God is a Delusion

Thanks to Con for starting this debate.The Affirmative CaseAs Pro, I assume I’m supposed to make some kind of affirmative argument. I found it impossible to present my case separately with the character space provided, so my arguments are contained throughout my rebuttal. “Delusion”“Delusion” was defined as “a false belief unsupported by reason or evidence”. We’re pretty much just arguing whether God exists or not. “Delusion” is not the best word to keep in mind during this debate since it’s usually not defined that way. KCAWe don’t know much about anything beyond the singularity, so we can’t really say that the big bang marks the beginning of the universe. There are multiple counter possibilities. The multiverse is an obvious alternative and contains much theoretical plausibility as well as some explanatory power. Brian Greene argues the failure to explain the amount of dark energy in the universe supports the possibility of a multiverse [3] and it has much theoretical support as well (though it does not amount to actual proof). As Kaku explains, the multiverse is currently views as an 11-dimensional arena. There are bubbles that float in this arena. The skin of the bubble represents a universe. "So we're like flies trapped on fly paper". Our universe is a three dimensional bubble. Bubbles expand and can sometimes bump into each other which would explain the big-bang [4].Another possibility is the oscillating universe theory, when our universe collapses, it will result in another big bang, like the one that happened 13.8 billion years ago [2]. The theory states that our big bang could have been the nth cycle of this collapse and inflation. The big bang only points to the beginning of the universe as we know it; not necessarily the beginning of existence. We haven't seen anything come into existence except ex materia. Our intuition is the result of everyday experience in the everyday world, in our small corner of reality, and using limited perceptual tools. Newtonian physics epitomizes the classical picture of the world. Newtonian mechanics is still widely useful today, but in the 20th century, the intuitive view of reality was shattered in many ways. Einstein’s special relativity destroyed the common sense view of time and quantum mechanics reveals a plethora of counterintuitive notions such as quantum entanglement and superposition. If intuition was our epistemic authority, we'd be striving to reconcile classical Newtonian physics with special relativity and quantum mechanics, which is impossible.Radioactive decay is also random which violates the causality principle [5]. Moreover, in vacuums--which are as close to empty space as we can get--virtual particles constantly wink into and out of existence, as if from nothing; again violating P.1 [1].The laws of physics apply to this universe and what we’ve been able to understand from it. There’s no warrant in claiming they will be just as applicable when speaking of before the universe. Our understanding of cause and effect is that it’s temporarily ordered; every cause precedes its effect. Since the beginning of the universe was supposedly the beginning of time, there could be no prior to the universe, and therefore no cause. Stephen Hawking even turns into an argument for atheism since theism assumes God caused the universe; but since the universe includes all time, there could be no “before” and therefore no cause of it.If the multiverse exists, different universes will have different constants, and if the big bang was just the nth in a number of cycles, different constants could hold true in the previous universes. Once the universe as we know it ends (such as in a big crunch), we can’t assume the same physical laws will apply afterwards. If Con defines the universe as everything which is material and existing within spacetime, then it would follow that if the universe has a cause, the cause is immaterial and not within spacetime. However, Con has not given good reason to believe that the big bang marked the beginning of spacetime and that there could not be a material cause of the big bang.It’s problematic to assume to know what it would take to create a universe out of nothing. In fact creation ex nihilo would be more plausible if we perceived an entire abstract world existing before the material world, rather than a material being. One of the main problems with the KCA is that there’s simply no reason to believe that this transcendent cause is God (leaving alone the major difficulties in getting to the cause). Why not conceive of an abstract/transcendent world that gave rise to materiality? Our why not assume idealism is true and the world really only consists of mind and ideas? That would get rid of the problem of having an abstract cause creating the universe out of nothing.Con says the cause must be sentient because the mind is the only being with causal power. However, many entities have causal power, so I see no reason why it must be sentient. Fine-tuning ArgumentMost rational persons would probably agree that it’s pretty amazing and wondrous that life exists. They should also agree that our existence depends entirely on the physical constants and the environment around us which have so many possible variations that life-enabling states are astronomically less common than life-hindering states. What the rational person absolutely would not do is assume that these fine-tuned properties must be the result of conscious design. Why? He’d have to eliminate some very plausible counter-explanations that it would be completely foolish to discard. As mentioned, the multiverse is a very serious possibility. If the multiverse exists, it’s simply inevitable that life enabling universes would arise. They might be 1 in a million, or 1 in a billion, but in a near infinite set of universes there would be a near infinite set of life enabling universes. It’s easy to see how this works with an oscillating universe as well. The universe would go through phase after phase, the vast majority being non permitting of life, but eventually, given enough time, we’d get a life-permitting universe; just like the vast majority of space is hostile to life, but the vastness of the universe makes it plausible for habitable planets to exist.Our knowledge of the universe provokes no logical reason for bringing God into the picture. The concept of God is simply an unnecessary hypothesis. Other theories, such as string theory/M-theory, explain the presence of life. None yet have empirical proof but they’ve been shown plausible and countless scientists have invested their entire lives into studying string theory. I see no reason to provoke God as a counter-explanation when we have other theories that have massive theoretical power and some explanatory power. Theism is worthy of consideration, but it does not have evidence to trump the other theories.The Moral ArgumentCon’s given no support for calling morality objective. Some form of morality exists, but that doesn’t mean it exists independently of us. Morality was part of evolution. Desires, goals, and interests propel evolution and also create what we call “values”. Kin altruism and group altruism are both conducive to survival. Thus, caring for others helped to propel evolution. Laws in part reflect morality which helped to ingrain moral sentiments and to universalize them. Religion has played a huge role in enforcing moral laws throughout history and provides divine authority to make people obey them, fear not obeying them, and see rewards in living by them. Thus, religion enforced moral feelings within humans and helped to validate and universalize them. Sources[1] http://goo.gl...[2] http://www.universetoday.com...[3] http://goo.gl... [4] bigthink.com/ideas/24629[5] http://serc.carleton.edu...