God exists (pro) vs God does not exist (con)

All good knockabout stuff from Pro, but lets see if we can keep the debate a little more structured. I would like to use this last round to try and summarise the debate and reach a conclusion. Firstly of course I would like to thank Pro for starting the debate and for his spirited defence of Theism, it certainly led to a healthy and robust conversation. One troubling aspect though is that Pro seems to have a penchant for quote mining (either his opponent or famous scientists). Staggeringly (when I include his full quotes verbatim), he then wishes to accuse me of intellectual dishonesty. As a side note, his list of impressive physicists are so convinced by his arguments that they are all Atheists (or were given Hoyle is dead). Perhaps Pro wishes to advance another ad hominem attack on them for being close minded (that would be the third ad hominem ), that they remain atheists despite "seemingly" have said something to support Pros Design argument. Design and Cosmological Arguments I will start by replying to Pros design argument. Pro wishes to quote scientists IN CAPS, from their writing in popular literature (not from scientific papers). And what do you know those same quotes make his view seem plausible. To redress the balance, for those who cannot answer for themselves, I would like to give just 3 counter-examples: Davies: "Thus, three centuries after Newton, symmetry is restored: the laws explain the universe even as the universe explains the laws. If there is an ultimate meaning to existence, as I believe is the case, the answer is to be found within nature, not beyond it. The universe might indeed be a fix, but if so, it has fixed itself." Hawking: "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. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going." Vilenkin: "Theologians have often welcomed any evidence for the beginning of the universe, regarding it as evidence for the existence of God " So what do we make of a proof that the beginning is unavoidable? Is it a proof of the existence of God? This view would be far too simplistic. Anyone who attempts to understand the origin of the universe should be prepared to address its logical paradoxes." If anyone fails the test of intellectual honesty here, it is Pro. Why are these people suitable to quote only when it seems to support Pros incredulity. One has to ask at this point, whether we are engaged in propaganda, or a genuine search for truth? To what extent is he shoring up his own faith, rather than genuinely contributing to debate and discourse? He then describes people who have moved from Atheism as if there is a some sort of theistic renaissance. The truth is there are a small number of people who move both ways between theism and atheism (both famous and not). The trend seems to be towards some form of non-belief. Faith is largely propped up by mass, youth inculcation, if that were removed then the swing towards non-belief would be greater. It is good to see people change their mind, it is brave, and open. It does not mean of course that they are right, or that they do it for the right reasons. Anthony Flew, was one who actually became convinced that the argument from Design was compelling enough for him to become a Deist. I have no problem with that, but I think he is just wrong. Francis Collins accepted Christianity because on one of his countryside walks he came across a waterfall frozen in three parts (which he interpreted as a representation of the trinity). No problem. But do not tell me that is a remotely convincing reason. A bigger non sequitur is hard to imagine. Arguments for Atheism. I think Pro failed to grasp the power of the arguments and attempted to minimise them by a straw man reformulation and picking up certain aspects, whilst ignoring others. Ultimately this was not a successful strategy. To summarize my arguments briefly. Theism fails at the first hurdle. The concept of a god is utterly meaningless, something we have seen in this debate. God is conceived of as a void (spaceless, timeless, immaterial), existing within a void. Such an entity cannot exist. God is a nothingness with no positively identified attributes. From this Theists must hum and haw about god existing as a disembodied consciousness. But all this shows us, is the theists own mendacity as they hide behind vagueness. It is a smokescreen that only yields more mystery to solve a mystery: a mind free from a brain; a decision maker frozen outside of time; an infinity to stop and infinite regress; a friendly designer that designs a lethal universe, something all powerful but limited in some aspects as his powers contradict each other. The meaninglessness goes on and on. Furthermore from the other arguments for atheism, we can deduce (even if we assume a god can exist), that such a thing cannot even be conscious (alone deity); that the reason why he remains apparently so hidden, is lack of existence; that from the flat out contradictions of his so called omni qualities he cannot freely act; and that from the evidence we have there can be no disembodied minds (for gods or humanity). Now we can see that on their own and together the arguments for atheism are consistent and powerful. Compare those with the inherent paucity and inconsistency of theistic arguments. Theistic challenges In the last round Pro states defiantly that God does have positive primary attributes after all. Pro states: "Well the concept of god is not meaningless. He is an eternal consciousness that has extreme power and knowledge". Pro this is a poor attempt. Power and knowledge are secondary and not primary attributes, and add nothing to the meaning of what a god is. So all that remains of this desperate stuff is an "eternal consciousness". Could Pro be vaguer? What does it mean to say a being can be eternal? This is not a primary attribution given to beings. The meaning of consciousness is the ability to perceive reality. This ability is, by its own necessity, temporally bound and probably an the emergent characteristic of physio-chemical systems. He thus falls straight into the trap again with more meaninglessness god-talk, which we are in turn meant to immediately accept as meaningful. The basic problem here is that the theist is using fallacious reasoning (the fallacy of the stolen concept and floating abstraction) to anchor their deity in words, because they have no anchor in actual existence. Pro then states that God is SUPERnatural (he seemingly enjoys shouting SUPER, in case I am too stupid to get it). But the concept of Supernaturalism (only propagated through the context of Theism), would only ever be useful in that it points to something non-natural. So yet again another negatively defined concept, this time a void existence. Stating the supernatural exists is akin to stating that nothing exists (spaceless, timeless, immaterial etc). In other words the Theist is saying: non-existence, exists. He also continues to plead that a consciousness, can be conscious of just its own consciousness. I have said all I need to say on this point. I think the best thing to do is underline Pros attempts at a rebuttal and move on. Before we move on, just a short note on mind-brain dependence. It is true that the jellyfish has a lower form consciousness and is able to perceive some parts of reality through just nerve impulses (ie without a brain). That does not grant the jellyfish has a mind or higher forms of consciousness (eg self awareness). Arguments for Theism Unable to point to actual evidence of his god (as concieved), Pro has offered some classical arguments. These arguments seek to infer a god from certain cherry picked "gee-whizz" facts about the Universe, and by certain philosophical musings. These arguments try to shoehorn concepts which are at best uncertain, or at worst flat out inapplicable when we are talking of Universal origins. We then have the constant referral to quote mining, composition fallacies and question begging, all supported by stolen concept fallacies and incredulity. To pile on the agony when we dig into these arguments it becomes clear that in straightening them out, they actually support Atheism. Their weaknesses individually are only amplified by their inconsistencies (juxtapose that with the consistency of atheistic arguments): 1) If the Universe is contingent it is less than 100% likely, if it was designed by a perfect and infallible god who wanted only this Universe for us it was 100% likely. 2) If god is changeless, and somehow booted up with everything in place (including his plans) he cannot change his mind and must create only this Universe instantaneously, and thus is akin to an automaton who is not worthy of worship. 3) If god is conceived as timeless, there is no cause and effect for him. He cannot create. "He" is an impotent frozen void, in a void existence. 4) If humanity was already in gods plan and we are the aim of his creation event, then why would god need to fine tune anything? It would just be so, and the Universe designed for us and not deadly. 5) If god is a disembodied mind in a void, how can he even recognise his own existence?...so on and so forth From nothing, nothing comes states Pro. Yet Pro attributes god with exactly the qualities of nothingness (timeless, spaceless, immaterial). Unable to give Theism up Pro asserts, rather laughably, states that gods existence is "concrete". Which apart being the fallacy of the stolen concept, is almost too delicious an irony. God at best is as abstract a concept as could possibly be imagined. All that happens is we return to the argument from meaninglessness and Pro remains bogged down by the trap it creates over the very concept of gods. The Theist is left hoisted by his own petard.