God is real

1. Pro's case is mumbo jumbo Mumbo jumbo is “unnecessarily involved and incomprehensible language” [1. http://www.merriam-webster.com...] The dictionary says the phrase derives from “a masked figure among Mandingo peoples of western Africa.” (1738) No doubt the Mandango peoples had a good idea of what the mask figure represented, but whatever it was it was incomprehensible to outsiders. Similarly, whatever Pro is talking about undoubtedly has meaning to the tribe of those interested in the language.Searching the web for terms like “telic recursion” reveals that there is such a tribe, proponents of what they call Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe (CTMU). CMTU originated with Christopher Langan. RationalWiki attempts to summarize the theory, and states the obvious, that “Critics point out this model is kind of a semantic game.” [2. http://rationalwiki.org...] Count me among those critics who find it to be semantic horsepucky.One critic, Tom Beasley, puts it this way:The language of the CTMU theory is intentionally convoluted. Proponents might plead “but he should not have to be limited to the petty language of the common folk!” There is a problem when not only does Langan select obscure and confusing word pairings, he mixes it in with word pairings for concepts he himself is inventing. What person trying to clearly convey what they mean would mix confusing regular language with the technical terms of an at-the-moment-of-reading invention? In his words, what we all regard as clear and concise language is “clown language.” His language serves two interests, (1) it feeds his superiority complex and (2) it prevents criticism because no one will take the time to delve through 56 pages of this. Let me state clearly, none of this speaks to the truth of his claims. His claims are nonsense for other reasons yet to be stated. This is simply to provide a reasonable explanation as to why this theory has any credit whatsoever, beyond the fact that it is an intelligent design argument (which are arguments themselves without value, yet still lauded today). [3. http://anamericanatheist.org...] 2. CMTU is, by implicit admission, not to be a scientific theory Beasley attempted a partial translation into plain English, and he then claims: From concluding that a soul is the intermediary between the ‘global consciousness’ and the ‘temporal consciousness’ he somehow reasons that this soul has additional characteristics not described by his theory (capable of being punished, reincarnation, etc.). Langan also ascribes similar additional characteristics to what he calls “God.” Everyone can already agree that there is a kind of order to the universe, in that there are natural scientific laws. Langan might marvel at the low probability that our specific universe would be produced. I employ here a lottery example. If all people entered a lottery and there were one guaranteed winner, the person who won would find it so extraordinarily unlikely that he would think that it was not by mere chance – however, it is a fact that someone would win. With the process of natural selection there could have been infinite other variants of life forms on earth, that poses no problem for evolution whatsoever. There is, however, a problem of why we have anything at all, which Langan’s theory hardly explains. As a final note on the substantive criticism of his work, what is the practical application? Science presents practical applications from its theories. One would think that a ‘theory of everything’, a very theory that attempts to explain all of the major discrepancies would have an application – intelligent design as a whole provides no application. [3. op cit] Langan admitted in a quotation provided by Beasley that there are no practical applications of CMTU. But if there are no practical applications, there is no way to falsify the theory. A practical application says that if A, B, and C happens then D will happen. If D does not happen, the theory is falsified. Lacking application means that it is not a scientific theory, because all scientific theories can be falsified. That means that any claim that it is scientific proof of the existence of the O3 God is unwarranted. Being incomprehensible does mean that there is no truth in it. The possibility exists that a plain English translation would reveal some useful insights. But that is yet to be demonstrated. I could try to make sense of the theory, translate into plain English, then refute it. But it's not my job to accomplish the translation into plain English. That's Pro's job. If it were possible, it seems to me that Pro would have performed the feat in his opening argument. That he stuck with mumbo jumbo is evidence that there is no plain English version. There is space left in the debate for him to attempt the feat. I will pose the two arguments against the existence of the O3 God. Understand that these arguments do not attempt to disprove all concepts of God, just the very narrow concept of an all-knowing, all-powerful, and benevolent God. Also understand that not all Christians subscribe to the O3 concept of God, so that the disproofs of the O3 concept do not claim to disprove Christianity. However, Pro signed up to prove the existence of the O3 God, so that's his job here. If either of these arguments, stands then Pro's claim that God is real is defeated independent of whatever CMTU may say. 3. The Argument from Evil There are several versions of the AE. I will use what is called the axiological formulation. The axiological AE is that if an O3 God exists, that there would be fewer bad things happen then are actually observed. The problem is not to explain why anything bad happens under the auspices of a benevolent and all-powerful God. There is a fair explanation that free will requires that bad choices are possible, and so bad outcomes must be allowed. For example, the earthquake in Haiti, an act of God, killed about 200,000 people. The AE claims that if one fewer person had died, say a newborn child, that it could not have upset the divine plan for the universe. A superintelligent and all-powerful God could have found a way to save one innocent life. In fact, an O3 God should be able to get plate tectonics to work without cataclysmic earthquakes. Another example is a child with an illness who suffers horribly for weeks and then dies. A benevolent God could have at least shortened the suffering before death. The formal statement of the AE is, as taken from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: There exist states of affairs in which animals die agonizing deaths in forest fires, or where children undergo lingering suffering and eventual death due to cancer, and that (a) are intrinsically bad or undesirable, and (b) are such that any omnipotent person has the power to prevent them without thereby either allowing an equal or greater evil, or preventing an equal or greater good. For any state of affairs (that is actual), the existence of that state of affairs is not prevented by anyone. For any state of affairs, and any person, if the state of affairs is intrinsically bad, and the person has the power to prevent that state of affairs without thereby either allowing an equal or greater evil, or preventing an equal or greater good, but does not do so, then that person is not both omniscient and morally perfect. Therefore, from (1), (2), and (3): There is no omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect person. If God exists, then he is an omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect person. Therefore: God does not exist. [4. http://plato.stanford.edu...] 4. The Argument from Non-Belief (ANB) The form of the ANB presented here is due to philosopher Theodore Drange. [5. http://infidels.org...] The argument is: If an all-powerful, all-knowing, and benevolent God were to exist, then there would not be many nonbelievers in the world. But there are many nonbelievers in the world. Therefore, that God does not exist. The first of these premises is derived as follows a. Knowledge of the existence of a benevolent God would ease the lives of many people b. An all-powerful and all-knowing God could convince any reasonable person of His existence Separately, J.L. Schellenberg, quoted in [5], justified the premise 1 with: A being who did not seek to relate himself to us explicitly in this life -- who elected to remain elusive, distant, hidden, even in the absence of any culpable activity on our part -- would not properly be viewed as perfectly loving. In the ANB, “non-believers” means anyone who does not believe in the O3 God. That includes not only atheists, but as Drange says “includes not only atheists and agnostics but also deists, pantheists, Buddhists, Hindus, and countless other individuals throughout our planet who do not believe in a single Supreme Being, it actually contains close to half the earth's population.” [5. op cit] Summary No one has ever even attempted to fully parse CMTU into comprehensible form, but Beasley elicited the admission from CMTU's originator Langan that the theory makes no predictions. The means it is not a scientific and therefore cannot be a scientific proof of the existence of the O3 God. Separately, the AE and the ANB provide disproofs of the O3 God. Many other concepts of God are untouched, but Pro's burden is to prove the O3 God.