Does God Exist? Theism and Biblical Faith vs. Atheism and Agnosticism

Meta-Debate AnalysisIn the last round, you'll recall that I explained how we can know, with absolute certainty, that God does not exist. I explored this under the heading of "Omnipotence Paradox". I also explained why my opponent's arguments were all based on a simply logical fallacy, under the heading of "Back to Reality". Furthermore, I rebutted every single one of my opponent's unique contentions from last round, under the same headings he assigned them - "Origin of the Universe" and "Objective Morality". Presume, for a moment, that everything I said is 100% true and correct, unless my opponent says otherwise. Since my opponent has not made any attempt to answer my contentions that all his reasons are fallacious, nor has he made any attempt to answer my claim that God is an impossible hypothesis, we must accept that God is not real given the evidence presented in this debate. Now presume everything my opponent said is 100% true and correct unless I say otherwise. Since I have rebutted all of my opponent's contentions, none of them can be presumed to stand, and thus I am the only side that has upheld their burden of proof. In this situation we must therefore again conclude that God is not real given the evidence presented in this debate. Those are the most extreme, biased possible votes in debating. No matter where your bias lies, my opponent has failed so badly at making his case that unless he actually engages with or even adknowledges my case, the only justifiable vote in this debate is a negative vote. Otherwise you prove that you're equally ignorant of the fact I made a case at all, when I quite clearly have. As you can imagine, I also consider it quite poor conduct to ignore everything I say and expect me to refute everything that he says. Metaphysical AnalysisAside from appealing to the same old already-rebutted and totally-refuted assumptions, my opponent brings up a few more things he considers evidence for God. First he cites the opinion of converted athiest Lee Strobel. I could equally cite the opinion of any athiest as to why they consider their worldview to be superior, including my own. However, because our worldview is ultimately informed by moral principals, and since I have already proven these are subjective, this would be quite a futile exercise. In the same way, my opponent might as well have cited "God exists" - the Pope. Doesn't make it true. The same is true for Mortimer Adler's assertion that a negative existential proposition cannot be proved. Just asserting that it cannot does nothing to change the fact I just did, even if it was Mortimer Adler who said it. Just like you can prove that no black hole the same size as the galaxy is hovering above your house right now (by the fact you're not dead yet), so can you prove a negative existential proposition, such as God cannot exist because he is internally self-refuting. If you were to profess faith in a bright darkness I would equally claim that your proposition is impossible by definition, and thus cannot exist. The only intellectually dishonest person here is the only person who has overlooked actual evidence, and instead appealed to the assertions of a few rouge individuals who clearly have little understanding of philosophy. The fact of the matter is that I DID just prove a negative existential proposition, and my opponent needs to deal with it. I agree the choice is important for individuals and that the choice of whether to be a thiest or an athiest should generally be a high-involvement decision. I'm glad to be involved in this debate, and have argued both ways on religious topics frequently because all too often it's the athiests who don't understand what religion's all about. However, that does not make the existance of God any more or less likely. My opponent has made no attempt to justify this point. Moral AnalysisAll my opponent has really done is copy and pasted from . http://answers.yahoo.com... (which he also did in a previous debate) and completely ignored my argument. My opponent has done nothing to counter my proof that objective morality is impossible. His argument is strictly emotional, saying that if stealing was not objectively wrong we can't complain if something is stolen from us. It is in fact in theism, not athiesm, where you need to bow to the moral will of others. In athiesm, you don't need to do what the person holding you at gunpoint wants, and are thus perfectly free to complain. You can even say that the person at gun point was crazy and immoral. Whether the person holding you at gunpoint agrees or not is up to him, because he has perfect freedom too. In theism, one side would be decreed to be right because somebody else said so. So as you can see, even his emotional argument is attacking the wrong side. To disagree with somebody else's morality, such as a robber's, you must have subjective morality. None of this changes my emotional case, by the way, which is about how much moral decay a theocracy really causes. It wasn't just in medieval Europe/Middle-East - Japan, the Inca, the Maya and pretty much half of Africa provide more examples of the damage the false belief in objective morality. Like my opponent correctly predicted, a theistic moral view has always led to anarchy or something very close to it (the Inca were a bit of an exception here, but they had little influence over much of their territory which suggests anarchy was coming for them). I, speaking personally, agree that we need laws against things like murder, and so on. Athiestic viewpoints affirm personal rights since they are premised on personal choice, and murder is a denial of those (unlike the Bible, by the way, which mandates murder for many crimes and teaches determinism). Athiestic viewpoints also give concern to broader social principles and care for the planet, because athiests, just like thiests, have learnt to value these things. Athiests value their families and communities just like thiests do, we believe in respect and compassion just like thiests. We're humans. We're not necessarily anarchists. We're not necessarily utilitarians (we can have the argument over whether that's self-refuting in another debate, but it isn't the point). In fact, I'd go so far as to say most of us aren't. My opponent keeps spewing the same medieval religious propaganda - athiests are spawn of the devil, willing to do any immoral act the moment the situation warrants it, willing to destroy all good, all law, all justice, all government, all progress. Willing to compromise your safety. In fact, the thiests have both the track record and the philosophical warrant to do all of the above. In athiesm there is the philosophical warrant to do good. And unlike his assertion, many athiestic governments have been quite authoritarian (a political view I personally despise and am not proud of, being a liberal - which only goes to show athiests can really be of any political ideology). As an athiest, I'm sick of thiests making me out to be somebody I'm not, and that's really all this argument amounts to. The fact is that there is no such thing as moral good or moral bad. We must question everything - that's the whole reason why we're questioning God here - and that includes the existance of objective morality. My opponent only assumes objective morality. There is no good reason to make that assumption. ConclusionMy opponent has not answered my points, and not made any valid points of his own. I look forward to my opponent's next round.