God Is Nothing More Than An Emotional Construct

The resolution of the debate is "God is Nothing more than an emotional Construct". Pros job is to support the claim that God is nothing more than an emotional construct. Pro is asserting that Gods ontology is JUST a type of belief, or in his terms, just an emotional construct. However, by positing an argument that places God's ontology independent of any emotional construct, I seek to show that God is not just an emotional construct. My opponent begins by asserting that "if there is an explanation of the believe in God(as in a psycho-emotional one) it does necessarily follow that the belief in God is false. " He says this "is Occam's Razor being utilized [simply]. If we can explain it in more bare of a terminology, then any outstanding belief is superfluous and thusly it is false. " Unfortunately, that won't work because it doesn't address God's ontology. All that it's doing is addressing the belief in God. As I mentioned earlier, if I can show that God is more than an emotional construct (i. e. He exists independent of that belief/construct) then God's existence is not done away with. Presuppositions I'd like to take the time to flesh out how our presuppositions can affect the way we approach the resolution. If an atheist says there is no evidence for God and he tries to explain God as nothing more than a psychological construct, then of course it would seem the origin of the belief explains away the entity, because he already accepts the conclusion that God doesn't exist. However, if the theist believes God exists and has arguments to prove it, in order for the atheist to conclude God doesn't exist, he must address the argument and defeat it. Otherwise his claim that God is just a human construct is just fallacious. God's existence as an emotional construct only works if one accepts that God doesn't exist. Otherwise, the genetic fallacy remains and nothing has been explained away. The Sun god Secondly, my opponent provides an interesting analogy regarding the formation of a belief in the Sun god. He explains how a group of people develop the belief in a sun god and how they "would at night and before sunrise do some specific type of dance to please the Sun God in order to ensure that the sun will rise. " To simplify my opponent's conclusion, we have good grounds for concluding that the sun god is an "inefficient description of reality" since it is the product of people's anthropomorphism. The fact of the matter is there is NO evidence for the Sun god. One may argue, "Well, the evidence to those people would be the fact that the sun rises. " The fact is the sun doesn't rise because of the Sun god, but because the earth rotates. To be more concise, the way that belief was formed has no bearing on the existence of the Sun god. One must provide a better explanation for the rising of the sun or use some other means to argue against the existence of that god. However, according to Pro, this is what the application of Occam's razor comes down to. We must pick the simpler of the two explanations, which in his case would be God is some emotional construct rather than some "superfluous explanation" such as an eternal unembodied mind. Furthermore, even ascribing human characteristics to God doesn't take away from his Existence. For example, in Christianity Jesus Christ is said to be sitting at the right hand of God the Father. But Christians don't take it in the literally naï¿½ve sense. These are used metaphorically in an attempt to comprehend and refer to God. Christians understand that God is beyond human comprehension and these are used to grasp what is not entirely comprehensible. Just because a Christian attributes human Characteristics to God doesn't make Him any less real. My opponent essentially argues in his 4th paragraph that my tautological characterization doesn't match the emotional reality of doing away with a father figure or desiring one. He claims that I've assumed a tautological similarity and that this hardly reflects the reality. However, the logic is the same regardless of the amount of emotion involved. This highlights the point I've been trying to make. It doesn't matter how much emotion or desire is involved in the act the existence of God still rests on the proof of the arguments. Even IF person A's desire to have a father figure is 100000x's greater than person B's desire not to have one, this doesn't affect whether or not the father figure/entity actually exists. I think my opponent would need to assume belief in God is equal to positing God's existence as an explanation, however as I've said earlier this only works if one already accepts God's non-existence. Kalam: Premise 1 My opponent claims the cause of the universe "can be nothing" and that "things spontaneously happen at literally every interval of time. .. " Apparently I must flesh this out for Pro: nothingness is NOT ANYTHING. It has NO positive properties or causality at all; it‘s absurd to say the absence of being caused something. As I asked in my opening statement, why must "nothingness" discriminate on what can or cannot pop into existence when it clearly is not anything? Why aren't cows popping into existence out of "nothing" or non-existence? To hit the point closer to home, Helg Kragh summarizes my point about nothingness perfectly, "There are good reasons for this, including that the very notion of ‘nothingness' is foreign to science. The vacuum of the physicists is entirely different from ‘nothingness' in an absolute sense, meaning a state defined by the absence of anything at all. " [1] M-Theory Furthermore my opponent claims he's given me an objective proof by asserting "The universe is the result of hyper dimensional brane interaction (as per M-theory and modern day Cosmology). " Aside from the fact we have no evidence at all for M-theory or hyper-dimensional brane interaction, this does nothing to evade the absolute beginning of space and time. Yes, physicists have worked out mathematical models but they still haven't found a way to test it. Pro has offered no justification or sources for his claim that "M-theory" has solved this problem. Big Bang Speed of space vs. light Pro claims that my conception of the big bang is "outdated" and that "space travels at a velocity fast than the speed of light, and thusly space in itself did not have its origins in the Big Bang" First, my opponent provides no justification for his claim that my conception is outdated. My "conception" is in line with the standard understanding of the Big Bang by physicists. The big bang refers to a singularity where space and time originates. Pro's claim is completely non sequitur. The conclusions are based on the aftermath of the Big Bang, which can be traced back to a singularity or a beginning point. These assumptions include the current laws of physics, the density of the universe, entropy, the 3 spatial dimensions of the universe, and matter. [2][3] Due to the character limit I will respond to my opponent's objection regarding the past infinite in the next round. To quickly rebut his final point, if Pro can posit a better explanation/cause of the beginning of the universe that fits the criteria, then my argument is defeated. I agree that it does not "necessarily" need to be that, but Pro has offered no other alternative that fits the criteria for the beginning of the universe. I've shown that God's existence is more than an emotional construct and his ontology is independent of such a construct. Furthermore, I've pointed out that Pro's objection to the kalam is absurd and that pragmatically speaking my opponent has participated in committing the genetic fallacy, whereby, the nature of a belief is assessed by of way irrelevant and extrinsic impositions; rather, than relevant and intrinsic impositions. [4]