Challenger Chooses

I'll jump right into things. Definitions The opponent's definitions seem reasonable and are certainly commonly understood terms. However, there is one word that deserves some extra attention, as it may be important later. Specifically, this word is "superhuman". In the context of this debate, superhuman is clearly an adjective and the opponent's definition reflects this. What the definition doesn't clearly specify is what types of nouns can possess this quality. In determining this, it is perhaps best to look at how this word is used in works meant for popular consumption. For instance, we can look at Wikipedia's [1] "Superhuman" article, look at how the word is used, and draw some reasonable conclusions regarding what types of nouns may possess this quality. In paragraph 1, line 1 (P1L1), we see superhuman used to refer to the super abilities of fictional characters in certain works. P1L3 refers to a "tiger" as having superhuman abilities. P4L1 refers to so-called "transhumans" as possibly having this quality, and P5 discusses certain artificial intelligences as having this quality. The article continues to describe "metahumans", cyborgs, and certain aliens as having this quality. Oxford Dictionary's [2] definition of superhuman has a sole example use case, in which a pilot is called "superhuman" for not landing a plane on top of someone. Merriam Webster's "superhuman" example use cases both refer to living beings. [3] What all of these nouns being described as superhuman have in common is that they are all *intelligent beings*. Given that, we can reasonably conclude that the common sense definition of superhuman holds that only an intelligent being can be referred to as superhuman. Attempting to extend this definition to non-living beings is largely non-sensical, as it produces surprising, unintuitive, and occasionally meaningless results. If "superhuman" could refer to non-intelligent beings, then literally anything that could do something better than a human, or that a human can't do at all, would be considered superhuman. A lighter would be superhuman because it can quickly produce fire by itself, whereas humans cannot. A car would be superhuman because it can move faster than humans. Tungsten would be considered superhuman because it can withstand greater temperatures than humans. Clearly, this definition of superhuman causes the word to become overly broad and of questionable usefulness. In summary, the word "superhuman" applies only to intelligent beings. Attempting to apply the adjective to non-intelligent beings is an inappropriate application of the word. No God Above In this section, I will argue that god does not exist. Given that the burden of proof is shared here, if I can show that it is more probable god *doesn't* exist than does, I should win this debate. We'll be using the word "being" above, referring to a thing which has existence. We'll also use the term "possible being", which refers to a being which may or may not exist, but which could possibly exist. While this argument will look at possible beings that could be defined as "god", note that it is easily expanded to include all beings. I'm simply limiting the scope for clarity. Let's consider the set of all possible gods and call this set G. We can see that this set will contain a god whose favorite number is 1. Additionally, since this set contains all possible gods, there will be another whose favorite number is 2. This can continue ad infinitum, implying that set G is of infinite size. Let's further identify that in this set G there must be a god with the following properties: (a) this god's favorite number is 1 (b) this god's favorite shape is a pentagon (c) if this god exists, it is the only god whose favorite shape is a pentagon and whose favorite number is 1. We can further deduce that there is also a god with all of these properties, except its favorite number is 2, its favorite shape is a pentagon, and if said god exists, it is the only god whose favorite shape is a pentagon and whose favorite number is 1. Clearly, if the first god mentioned exists, the second god cannot. Indeed, the existence of the first god would eliminate an infinite number of other gods from possibly existing, as one can create an infinite number of gods whose favorite shape is a pentagon, but whose number differs from all other gods in this subset. This fact is important because it shows that not all possible gods can exist simultaneously and that, further, the vast majority of gods cannot exist simultaneously. This argument effectively shows the following: (a) there are an infinite number of possible gods (b) the number of gods which can simultaneously exist is far smaller than the set referred to by (a). [See note 1] And now the point -- from a probabilistic standpoint, if one doesn't have evidence that some random god A exists, the likelihood said god exists if virtually zero. Notably, this doesn't mean that god *doesn't* exist, it merely shows that the likelihood is tiny. As in, so tiny that there doesn't exist a mathematical construction that meaningfully demonstrates how small this probability is. This conclusion is important -- because it allows us to analyze the evidence for the existence of some god and, if it is not sufficient, reject the claim outright on probabilistic grounds. We cannot objectively say the supposed god does not exist, but we can claim that the belief in it is mathematically unreasonable. [See Note 2. ] Summary We've discussed two ideas here today. First, we explored the use cases of the word "superhuman" and found that it is used to describe a particular quality in intelligent beings. Attempting to apply the word to a non-intelligent being is non-sensical. This is especially apparent in this debate, where it would give the opponent the ability to claim literally any object is a god if (a) it can do something a human can't and (b) it is worshiped by someone. Allowing the opponent to claim that his razor blade is a god because he worships it clearly strays outside of the intent of the debate and furthermore makes the debate academically and intellectually uninteresting. Such is the nature of many highly-semantical arguments. Finally, we looked at a logical demonstration which ultimately concluded the following: If there does not exist sufficient evidence for some god N, there is a high probability that god N does not exist. This argument fulfills my obligation in this debate, where the burden of proof is split, as it shows a strong probability of any given god not existing. (If the opponent presented compelling evidence that his god of choice did exist, that would clearly make this argument invalid. The rest of the debate may well be centered upon the validity of this evidence. ) I look forward to my opponent's opening arguments and his response to mine. Thanks for reading. Sources: (1) - . https://en.wikipedia.org... (2) - . https://en.oxforddictionaries.com... (3) - . https://www.merriam-webster.com... Notes: (1) - Technically, the set of all possible gods and the set of possible simultaneously existing gods are both infinitely large. However, the cardinality (size) of the former set is far greater than the cardinality of the latter set. (2) - It may seem like this argument just attempts to shift the burden of proof to the other side. At a first glance, it mostly does; however, it is the probabilistic nature of the argument that effectively satisfies my burden of proof. This argument is either implicitly or explicitly used when discussing the existence of any type of object -- and effectively shows that the "side" claiming the existence of something has a responsibility to demonstrate ample evidence for this thing, otherwise there is an entirely valid mathematical reason to reject the existence of this thing based upon probability.