God is existant

I will leave my final arguments against religious experiences until next round.Non-CognitivismPro’s CaseThe concept of a “longest ruler” is coherent, since the concept of “length” relates only to objective features of the universe (the quantity of space between two points on a one dimensional axis), moreover the concept of “longer” is also, cognitive and objective, since it is defined as the larger quantity of space between two points on said axis.We clearly do not have this when it comes to “maximally great being”. To clarify this debate I will provide the definitions of objective and subjective (taken from Wikipedia):Objective:- “Generally, objectivity means the state or quality of being true even outside of a subject's individual biases, interpretations, feelings, and imaginings.”Subjective:- “Some information, idea, situation, or physical thing considered true only from the perspective of a subject or subjects.”Thus when one is attempting to provide an objective definition, they must relate it to brute deductive logical concepts, or features of the universe. Now we move on to Pro’s absurd strategy in affirming what greatness is.“But our intuitive awareness of the intrinsic (and therefore objective) greatness of various properties (knowledge, power, beauty etc...) lends inference to the notion that there exists properties that are intrinsically and objectively great; they are great in essence. “Pro is appealing to something that is necessarily subjective (our intuition) in affirming something that must be objective. It simply doesn’t get any more self-contradictory than this! Pro only helps affirm my case by continually appealing to our intuitions to delve what the content of what “greatness” entails. IF Pro was simply able to define “greatness” in terms of objective features, with an impartial method of determining what is “more great”, then we would not be running into issues of non-cognitivism right out of the gate.What constitutes a “great(er) being” is subjectiveI will grant very quickly that people have a general subjective concept of what they mean by “great” – however that is exactly my point – the term “great” is necessarily subjective, since different people will perceive “great” to mean very different things. One person may feel a “great president” entails a president who rules by force, and another may feel said president should rule by pacifism. These are contradictory statements which can only be consistent IF “greatness” is a subjective concept.Intuitional “Evidence”I find Pro’s following statement striking, shocking even:"but in the absence of reason and empiricism then intuition can still count as evidence”Surely if your position cannot be reasoned to, and lacks any evidence, then it is a bad position to be holding? Our existing theories of physics are notoriously counter-intuitive – so much so that they frequently draw incredulous statements from even the most respected of scientists:“I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics” – Richard FeynmanOur intuitions are biological devices we have evolved to adapt to our middle-sized environment. As such they are only good for said environment. Intuitions on where a stone will land when it is thrown, or how hot or cold something is are generally useful, however going outside of this environment into realms of pure physics, philosophy, logic, ontology etc. is clearly far removed from the environments our intuitions are derived.Pro attempts a tu quoque fallacy in attacking rational and empirical data. Two points here:1. Its a fallacy and hence invalid point2. Pro conflates the interpretation of data with the data itself. The integrity of rational and empirical data is light years more sound than intuitions since they are objective. Modal Ontological Argument Overview Pro’s statement:“Besides, generally when people say 'X is possible', they are saying 'X is logically possible', as this is the form of possibility most people refer to.".. is flat out false. Most people when you ask if “is this unproven mathematical conjecture (e.g. Goldbach’s conjecture, PvsNP Problem, etc.) possible”, the virtually unanimous answer would be “yes, so long as it hasn’t been disproven”. Clearly colloquial use of “possible” is very different to the modal use of “possible”.Modal Skepticism & Modal CollapsePro’s arguments from possible world semantics that it is logically possible for the world to be any other way that it is now, however this is not necessarily the case. If we assume that something modally necessary exists by which other entities are produced (even if we assume this being was God), then if we assume some form of strong-PSR then it would follow that the world would occur in exactly the same way, every time. Thus everything would be necessary since there is no other way for the world to have come about (since the necessary entities in each possible world are identical, by modal definition). Thus we end up with something called “modal collapse”, where we cannot even say that “it is possible for a world to exist where I did not exist” or “it is possible for that chair to be two inches to the right instead” etc. Hard determinism would entail.[http://goo.gl...]Thus, if modal collapse is correct, then appeals to possibility are necessarily unsound, since there are no real possibilities except those that are already known to exist in the actual world. Thus Pro needs to affirm that modal collapse does not occur even if God does exist, since this argument is a reducio.Logical vs Metaphysical possibility Pro’s statements here are a complete misunderstanding of my points. I welcome Pro to present an a priori framework of what “being” and “existence” is, until then he must affirm metaphysical possibility since his arguments deal with existence.An example of the difference is water before we discovered it was H2O. It is (according to Pro’s logic) logically possible that water is not H2O (since it entails no contradiction of terms). However it would have been metaphysically impossible for water to not be H2O, since water not being H2O would contradict reality/metaphysics.Thus, logical possibility is not synonymous with metaphysical possibility, even if we do not have well-established concept of what metaphysical possibility entails. Regardless, affirming something is logically possible is not soundly transferred to metaphysical possibility. The synonymy would need to be proven by Pro before using it to justify metaphysical possibilityLogical Possibility of GodI am essentially going to extend my previous arguments since Pro has completely ignored them. You cannot just assume logical possibility. It is Pro’s argument, thus it is Pro’s burden of proof to demonstrate all his premises are true. I would like to know where Pro gets his “the fact that logical possibility is the default modal state” – is this yet another appeal to intuition? Let’s just assume mathematical theorems are possible (since possibility is the default state) and immediately solve them accordingly!A: Logical Possibility is more likely than Logical Impossibility (assumption for reducio ad absurdum)1. If A, then the logical possibility of God’s existence is more likely than the logical possibility God’s non-existence2. If A, then the logical possibility of God’s non-existence is more likely than the logical possibility God’s existence3. A entails a contradiction (A&1, A&2), hence A must be falseC. Logical Possibility is not more likely than Logical ImpossibilityIf that is not enough (and I could make these arguments all day long) I will present the modal collapse reducio:A: Logical Possibility is more likely than Logical Impossibility (assumption for reducio ad absurdum)1. If A, then the Logical Possibility of Modal Collapse occurring is more likely than the Logical Impossibility of Modal Collapse occurring2. If modal collapse is possible, then at least one world has undergone modal collapse3. If modal collapse has occurred in at least one world, then all propositions are necessary4. If all modal propositions are necessary, then asserting hypothetical logical possibilities is impossiblePro can only refute this argument by a. rejecting his original assertion that logical possibility is the default state or b. by asserting that modal collapse is logically impossible.Logical impossibilityPro would actually need to prove P1 of his argument too, since logical impossibility of something ontological (metaphysical) entails contradictions in reality. Thus P1 is already false. Moreover it is Pro’s argument, thus he needs to prove P2 at well. Blatant shifting of BoP is not sufficient to uphold his argument.Reverse ArgumentPro is equivocating between the definition of God provided in this debate “A Maximally Great Being” with “Greatest Possible Being”. These definitions are not synonymous - Pro would need to demonstrate that a maximally great being is synonymous with his new definition. Simply defining God with “logical possibility” begs the question of metaphysical coherence of the concept. If we are going to start defining things with logical possibility then why not just define anything into existence?E.g. let’s define an imaginary word e.g. “Fod” as “A million pounds in my bank accounts that exists”, to state that it doesn’t exist contradicts the definition. However the definition of “Fod” is only coherent if it is metaphysically consistent with reality. Similarly the definition of “Greatest (logically) possible being” is only coherent if metaphysically consistent.Thus logical possibility is not a predicate, just like existence is not a predicate. If we define Goldbach’s Conjecture as a “Logically possible solution to the divisibility of even numbers” then we have literally defined the conjecture as true. Clearly we cannot do this soundly.