God Exists

Thank you Con for stating your case. It's refreshing to see some new arguments (at least, new to me) on this ancient topic. ==Rebuttals== Divine Hiddenness: Although not specified in their deductive reasoning chain, this addresses not just the existence of god, but the existence of a "good" or "loving" god. I believe it's accurate to sum up this argument as follows: a perfectly loving god would not hide himself from genuinely curious, open people. Since such people exist to whom god appears hidden, it follows that a perfectly loving god does not exist. This is a curious argument. It requires numerous assumptions to work, which I will address below: 1) While Con's deductive chain is solid, their premise in (2) contains a Non-Sequitur. It does not follow that a person must have a conscious relationship with god. At least, Con has given us no reason why this must be so. In fact, many religions believe the relationship with god is unconscious. For example, some Muslim traditions believe that the wrinkles visible on the palms of human hands, which form a pattern that looks like: "^l, l^" correspond to the Arabic symbols for 8+1, 1+8, or 9,9, interpreted as the "99 names of god" being written on every human hand. Unless Con gives reason for why relationship with god must be conscious, this entire argument disintegrates. 2) There is no reason to assume that god is loving or relational. We are not debating about any specific god here, and it is entirely possible that, if god exists, he is malevolent. Certainly the ancient Greeks had no problem conceptualizing this possibility. One is inclined to say "I could never believe in a god like that," but that's irrelevant - existence is not contingent on individual personality preferences. 3) However, Con did specify in Round 1 that God will be defined as "loving" so let's stick with that. If a perfectly loving god did exist, how could we as humans possibly conceptualize or make value judgments about it? How can flawed, imperfect humans pretend to know what a perfectly loving entity would look and act like? Con quotes Schellenberg as saying a perfectly loving god would be like the best human lover, but would it? How does Schellenberg know the definition of "perfectly loving?" I would say that a perfectly loving god is not even close to the best human lover. This compares two dissimilar things - even the best human lover is mortal, flawed, prone to mistakes, and imperfect. We can only define love within our human experience of what love is, and our best projections of what "perfection" would look like are hopelessly confined within an imperfect paradigm. This argument depends on a human understanding of what perfectly loving behavior looks like, which is akin to a 2 year old critiquing his father on correct parenting. 4) This argument also assumes that people are truly open, non-resistant, and capable of weighing evidence in total objectivity. One must admit there's a certain arrogance in this. Essentially, Con's argument says that "I am perfectly reasonable, open, and unbiased, and if legitimate evidence for god existed I would surely be able to see it." But is that really true? All reasonable people strive to eliminate conscious bias, but it would be a titanic accomplishment to fully succeed. Can we ever be sure there are not unconscious motives and biases tinting our views? Furthermore, what are we to make of people who DO see evidence for god and thus believe? This is not an issue of god being "hidden," it's a case of two camps interpreting evidence two different ways. It is quite common for two groups with access to the same information to draw different conclusions - just ask economists. 5) This argument assumes there actually exists a "perfect" piece of evidence, that, if revealed, would eliminate doubt in all rational people. Let's apply this assumption to other issues, for example, vaccines. Some people remain vehemently against vaccines despite mountains of evidence confirming their safety. Is the truth about vaccines therefore "hidden" to these people? Would additional evidence convince them? Probably not. Yet, are the anti-vaxxers irrational or "resistant" to evidence? They don't think so - to the contrary, they believe the evidence actually supports their position. There is no perfect piece of evidence that would convince all people, so the existence of doubters should not be seen as evidence against god. 6) "Jill loves John, therefore John is in a relationship with Jill even though he does not know her." If Jill is analogous to god in this example, it does not follow that Jill's existence is contingent on John's knowledge of her. Jill can still feel perfect love for John (whatever that means), even if John doesn't know who she is, or if John rejects her even after being introduced. 7) At its core, this argument does not really disprove god at all. At best, it simply says "if god does exist, then he is unfair" because he has allegedly hid himself from non-resistant, capable people. God's existence, of course, is not contingent on his perceived fairness. In any case, it is doubtful that imperfect humans could accurately measure the fairness of a perfect being anyway. Physical Mind - This is another new argument to me, and one that I must confess was hard to follow. From what I can gather, I understand this argument to say that in every measurable case we see the mind is controlled by the brain through naturalistic processes. Therefore, we are forced to accept that MN is more likely than T, which rules out a disembodied mind. (Con, please correct me if this is a wrong interpretation). There are two flaws with this argument: 1) There is no need to assume god must be a disembodied mind. God could be a physical entity, nature itself (Pantheism), or triune (Christianity). 2) Con admits this argument merely speaks to probability, not proof. Con writes that the probability for T "can still be high," just not as high as MN. Let's assume this is true - we need to remember we're debating about what is more reasonable, not just what is more likely. If Con is willing to admit that the possibility of T "can still be high," that is an incredible statement. Con is admitting a possibly high probability that there are eternal, divine consequences to life on earth. In that case, we must consider Pascal's Wager, which states that if there is a possibility god exists, the believer risks little and loses nothing if he is wrong. Conversely, the skeptic risks much and loses everything if he is wrong. The more reasonable wager, therefore, is to believe in god. I cannot tell for sure if Con wishes to present the Argument from Evil. If so, please specify next round.