is proof of not knowing. After round 1, I don’t find any more reason to conclude the existence of God. Sources [1] . http://www.macmillandictionary.com... [2] . http://www.macmillandictionary.com... [3] . http://www.macmillandictionary.com... [4] . http://www.macmillandictionary.com... [5] . http://machineslikeus.com... [6] . http://phys.org... [7] . http://www.haydenplanetarium.org...