God is existant

DefinitionI’ll accept Pro’s definition of “God”. For the purposes of this debate the definition of God is not set in stone, all arguments must affirm this.Non-CognitivismWith the argument from non-cognitivism I will show that the statement “God exists” is as coherent as the statement “Fod exists” or “Jill sleeps furiously”. The term “God” does not refer to a coherent concept, and as such attributing existence to it is impossible.The reason this is possible with “God” in this debate is precisely because of Pro’s definition, which Pro sets as “Maximally Great Being”. “Greatness” is an inherently subjective term, with qualities that determine greatness dependant on the subject – while this obviously extends to specific characters of God, it also applies to commonly held attributes of God, for example omnipotence, omniscience, etc. To make the statement that “something is great” requires a standard by which said statement becomes meaningful.For example, if we imagine a universe with absolutely nothing in it except a bowling ball. We cannot coherently give relational attributes such as “a heavy bowling ball” or “a large in volume bowling ball” or “a spinning rapidly bowling ball” since we have nothing by which we can apply this relational attributes against. Similarly, “greatness” is also a relational attribute and consequently runs into two problems: 1. A standard is required for the term “greatness” to become meaningful2. The content of what “greatness” is an inherently subjectiveFor a being which is defined according to being great, then #2 renders God’s very nature a matter of subjective decision. #1 renders God meaningless unless an objective standard exists by which God can be said to be great. This renders a dilemma:1. The standard is internal to GodOr2. The standard is external to GodThe former would beg the question, and lead to God being self-defined, which is a vacuous definition – and hence cannot be meaningfully said to exist since the label “God” simply means “God is himself”. The latter would lead to God being contingent on an external standard, and would also beg the question as to what this standard is/means – since we cannot coherently say that the being exists since the standard is not necessarily metaphysical in nature. For example having a standard by which numbers are “large” does not grant ontology to a “maximally large number”. Similarly, a “maximally great being” doesn’t entail that greatness has anything to do with ontology. If greatness is non-ontological then the definition of God becomes incoherent.An example to illustrate this is the notion of a “squareroot apple”, the concept is incoherent because “squareroot” is non-ontological.SummaryMy arguments are linear, thus each step is a stopper for God.1.The definition & content of “Greatness” is subjective, and hence cannot lead to ontology2.For something to be “great” requires the existence of a standard a.An internal standard leads to a vacuous definition which cannot be said to have ontology (God is God) b.An external standard entails God being contingent (rendering common subjective notions of God incoherent). If the external standard is subjective then point #1 entails. If the external standard is objective, then Pro needs to provide this standard so “God” becomes cognitive/coherent, and the standard renders God of questionable coherence due to it necessarily being metaphysical.RebuttalsArgument 1 – Modal Ontological ArgumentPro’s argument is a modal ontological argument, with God being defined at least minimally as a “necessarily existing being”. This definition is required otherwise the conclusion doesn’t follow from 2 “There exists at least one possible world where God exists”. Thus to rephrase Pro’s argument without changing the content:P1: There exists at least one possible world where God existsP2: If God exists in at least one possible world, then God exists in all possible worldsC: God exists in all possible worldsThis argument is logically valid if and only if Pro is arguing from possible world semantics and S5 modal logic axiomatic system. As such I will address the argument from this system.[http://plato.stanford.edu...]Objection 1- Maximally Great Being = Necessary ExistencePro is incorrect in his dichotomy that God either “exists contingently or necessarily”. To clarify why I will provide the modal definitions of “contingent” and “necessary” which Pro must accept if he is arguing from the S5 modal logical system with possible world semantics:“necessary if and only if it is not possibly false; andcontingent if and only if it is not necessarily false and not necessarily true (i.e. possible but not necessarily true).”