God exists.

Me and my debate discussed it and my opponent has agreed that I may defend the existence of an impersonal Deistic god instead of a theistic god who interacts in human affairs. I accept my opponent's definition of existence over my own. His definition is stated below: Exist: In common usage, existence is the world of which we are aware through our senses and persists independently without them. My opponent goes on to state that as defender of the existence of a god, I have the burden of proof. However my opponent is instigator of this debate and as instigator, holds the burden of proof. If I were to challenge my opponent to a debate on the existence of god it would certainly be my job to defnd it's exisence but that is not the case here. My opponent is making the positive claim that god does not exist and it is my reponsibility to refute them. Now let's look at my opponent's objections with my argument. A. It makes the unwarranted assumption that God himself is immune to regress. Even if we allow my opponent to make this statement, that "God" is extant, there is no reason to believe him on that he is all powerful, all seeing, good, etc. My opponent in his definition says that "this god is all powerful" but how does the Kalam argument in any way justify this statement? Therefore, the God that he proposes is not sufficiently proven to exist by the Kalam argument. Me and my opponent have agreed that I may defend the existence of an impersonal Deistic god. God as I am describing it does not need to be all seeing or all good. Also, to my opponent's contention that god is not immune to regress, we assume that everything must have a cause because everything as we know it is bound by time and most things therefore abide by a cause and effect relationship. God however is above time as he created it when he created the universe. Therefore the universe is bound by time and requires a cause, but god does not as he is outside and above time. B. This doesn't fit under my definition either. There is no warrant that he listens to prayers, forgives sins, etc etc. As I stated previously, my opponent and I had a miscommunication and have agreed that god may be impersonal and not interested in human affairs, as in the Deistic god. So the god that I am defending does not need to listen to prayers or forgive sin as it is in no way theistic. C. The issue with my opponent's argument is all it does is label something as God. That doesn't prove God's existence. If I label my hand God, and I drop the cup I'm holding in it, does that mean that God dropped my cup? Merely labeling something is not enough to prove that something exists, and in fact calling it God is at best unhelpful and at worst misleading I am labeling the cause of the universe as god because as I defined god, it fits that definition. If multiple eyewitnesses to a robbery describe the suspect as red haired, male, white, with blue eyes and you see a person who exactly fits that description near the crime scene then logic follows that he could be the culprit. Likewise the cause of the universe would have to exist outside of time and space. This is how the Deistic god is described so this goes in my favor. D. What caused God? I have already dealt with the issue of eternal regress earlier. _________________________________________________________________________________________________ 1. God is the Ultimate Boeing 747 This argument fails in that I am not making the claim that the universe is too complex to have existed by chance. I am arguing that the universe needs a cause which exists outside of time and that this is god as described by Deism. I certainly cannot stand the teleological argument. //"If everything has a cause, what was His cause? The argument is turned on its head."// Everything does not have a cause. As I stated in the first round, "Whatever begins to exist has a cause for it coming into being." The universe began to exist at some point and thus requires a creator. However god exists outside of time and therefore there was no 'time' when it did not exist. So, god is immune to this premise. //"That's all I've got for now, since again, the onus is on my opponent to show God's existence, not for me to prove he doesn't exist."// This is wrong in that as instigator of this debate, you retain the burden of proof. If I were trying to convert you then the BOP would be on me but since you are the one making the positive assertion the BOP is on you. You cannot win this debate by simply refuting my argument. To win this debate you must show that god does not exist, or at least that it's non-existence is more probable than it's existence. To voters, my opponent has not upheld his burden of proof, therefore I urge a Pro vote.