The Existence of a God or Gods is [Currently] Unknowable to Man

My opponent has attacked the faculty of reason. I do indeed accept reason as my final arbiter and I would hope that all men and women do as well. What distinguishes us from common animals? Part of it is our ambition, our drive to seek the eternal and visceral, but much more lies within our ability to use reason to build our worldview. I’ll come back to this later in my concluding remarks. My opponent likes to use others to make points and I’d like my audience to understand how foolish this is. It’s much akin to saying that “this is true because so-and-so said this”. There’s no merit in this. Look to the reasons that my opponent has provided—there are none. Let our audience be the judge of who has put forward an “abominably archaic move”. According to my opponent, my ‘cause & effect’ explanation of observation is “seriously flawed”. Why does my opponent believe so? Because it supposedly posits observation as passive. Pardon me, but that is not in the slightest what my definition necessitates. Observation can be passive and active. I do not actively notice that I’m hungry. I don’t actively swerve out of the way of an oncoming vehicle. In his own words, my opponent argues that “observation is egocentric and subjective, dependent on an individual’s psychology.” I’m a strict empiricist so it pained me to type that out. He continues to says that our observations stem from the manipulation of sense datum “by the imagination, reason, or other mental capacities, etc.” I will not argue that reason is involved, but imagination? Our imagination involves a process of randomly arranging sense datum into the unreasonable. Sometimes this lends itself to great mathematical/physical theories such as Einstein’s work. But this will only be the case when the imagined idea can be validated with sense datum. Otherwise, consider a unicorn. Would you be able to conjure some imagery if you didn’t know what a horse looked like? Everything we know depends entirely on sense datum. To know is to sense. The reasoning behind my understanding of truth is because I recognize my humanity—it is possible that I am wrong and I am willing to accept that possibility. That is why I don’t believe in absolutes. Nothing would bother me more than ignoring my weakness as an observer. I hope that this quells my opponent’s qualms with my view on truth. Kindly recall my notes on the faculty of reason. It is only fitting that I will base my finalized argument on what my opponent thought as being foolish. It will be up to our audience to determine whether or not reason is fallible. Let’s suppose I wanted proof of god(s). Could anyone provide a piece of evidence that my reason would accept as natural and self-evident? Of course not, someone must try to convince you of gods by appealing to man-made conceptions of morality, existence, and reality. He must gather his imagination and make leaps of faith to construct his argument. No knowledge of god(s) is possible. We gather all information from sense-datum. I know that fire hurts because I have felt it. I know that Katy Perry is a sell-out because I’ve heard her music. I know the concept of dark because I have seen the Sun and other lights. I know that I exist because I can differentiate myself from my environment. Would a baby born without any senses (blind, mute, deaf, insensitive to touch) ever form a concept of self? Certainly not. It would know nothing because it has witnessed nothing. It can literally know nothing. Consider all the learning that a child does within its first few years of life. It mimics its parents’ voices; it looks around and takes everything in, and above all, is curious about everything. Try to imagine a child that does not care about his or her surroundings. Such a child, save for those who suffer from severe debilitating illnesses, does not exist. I welcome my opponent to find a hole in my logic and it will be up to my audience to see if he successfully uncovers one.