[http://plato.stanford.edu...]There are two other options, 1. “God necessarily doesn’t exist” and “God is incoherent”. The coherency of God I have already affirmed in non-cognitivism, the necessary non-existence is also an option and in fact is true for most entities one can define with “would exist necessarily”.The problem here is that “greatness” is a subjective definition, which begs the question on many fronts, and as such it is impossible to say that a “maximally great being” would exist necessarily, contingently, etc. pro’s only attempt to argue that a “maximally great being” must exist necessarily appears to be an argument/appeal to intuition (“first option is contradictory, because if God was only contingent then he wouldn't be maximally great”), which is a complete philosophical failure. It doesn’t follow that a contingent God wouldn’t be maximally great, Pro needs to provide the standard by which he is defining “great” by before he can coherently make that argument. Objects can be maximally large, maximally slow, maximally dark, maximally cold etc. without requiring the added attribute of “necessary existance”. Thus even using Pro’s dubious-at-best intuitive argument he is left exercising special pleading to grant God “necessary existence” within the definition.Objection 2 – “There exists at least one possible world where God exists”Pro does not even attempt to demonstrate that this premise is true. Because this argument is a modal argument using possible world semantics, then he is required to uphold that God is metaphysically possible. It is very different to epistemological possibility – and Pro has conveniently not defined what he means by “possible” in his opening argument. I will provide the two definitions below, and show how these are different:Epistemic Possibility – “how the world may be, for all we know”Metaphysical Possibility – “how the world may actually be, metaphysically”[ http://en.wikipedia.org...]One example is Godbach’s conjecture, which is an unproven theorem in mathematics. Because it has not been proven to be true or false it is epistemically possible. However it doesn’t follow that it is metaphysically possible. It is widely accepted that mathematical truths are necessary truths, thus IF the Godbach’s conjecture WAS true in at least one possible world, then it must be true in all possible worlds. Thus, using Pro’s implicit logic, we can prove mathematical theorums based on mere epistemic possibility![ http://www.noble-minded.org...]P1. The Goldbach’s conjecture is true in at least one possible worldP2. If the Goldbach’s conjecture is true in at least one possible world, then it is true in all possible worldsC. The Goldbach’s conjecture is true in all possible worldsClearly we cannot solve mathematical theorums this way (the entire world cohort of mathematicians would be out of a job if it were this easy), they must be proven from ground up. The mere epistemic possibility is insufficient to demonstrate metaphysical possibility. Thus we can reject P1 of this argument without being needed to commit to actually disproving the theorem.Objection 3 – Reverse modal ontological argumentThe reverse argument shows that there is a dichotomy between the premises:1. God exists in at least one possible world2. God does not exist in at least one possible worldThese premises CANNOT BOTH be true. The follow reverse argument shows this clearly:1. God does not exist in at least one possible world2. If God does not exist in at least one possible world then God does not exist all possible worlds3. God does not exist in all possible worlds (from 1 & 2, modus ponens)4. If God exists, then God exists in all possible worlds5. God does not exist2 follows from modal definition in the S5 system (If possibly not, then not necessary), and hence cannot possibly be contested by Pro, and premise 4 is a necessary premise/assumption of Pro’s modal ontological argument, and hence also cannot be contested. Thus Pro can only contest premise 1.Thus, why should we believe the “There exists at least one (metaphysically) possible world where God exists” over the “There exists at least one (metaphysically) possible world where God doesn’t exist”. At best Pro has a stalemate here.I assert my premise is correct, and state in my opponent’s own words:“In order for this argument to be refuted, my opponent must demonstrate that God does not possibly not exist”Argument 2 - Religious ExperiencesIt is not in dispute that people genuinely have religious experiences, what is in dispute is the source of these religious experiences. We have hundreds of thousands of photographs of UFO’s, and people’s own testimonies to alien abduction. An identical argument can be made that aliens really have visited the Earth in recent years. Clearly thousands/millions of people aren’t lying with their experiences, however it is the attribution of those experiences to real/actual entities where the mistake is made.Such a claim is an epistemological claim, or an inference to the best explanation, which is a simple matter of what best explains the fact that millions of people have an experience they associate with “God”. I will expand on this in later rounds.