The God of Christianity is probably real.

Let me first begin by thanking Mongeese for his willingness to debate with me on this issue. It has been a great pleasure to correspond with you. I have already demonstrated that hearsay can't establish the truth of miracles, so there is not much else that I could say on the matter, at least for now. For the rest of my essay I will try to focus on dissecting your "proof" for the existence of God. Despite what you may imagine I have never conceded that your argument for Gods existence was valid. And contrary to what you may believe I didn't ignore your "proof" of Gods existence in my second round. I simply stated that even if the premises were valid the conclusions would not follow. ======= Case Pro- Rebuttals ======= Your argument fails for four reasons: 1. The premises of the argument have not been verified therefore the conclusions don't logically follow. 2. If your cosmological argument were valid it wouldn't follow that the "first cause" was a "God". 3. If we could establish that the first cause was a supernatural "being", it would only verify a deistic "god" at best. 4. Even If I went completely insane and granted, for the purpose of the argument, that a personal God existed it wouldn't follow that this entity was, "The God of Christianity". ========= Contention 1: The premises of your cosmological argument aren't valid. ========= You are using common sense where it has never been tested before in areas like cosmology and particle physics. If I were to have told you 100 years ago that light is both a particle and a wave you probably wouldn't have believed me. But, as it turns out, light is both a particle and a wave despite the intuitions that led people to conclude otherwise. [1] I brought up Quantum theory in my last round to show you that many truths about our world are deeply counterintuitive. It isn't intuitive that a single particle can exist in two different places simultaneously and yet we know from experimentation that this can occur. [2] Every aspect of our common sense and logic wouldn't have led us to this conclusion. My point in this is, of course, to show you that the intuitions you may harbor about causality may very well be erroneous especially considering how early we are in our study of cosmology. I find it unlikely that your "proof" for the existence of God is going to look impressive to physicists 100 years from now when we eventually discover a grand unified theory to link Newtonian physics with Einsteinian relativity and Quantum mechanics. [3] A syllogism is only valid if all of the premises used to support it are structurally valid and sound. [4] If there is an error anywhere in the chain leading up to the conclusion then the argument isn't legitimate. Now, lets take a closer look at your premises. 8. "All natural events are caused as a direct result of the preceding event." (Maybe- Maybe not) 9. "The event that created the universe must have been supernatural." -The addition of magical forces isn't going to help us here. 10. "There was no event preceding the creation of the universe." (We don't know that) [5]-[6] 11. "The supernatural event that created the universe could not have been the result of determinism." (It's too early for you to say that.) Points 15- 17 are non-sequiturs that wouldn't follow even if the first 14 premises were true. I missed the stage where you "proved" that this supernatural being was "perfect and omnipotent and omniscient". -(Explain yourself) ======== Contention 2: The "first cause" isn't necessarily a "God". ======== If we were to postulate that there must be an intelligent first cause for the universe then our cosmos could be running as a simulation on a supercomputer. Before you object let me make it clear that this computer is very special. It transcends space-time and maintains its existence without any physical parts. However improbable and counterintuitive this scenario may be it is no less improbable and counterintuitive than the existence of a supernatural being with a mind. The only process we know of that can give rise to complex organisms like a person with a mind is evolution through natural selection. And to say that God is by definition uncreated simply begs the question. There are, of course, other possibilities that you have not considered. The creation of our universe may be entirely compatible with big bang cosmology and quantum mechanics without the need to evoke supernatural forces. -(Read Quentin Smith) [7] ======== Contention 3: Deism Vs. Theism ======== Even if I were to grant that the universe needed an intelligent designer then we would only be left with a deistic god at best. [8] There is simply no way to reconcile Christian theism, which involves claims about the Divinity of Jesus, with the concept of a deistic God. To his credit, William Lane Craig attempts to bridge the gap between deism and Christian theism by arguing in favor of the resurrection of Jesus. [9] You on the other hand, skip straight from deism to Christian theism and you do it on the basis of a shoddy argument based on highly contentious premises. ======== Contention 4: Yahweh is one God among many. ======== Let us suppose that there was an architect behind the universe that took a special interest in human affairs. Even if this were our situation this would not vindicate any religion. Indeed, if evidence were to turn up for such a God every theistic religion would claim that this was their God. Despite what you may think not all Gods are the same. This must be conceded before anything else is. Anyone worshipping Poseidon is a lunatic and all of us, including Christians, feel this very deeply. And yet what's the difference between Poseidon and Yahweh? Its not like someone in the third century was able to prove that the Biblical God exists while disproving Poseidon. This is simply not data that we have. Consider for a moment the following list of Gods: (Agdistis or Angdistis) (Ah Puch) (Ahura) (Mazda)(Alberich) (Allah) (Amaterasu) (An) (Anansi) (Apollo) (Apsombrocillia) -I made that last one up :D [10] The list of Gods that were worshiped at some point is upwards of several thousand according to some historians. And if you wanted to be technical the list is actually infinite because any God that may be conceived of would fall under this list. So, even if we knew that a personal God existed there are no good reasons to suppose that this God was the Christian God. ======== God Exi ts- The future of an illusion ====[s]== The differences in our views conceal some important asymmetries. For instance, I honestly feel that you should have been persuaded by my side of the argument. Can you really say the same? Nonbelievers like myself stand beside you dumbstruck by the people that are still worshipping the pagan Gods of Greek mythology. But we stand dumbstruck by you as well; by your denial of tangible reality; by your abject certainty in baseless folktales; by the suffering you create in service to your religious myths, and by your attachment to an imaginary God. This debate has been an outpouring of that amazement. Best, Freeman Sources: [1] http://en.wikipedia.org... [2] http://library.thinkquest.org... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org... [4] http://en.wikipedia.org... [5] http://scienceline.org... [6] http://www.universetoday.com... [7] http://books.google.com... [8] http://en.wikipedia.org... [9] http://www.leaderu.com... [10] http://ancienthistory.about.com... Good luck :)