God did not create the world and does not rule over the universe.

.. it is, in my opinion, one of the most controversial and interesting topics to discuss. Secondly, I would like to advocate that I am in no way religious, but I enjoy a challenge and am capable of overcoming my own personal beliefs for the sake of debate. I ask only that voters do the same. Please make your decisions based upon our argumentative skill and not your personal opinions. And with that, we begin :) . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. . Before I address my opponent's arguments specifically, some brief analysis on the resolution. Because of the way that LearnLoveLiveLife has worded the topic, she must prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that God did NOT create the world AND does not rule over the universe. The only way to do this is to prove with certainty and with no room for doubt that God does not exist. Her wording is her burden, while the Con must simply negate. Unless my opponent can do this, we must default to Con because no such burden exists for the negative side. "Conceptions of God vary widely. .. there is no clear consensus on the nature of God. " With my opponent's first paragraph, all that she truly asserts is that different cultures have a different conception of God. Very good, but this does nothing for her side. Remember, to win the debate, LearnLoveLiveLife must prove that God did not create the world, and to do so must PROVE that such a God does not exist. Paragraphs two and three deal mainly with the fact that skeptics exist and the existence of the "entity" of God has been widely debated. .. again doing nothing for the Pro side. My opponent has thus far established nothing that is not known, she has proved that God is still a mystery. No offense there, either. "==Stephen Jay Gould proposed an approach dividing the world of philosophy into what he called "non-overlapping magisteria" (NOMA). In this view, questions of the supernatural, such as those relating to the existence and nature of God, are non-empirical and are the proper domain of theology. The methods of science should then be used to answer any empirical question about the natural world, and theology should be used to answer questions about ultimate meaning and moral value. In this view, the perceived lack of any empirical footprint from the magisterium of the supernatural onto natural events makes science the sole player in the natural world. " What my opponent effectively says with the fourth paragraph is that because the theological world cannot be seen or felt, it thus has no bearing upon the empirical world. She advocates that we turn to science to answer questions about the "natural world". However, science has yet to provide us with a truly legitimate answer to the question of existence. Through science we have evolution, we have growth and regression, we have carbon dating and the Big Bang and lots of wonderful advancements that dance AROUND the subject of existence but do not truly touch upon it. Until science can provide us with a 100% accurate, legitimate account of existence, there is no reason why we should reject philosophy and theology as a viable means of explanation. For example, I can no more feel the process of evolution working upon me than I can explain why some people are intrinsically good and others intrinsically bad, yet no one can say that these three things are not true. Until we can rely fully upon the empirical (which we cannot), my opponent provides us with no reason as to why we should reject the theological. The remainder of what my opponent says within her post deals with the reaching of enlightenment without divine intervention. She also touches briefly upon the subject of taking the bible literally. However, her first paragraph deals with the conclusion that different cultures have a different interpretation of God, and as not all of these interpretations are conclusive to the bible's adaptation, we can ignore that particular argument. As to the reaching of "enlightenment" without intervention, this too does nothing for her side. Just because a human can achieve happiness and spiritual peace by themselves does not mean that God does not exist. My opponent doesn't offer that conclusion, so we reject the rest of her argument. Allow me to make a quick observation: My opponent's arguments are not truly arguments. What she has done is taken snippets of what other people have written and then attempted to apply them to this topic. At no time in her argument does she actually analyze what it is she is advocating, and at no time does she actually argue: what I have just refuted are the words of other people. Her entire argument consists mainly of different people advocating nothing other than God *may* not exist, but as I said earlier, because my opponent has worded her resolution so harshly, "God may not exist" is not sufficient reason for her to win the debate. Until she can prove 100% that God DOES NOT exist and DID NOT create the universe, the Con will always win.