A god exists

Now, let's get the boring stuff out of the way first. Atheism For purposes of this debate, all I need to affirm is that pro cannot sufficiently prove a god's existence. This could only merely bring us to agnosticism, or a neutral stance, but that is all I need to defend in this debate. That is my burden of proof. I was glad to see pro noted I did not need to adhere to the position he outlined, however, I fail to see any importance to pro's claims, contrary to what he says. Since pro brought it up though, first, one does not need to disprove every god in order to be an atheist. Atheism is belief in the non-existence of gods. There are certain gods incapable of being disproved and many gods unconvinced of. However, disbelief can be warranted based on lack of reason to believe in any god. Pro's argument "1. If it's possible that the maximal purely contingent state of affairs has a cause of its existence, then a god exists. 2. It's possible that the maximal purely contingent state of affairs has a cause of its existence. 3. Therefore, a god exists. " The argument pro presents is an argument from contingency. Pro defines the maximally purely contingent state of affairs as "M". This is the term I shall use. Pro is assuming model logic. That's why he's only argued it's possible M has a cause instead of probable. The reasoning follows like this; M includes everything that is contingent. Since all things contingent exist within M, by necessity, nothing contingent could have caused M. If nothing contingent could have caused M, the cause of M would have to be necessary. Therefore, if M has a cause, it's caused by something necessary. Necessary things exist in all possible worlds. Therefore, if M is caused in one possible world, the cause of M in that world exists in this world. If you've been paying any attention, I'm sure I don't need to tell you that cause is supposed to be God. Pro has not attempted (or if he has, his arguments don't reflect it) to prove that M actually has a cause. M having a cause in one possible world, does not mean M has a cause in this world, even if M's cause in that possible world is a necessary thing and thus exists in this world too. In other words, whatever caused M in one world, exists in this world, but whether it also caused M in this world is not necessarily so. Non-Physical Pro asserts that all of space is contingent. He presents no argument for this assertion, which is the main reason to ignore it. However, I will provide further reason to discount it. Pro assumes that physical things must exist in space which I will also presume. However, if anything that is both physical and necessary exists, then space exists necessarily too, since it has to exist with whatever is physical as well as necessary. Pro would have to argue that nothing physical exists that is also necessary, but there is no way for him to do so. For example, if a material mind exists necessarily, then it must exist in space, which makes space necessary too. Therefore, if M had a cause, it could have easily been caused by something physical, since space need not be a contingent thing. The bottom line is that there's no reason to believe space is contingent and that something necessary and physical, rather than non-physical, doesn't exist. So the cause of M could be physical. Consciousness I think it will be easier to quote his entire reasoning process here. Pro states, "The only sense we can make of a non-physical cause is to regard it as a mind (for better or worse). " That is indeed his entire argument. I see no reasoning here, just an assertion. It's conceivable that the cause, if there were a cause, was not a mind. Stating it must be a mind is wild extrapolation with no evidence given. There's no reason to assume what kind of cause it would be. Why does it have to be a mind simply because it's non-physical? If pro is assuming minds aren't physical, he should at least make an argument for that. He should also make an argument as to why it can't be a non-mind. The contention also fails on the fact that it rests on the assumption that the cause is non-physical, whereas I have already shown there's no argument in favor of the cause not being physical. Powerful I'm not going to completely refute this but I will say that pro cannot really accurately argue the magnitude of the causes power or energy to show that it is exceedingly great. If we concede that M has a cause, we still don't know how M came about. When we consider the compilation of all contingent things, it seems massive, but when it all began, it could have been much smaller and less grand. The big bang, for example, began from an infinitesimally small point [1]. This tiny point, however, arose to a much bigger thing. If we weren't aware of the singularity that marked the start of this all, it would seem like much more power would be required to cause all the planets, galaxies and stars around us. The point is merely that unimaginable power is an unjustified asserted property of the cause. Whether M was Caused in this World As noted, pro's argument does not necessarily rest on the need to prove M was caused in the actual world, but just that M was caused in some possible world. Pro has not made any argument that M was caused in this actual world, but just a possible world. The reason I mention this is only to show that the godlike nature of the entity pro is arguing for is undermined by this certain fact, and here is why. Part of the various conceptions of God almost always include some notion of a grand designer, that he's the author of or universe and existence. He's the creator, the reason behind our living and that gives him Godlike status. All pro's proven is that M was caused in some possible world. Since M can only be caused by something necessary, whatever caused M in that world, exists in this world too. However, that M has a cause is a contingent part of M. Furthermore, just because M is caused by something necessary, does not mean that "being the cause of M" is a necessary property of the necessary thing. While that thing exists in all possible worlds, it doesn't mean it's the cause of M in all possible worlds. It only causes M in some worlds. Therefore, pro can't prove M is caused in this world. This means that there's been no established creator of the universe. Even if we accepted everything he said as true, pro hasn't proven anything exists that explains why we exist and why the universe exists. What makes most conceptions of God, Godlike, is that they explain our existence and mark the cause of our universe. Pro's god has nothing of this and therefore, it's hard to actually give what pro has argued for the status of "God". --- Pro ends his argument by saying, "I'll leave it to you to decide whether this case is even marginally more plausible than theism's hopeless negation. " This implies the false dichotomy that we must accept either theism or atheism in this debate. I don't need to make any argument for atheism, I just need to refute pro's argument. Conclusion Pro's done a good job proving that something metaphysically necessary exists and that it caused M in some possible world. However, he's done poorly in giving this cause a nature worthy of being called God. First, there's virtually no defense that this thing is a mind. That it's non-physical is based upon poor reasoning. That it caused M in this world has been unargued for, thus it possess no authorship or meaning over our lives and no notion of being a creator. Finally, the magnitude of its power is probably overstated and definitely unknown. So pro has tried to prove a metaphysically necessary, non-physical, powerful mind exists but has failed on all but one account. Furthermore even such a being with all those attributes lacks much notion of Godhood without being the creator of the universe or reason for our living. [1] . http://big-bang-theory.com...