The Following Arguments for the Existence of God are Valid - 1A

This analogy would not work, as I am not using the negative "principle of credulity" Well I most certainly would not expect my opponent to, especially after I have demonstrated its absurdity. "Well, technically that's wrong. Since there is only around 6.7 billion people living in the world [3]. But no matter, this is pure technicality." Both are approximations. Let us not digress. "Billions of people can't simply indulge in some mass hallucinations, and you're right." Then why bring it up? "So already, there are many people who's experiences can be accounted for by these three common factors." Which ones? And what method did you use to quantify this? "However, what they are afflicted with is bias." My opponent is amazing indeed! With keen precision he is able to deduce, without ever meeting any of them, the exact affliction of approximately 6.5 Billion separate and distinct individuals. Maybe soon my opponent will be able to diagnose cancer from a distance. Now really, my opponent cannot merely wave a dead chicken over his keyboard and expect the readers to believe he has seriously considered the matter and found it wanting. ------------------------------- "What makes believers gain faith in their religion is not based solely on experience, but based on experience with a religious view in their mind. Most would account personal experiences as finding their lost Yu-Gi-Oh card, or having their mom survive cancer. They attribute such experiences to their god, and with the fallibility of the human brain, this seems very convincing." My experience is certainly not anything like what my opponent has explained. In fact, all the experiences of my peers – the ones I am familiar with – are indeed much more than what my opponent has explained. Where then is my opponent getting this information? If my opponent is sitting on information that categorically states that "most" of god-believers are convinced through seemingly insubstantial experiences, why then does he not include the source? I can only wonder and hope that in his next round he will include the necessary data for substantiating this claim. "Experiences are not only unfalsifiable (since they can't be recreated or experimented with), but many times there could be many other factors or reasons for their situation." Merely because something cannot be replicated does not mean that it is not true. I use the Big Bang Theory and Macro evolution has examples – neither can be replicated. The fact of the matter is that you are claiming there are literally billions of disillusioned individuals who merely "think" they have experienced god yet you have offered no evidence for such a claim. "When someone explains an event of which there could only be a supernatural event, many times there is a fully natural explanation." We are not talking about a single situation. We are talking about 80.53% of the entire earth's population that all claim to have experienced god. "By my opponent's same argument, he could feasibly validate the existence of ghosts, aliens, and many other pseudo scientific stuff. It is HIS burden to show how personal anecdotes can be used as scientific evidence. Quite a heavy load indeed." This is the fallacy of consequences. Indeed, even if the claim was not fallacious, we are talking about a much larger population. Also, I need not show that personal anecdotes are scientific because I never claimed them to be SCIENTFIC evidence – not all evidence is scientific. I have experienced God. God must therefore exist. The conclusion cannot be denied without there being a contradiction. And is my opponent seriously asking me whether or not experience is reliable value for truth? The fact that we use testimony in our court systems frequently notwithstanding, it is experience that has led to most all scientific discoveries. Experience is one of the most fundamental tenets of knowledge. I dare say, if my opponent denies this it is most definitely he with the burden. "B. Religions and gods that are Mutually Incompatible One problem with experiences is that they aren't selective: they can't help you decide WHICH god is the real one, since obviously the vast majority of deities are mutually exclusive. The god from Christianity can't be real whilst the god from Hinduism be real also. So if, stemming from my opponent's cited source [5], there are 2.1 billion Christians, and 1.5 billion Muslims, we already have a contradiction." The Christian and Muslim God is the Abrahamic God, there is no contradiction. Also there is no contradiction when referring to the basic notion of god either. Billions of people have experienced god, and it is only after people start to try to characterize that god that contradictions surface. "Both of these religions can't be true, yet if we apply your argument then conceivably they can." You are confusing religion with god. "Obviously there is a contradiction here, unless my opponent can demonstrate that one of these religions, or all of the many other religions, have entire FAKERS per religion. This, I would dare say, would be quite a task.' Experiencing god has nothing to do with religion. ~Conclusion~ I considered another argument, but this one is becoming robust. My opponent needs to understand that not all evidence is scientific and that my argument fits his definition of valid. That is, the conclusion cannot be denied without there being a contradiction. My opponent has not even gotten close to proving false 6.5 billion experiential testimonies. He cannot simply wave his hand over all 6.5 billion and expect us to believe that he has adequately rebutted anything. My contention still stands.