There is No God

======= Introduction: ======= It is necessary at this point to inform the readers that my opponent has already conceded the debate. My opponent writes, "this quote should be enough to answer your question…" Aside from the fact that my opponent is answering a question that I never asked, his quote from Richard Dawkins serves to illustrate my point. Since the resolution reads, "God does not exist," my opponent has the burden to prove that this is the case. Even if he was able to ACTUALLY show that God is improbable, it would still be quite a distance away from proving that God does not exist –instead, he would have only shown that God probably does not exist. ======= The Call for Evidence: ======= "Please present some ‘evidence' that god has ever existed." My opponent believes that there is no evidence for the existence of God. Since Dawkins disingenuously compared God with fairies and my opponent is fond of using Victor J. Stenger's "failed hypothesis" quip, I will quickly present a cumulative case for the existence of God. As a preamble, Richard Swinburne, in his own cumulative case, pointed out that there are two types of explanation for phenomena: scientific and personal. Scientific explanations involve natural laws and previous states of affairs. Personal explanations involve persons and purposes. When a scientific explanation is insufficient or not possible, we should consider a personal one. .;'*^?.;'*^?.;'*^?.;'*^?.;'*^? THE COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT argues from the existence of an extremely complex universe. While science can account for things based on previous states of affairs within the universe (mostly), it cannot account for the "first" state or why matter and energy exist in the first place for the laws of nature to effect. God is the hypothesis of the simplest kind of person with the power and knowledge to bring about the universe. William Lane Craig, in his infamous, "The Kalaam Version of the Cosmological Argument," illustrated that it is impossible for an actual infinite to exist. He gives the following syllogism: 1. An actual infinite cannot exist 2. A beginningless series of events is an actual infinite 3. Therefore, a beginningless series of events cannot exist If today was preceded by an infinite amount of days prior to it, how did we arrive at today? We could not have. Therefore, the universe had a beginning that could NOT have been the universe itself and the causer must have been non-contingent, eternal and uncaused. This is evidence for God. .;'*^?.;'*^?.;'*^?.;'*^?.;'*^? THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN essentially states that observed complexity is best explained by positing a designer. It has been said that the probability of life arising by chance is "billions of times more remote than the probability of a copy of Oxford Dictionary resulting from an explosion in a printing shop." Alternative theories have to explain observed complexity using innumerous assumptions to explain unobserved processes. The most parsimonious explanation is to the God hypothesis. A variation of this is the Fine-Tuning argument. By using the logical tool known as the Prime Principle of Confirmation, the God hypothesis succeeds by leaps and bounds. The Prime Principle essentially states that the explanation that is prima facie simpler or more obvious is correct. Imagine I go hiking and stumble upon a rock formation that spells out perfectly, "Matt Conniry is gorgeous." It is possible that – by sheer accident – natural processes occurred in such a way as to form this remarkably accurate rock-formed phrase. Or, I could postulate that such intricacy supports the hypothesis of intelligent intervention. The syllogism - from the prime principle of confirmation – looks something like this (from Rob Collins): P1 The existence of the fine-tuning is not improbable under theism P2 The existence of the fine-tuning is very improbable under the atheistic hypothesis C From premises (1) and (2) and the prime principle of confirmation, it follows that the fine-tuning data provides strong evidence in favor of the design hypothesis over the atheistic hypothesis. Some examples of fine-tuning are as follows: 1. If the strength of the initial expansion of the big bang was different by as little has 1 part in 10^60 (from "The Accidental Universe"), the universe would have simply collapsed back or expanded too rapidly for a sustainable universe. 2. If the strong nuclear force varied by as little as 5%, life would be impossible ("How to Draw Conclusions from a Fine-Tuned Universe"). 3. If gravity was either weaker or stronger by 1 part in 10^40, life-sustaining stars could not exist (from "Superforces") 4. If the neutron had a difference in mass (from the 1.001 times the size of the proton) all protons would become neutrons or vice versa (from "Universes"). 5. The electromagnetic force, if slightly stronger or weaker, would render life impossible. Moreover, science cannot explain why there are such general laws and no such wider law can explain their operation. Such an ordered universe can be explained via the God hypothesis. .;'*^?.;'*^?.;'*^?.;'*^?.;'*^? RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE argues that God must exist in order for Him to be experienced. There is an old saying that I find to be particularly pertinent to this argument: The man with an experience is not at the mercy of a man with an argument. If I stood before a jury and gave my experiential testimony for the existence of God, is it equally as reasonable for you to come forward and give your experiential testimony for the nonexistence of God? Similarly, if I witnessed the murder of a man, and you did not, does your testimony really rebut my own? I dare say it does not! God must exist for me to experience Him. If I experienced God but God does not exist, there is a contradiction. The logical conclusion is to believe that God exists. It would be absurd for me to deny the existence of pyrosis given my habitual experience of it. By the same reasoning, it would be equally absurd for me not to believe God exists. This experience by itself may not be much, but consider the following statistics: A recent survey showed that approximately 75% of youth (globally) believe in god and many contend that it was their experience that led them to such a belief (1). The global statistics show that there are approximately 80.58% people who believe in god (this excludes Buddhism entirely given that it does not explicitly worship any deity, though most adherents probably do believe in a type of deity)(2). The fact of the matter is that the endemic belief in a personal god is evidence that God exists. It would be epistemic imperialism to deny this fact. We can asses the verity of such a claim by replacing "god" with "cancer," "love" or "Madonna." Insofar as the widespread belief that Madonna exists is evidence that she does. .;'*^?.;'*^?.;'*^?.;'*^?.;'*^? LOGICAL/MORAL ABSOLUTES are used as positive evidence for the existence of God. The very fact that all cultures, near and far, indigenous and advanced, can make moral propositions is evidence that God exists. Logical absolutes are conceptual by nature and are in no way contingent upon time, space, or matter. The argument is essentially that since logical absolutes are not contingent upon time, space, matter or the human mind, then there must be a transcendent mind behind them. Since moral propositions and logical absolutes are consistent in all societies – it is positive evidence that God exists. =============== Cumulative Case =============== All the aforesaid arguments (twas but a few) are inductive insofar as they confirm the conclusion (though not necessarily PROVE it). However, when taken together as a cumulative case, the existence of God is, overall, significantly more probable than not. Conclusion: My opponent argues against a God not inherent in the resolution.