God exists

What is GodPro is arguing that the Christian God of both the Old and New Testament exists, but what exactly is this> Unfortunately for Pro, the goalposts are not clear, as we do not have many agreed upon attributes. There are 2 concepts of this God which I will present and assess within this round.Minimalist GodA minimalist God is one with the minimum of attributes to qualify as a ‘God’ in this debate. There is little disagreement that God entails a personal creator God of life & the universe. Thus the Christian God must possess the minimum of these attributes. An extention of this is the notion that God is both all-powerful and all-knowing. IF Pro cannot demonstrate at least this much then he clearly cannot possibly affirm the resolution, as the most basic claims of God are simply unsound. On the flipside, if I demonstrate any of these attributes are false, then the resolution also fails.Triumphant GodIt is not sufficient for Pro to prove a minimalist God however to uphold the resolution, he must demonstrate the triumphant God exists, which possesses most of the attributes forwarded by the Bible. These include the existence and divinity of Jesus, the notion of a human afterlife, God that interacts with reality, etc.The BibleThe Christian God is defined according to how texts were canonised by people. Thus, even if something special can be demonstrated about one of the Books of the Bible, there is virtually no grounds to expand this to *all* books of the bible, as they were all written independently. Thus, in principle evidence via. prophecy is simply insufficient to give the Bible as a whole (the collection of works) credence.The Christian God is an aggregation of all the descriptions within the books of the Bible. Yet if another book made the canon, or if a book that is now in the canon did not make the canon, then the definition of God we are debating would change accordingly. This is a problem, since Pro is arguing for a very specific God (the Christian God), thus he must argue that the canon has some sort of special feature about it that gives it uniformity and credence. I will argue that the canon simply isn’t uniform, thus books tell their own stories, with the only relation between them being historical knowledge of future authors regarding past authors. This being the case we would expect very little forward-referencing, or foreshadowing. Much like when one opens a novel and sees direct references to future characters or events, such as a future villain, we would expect the Bible if it had some special cohesion to give precise foreshadowing over future events.RebuttalsBook of Daniel PropheciesProblem in PrincipleI could concede everything Pro wrote last round as perfectly genuine, verified and authentic predictions. Pro is still light years away from demonstrating the claim “God exists”, which I have already alluded to so far. At best we would have an unexplained event, indeed predictions come true all the time today, yet we do not attach a divine explanation to them. Because the claim “God exists” carries so much factual baggage with it, it consequently carries a comparable burden of proof, and simply citing prophecies by an author claiming to be Daniel, who claimed to have had true revelations is insufficient to demonstrate this.Genuine ProphecyGenuine prophecies need to be:1. Accurate & precise with events purported2. Actually made before the facts (predictive)For point #1, the more accurate and precise the prediction is, the more impressive it is. Me stating “somebody is going to die tomorrow in New York” is not going to be a particularly impressive prediction. However stating “somebody is going to die in an earthquake outside the Empire State Building in New York at 7.13 AM” is going to be spectacular, since it is so much more precise.Point #2 is obvious, if the prophecies are made after the fact, then they are vaticinia ex extent or “postdiction”. I.e. pseudopredictions that are documented after the fact. Thus Pro needs to provide us with very good reason to believe that the Book of Daniel was composed before the events he claims are prophecies.[1]CompositionPro has provided no reason to believe that the Book of Daniel was composed before the events he predicts. For the earliest of his prophecies to be genuine, then it must be composed before ~530 BC (Cambyses), and for the later predictions it needs to precede 219 BC (according to Pro’s opening round). However Pro has provided absolutely no reason to accept this outside of a traditional attribution of the text to Daniel itself, which essentially just a bald assertion. Virtually all our pseudohistorical literature would classify as history if it was that simple.IF the Book of Daniel had an early date, then we would expect the text to be known and reported in literature around those times, either from early manuscripts of the text itself, or in references. Unfortunately for Pro our earliest manuscripts are those from the Dead Sea Scrolls, which date at earliest 125 BCE [2], at least 94 years short of Pro’s minimum requirement.[5]Furthermore, the Book of Daniel would have been included in the Hebrew Canon of the Prophets if it had been known and revered at that time (200 BCE), yet it was not included in the canon which strongly suggests it was not known at the time.[4] The “Wisdom of Sirach” is the earliest known witness to the Prophets, drawing elements from most of the Old Testament for material, yet contains no reference to Daniel, even though the “Wisdom of Sirach” was composed 200 BCE earliest, 330 years after earliest events Pro purports. Our earliest reference to the Book of Daniel is from “Syllabine Oracles” which does not appear until ~150 BCE.[3]Pro argues that the remainder of the Book of Daniel [Daniel 11:36 onwards] is not in reference to Antiochus Epiphanes, but this is absurd since there is no transition within the passage, and at no point is a new Kind introduced here. Given that the passage before this is obviously in reference to Antiochus Epiphanes, then the simplest assumption is the remainder is also in reference to him. Yet when we take this approach, clearly these prophecies spectacularly fail. Since the Messianic Kingdom never appeared as describes, and Antiochus Epiphanes fell ill and died in 164. Clearly failing the prophecies made in Daniel 11:40 onwards.[6]SummaryThus, Pro is arguing via. a hopeless strategy to demonstrate the existence of God, since the conclusion that a text makes successful prophecies does not render God’s existence plausible. Moreover he has spectacularly failed to uphold his BoP for the prophecies of Daniel he is claiming.References1. http://en.wikipedia.org...2. http://www.jstor.org...3. http://tinyurl.com...4. http://www.historyofinformation.com...5. http://en.wikipedia.org...6. http://tinyurl.com...