God exists

I will begin my argument by contradicting some of the most frequently used arguments used to prove Gods existence. Argument 1: “Morality stems from God, and without God, we cannot be good people” Religion is frequently help up as a model of moral behaviour. Many holy books contain rules for how people must live in order to reach Heaven or some similar afterlife. Failure to follow those rules often means eternal banishment and punishment. A person who follows these rules and is “godly” is also presumed to be a moral, upright person, whereas atheists are frequently viewed with suspicion. After all, with no God to tell you how to behave, what’s to stop a person from doing whatever they like? A poll conducted by Canadian psychologists even placed atheists as more untrustworthy than rapists in the USA and Canada, showing that atheists are among the least trusted people even in North America. In reality, there’s no evidence that atheists as a group are any more untrustworthy or immoral than any other group. There are dishonest atheists just as there are dishonest Christians and Muslims, and there are atheists who are paragons of good behaviour just like any upstanding religious person. Religions do seem to incite violence. This does not always imply a direct causal relationship between religion and violence, yet, this is the opposite of what you’d expect if morality really did stem from God. Religious texts are generally ancient, and they reflect the values of the times when they were written. Over time, our views of what is acceptable shift as our cultures progress, which makes many things found in the Bible or Quran seem outdated and highly problematic. Consider, for example, the issue of slavery. Although there are some people who still believe that slavery is moral, the vast majority of religious people are unlikely to admit support for the ownership of another person. Nevertheless, the Bible has many references to slavery, carefully detailing the rules for proper slave ownership. For example, in the Old Testament, Leviticus 25:44-46 explains that you can take slaves from neighbouring nations but not enslave your own people: “Your male and female slaves are to come from nations around you; from them you may buy slaves.” Slavery isn’t the only questionable practice condoned in the Bible. The death penalty was also wielded quite liberally in biblical times, and death was a popular punishment for sins in the Old Testament, including violations such as adultery (Leviticus 20:10), homosexuality (Deuteronomy 22:13-21), breaking the Sabbath (Exodus 31:14-15) and more. In Islamic teaching, it’s made quite clear that anyone who turns away from Islam should be put to death. Within some of the most trusted and authoritative Hadith collections in Islam, which is the main source of Islamic laws and ethics, Prophet Muhammad is quoted as calling for the death penalty against apostates, ‘The Prophet said, “The blood of a Muslim who confesses that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and that I am His Apostle, cannot be shed except in three cases: In Qis-as for murder, a married person who commits illegal sexual intercourse and the one who reverts from Islam and leaves the Muslims.”’Many religious critics are quick to jump to the defence of their given holy book by insisting that passages like these are taken out of context. Although it is interesting to note that curiously, many believers do not demand more context when mentioning verses describing love, charity or any other positive aspect of their scripture; verses are only viewed as being out of context when the content is unflattering for believers. Arument 2"Science cannot explain the complexity and order of life; God must have designed it to be this way." Arguably the earliest function of religion was to explain natural phenomena that primitive man could not otherwise understand. Lightning storms and volcanoes, for example, are natural forces that were once attributed to deities. Now that scientific progress has made it clear how and why many of these things occur, a God is no longer required to explain them. The same is true for many other natural processes, and as the scientific method manages to come up with more models with better explanatory and predicative capabilities for such phenomenon, supernatural explanations prove themselves more inadequate, to say the least. Even though there are things in the world that we don’t yet understand and may never truly understand, there’s no reason to simply make up an explanation. In effect, belief in God is not really an answer; it’s simply a way of saying, “I don’t know.” Yet, the existence of deities raises more questions than it solves. In 1802, philosopher William Paley introduced “The Teleological Argument” in his book “Natural Theology” In it, he argues that the universe must have been designed by an intelligent creator because it is too complex to have arisen by chance. To illustrate this, he makes an analogy to a watch: if you’re walking on the beach and find a watch, you know from its complexity that a watchmaker must have created it. It would be absurd to think that the watch could have sprung up spontaneously. By his logic, complexity implies design. Since then, many scientists and philosophers have tackled this issue and have shown that complex systems can arise without a designer. Evolution by natural selection is one such system. A mathematician, John Conway, created a model, called: “{The} Game of Life”. The game shows how complexity can arise from a few simple cells following basic mathematical rules. In the game, a player establishes an initial pattern of “cells,” then sets them loose to multiply and die according to basic mathematical calculations. For populated spaces: If a cell has one or fewer neighbors, it will die. If a cell has four or more neighbors, it will die. Cells with two or three neghbors will survive. For empty spaces: Cells with three neighbors become populated. Argument 3"It is safer to believe in God than be wrong and go to Hell"A mathematician and philosopher, Blaise Pascal introduced an argument that would come to be known as Pascal's Wager. His argument discusses the issue of religious belief from a mathematical standpoint, determining that the cost of belief is lower than the cost of atheism. The wager takes the following format:- If you believe in God and he does exist, you will be rewarded with eternity in Heaven- If you believe in God and he does not exist nothing will happen to you- If you reject belief in God and he does exist, you will be doomed to an eternity in Hell.- If you don't believe in God and he doesn't exist, nothing will happen to you.Based on these suppositions, Pascal reasons that it's always safer to live as though God is real because if there is a God and you believe in him, the benefits are infinite. If you believe in God and turn out to be wrong, you will have lost nothing; if you don't believe in God and turn out to be wrong, the consequences are dire.Pascal was an admittedly brilliant mathematician, and his contributions to mathematics are valuable. As a theological argument, however, Pascal's SWager breaks down for several important reasons. First, it's important to realize that the wager does nothing to prove the nature of God. It's not an argument for the existence of God at all, actually; it's an argument against atheism based on the relative opportunity versus cost of belief. Second, you must recognize the limitations of Pascal's premise. As a Christian apologist, his argument works only for the Christian God. It ignores the possibility of any other deity and assumes that the motives of God are consistent with the teachings of basic Christian theology. Viewed in the context of world religions, the wager falls apart completely. The wager is based on the mathematic analysis of four outcomes. However, if you throw the multitude of world religions into the equation, the premises and mathematic analysis becomes much more complex and convoluted, making your chances of a successful wager significantly slimmer.Multiple religions exist thoughout the world, and the messages of most are at odds with each other. Among the tow largest religions (Christianity and Islam), it's clear that worshiping the right deity in the appropriate way is crucial to finding salvation. To enter Heaven as a Christian, you must be "saved" by believing in Jesus as your savior. According to some verses in the Quran, non-Muslims will end up in Hell. All of this means that belief in God alone is not sufficient to enter Heaven. It also means that if you happen to believe in the wrong God, you can still end up in Hell - even if you follow the tenets of your chosen religion perfectly. Pascals wager assumes a very narrow and specific definition of God. Even if there were a God, there is simply no way to know that the assumption laid out in the wager are actually accurate. For example, why would an all powerful and benevolent deity banish his creations to Hell for disbelief? It's equally likely that a deity might reward his followers for being skeptical, in which case Pascal's wager crumbles.I look forward to reading rebuttals and arguments from my opponent in the next few rounds.All of the sources are in the comments due to the character limit.