It is likely that a God or gods exist

Ah! For some reason I thought last round was the final one, but no matter. Burden of proof: Let us, yet again, look at the resolution that pro chose: It is LIKELY that a God or gods exist. It is obvious that the con position to this argument is NOT strict atheism, as I am not in any way obligated to argue that God DOES not, or CANNOT exist - only that it is not likely that he does. Pro chose mostly cosmological reasons for this position, so again, let me stress that in order for my position to hold I only need to show that God is not NECESSARY for the existence of the universe. If I can do that, then we have no POSITIVE reasons to believe in God, and therefore Occam's Razor tells us that we ought not posit his existence unnecessarily. This might just be pro confusing atheism as the negation of a belief (I do not believe in God) with atheism as a positive assertion (There is no god), the latter not being the correct definition ON HIS OWN TERMS (given the relatively weak claim in his resolution). Therefore I have fulfilled my burden of proof. Argument from religious experiences: I must stress again that it simply does not follow, in any way logically whatever, that because people think something is real it therefore is real. That people REALLY believe in luck and feel its presence when they, say, play the lottery, does not prove luck is real. That people REALLY feel like the spirit of their grandmother protected them during a car crash does not prove it did. Pro responds to my ghost objection by saying that no ghost could give someone the kind of inner peace that God does. But this is a trivial objection - many people believe in God because it gives them some comfort when faced with things like tragedy and death, so of course it's true that God therefore gives people a sense of comfort and ghosts do not. It still says nothing whatever about the truth of feelings that people get. I'd also like to point out I can use pro's very reasons for rejecting the ghost hypothesis to reject the God hypothesis by just changing a few words: 1. People DO feel an inner presence of ghosts (just ask them) 2. People often believe in God because of easily debunked ancient scriptures full of contradiction and inaccuracy 3. If God exists, we should expect to see much more evidence of Him. By analogy, this argument fails. The fine-tuning argument: I can't do anymore to make pro understand this objection. Fine-tuning is indeed well-documented. I have not disputed that fine-tuning exists. I have said that it is tautologically true that fine-tuning exists, because if it did not, no such conversation could take place. Tautological arguments cannot be false, therefore they are not good arguments and can be easily dismissed. "Even if my opponent thinks that entropy is not fine-tuned for the universe, other constants are, and they require an explanation." Like what? This is vague conjecture. Even if it weren't, it would fall prey to the same objection as entropy. "The anthropic principle explains NOTHING about why we are here." It doesn't purport to. In fact, asking WHY we are here is precisely what makes the fine-tuning argument a bad one: namely, it presupposes a teleology of human existence with no justification for such a belief. It seems pro has no grasped the objection. "it could be that the purpose of the universe is for interesting chemistry instead, but fine-tuning must still be explained." This begs the question. We are, on a basic level, chemical compounds. Saying the universe is geared toward interest chemistry rather than life is not saying anything substantially different. "Finally, my opponent does not address my arguments against a multiverse. Arguments extend." You'll note pro made no arguments against the multiverse, he just said we do not have sufficient evidence for multiverse. I agree. That's why I didn't posit that the multiverse was a correct theory. Cosmological Argument: Here, pro fails to understand what 'metaphysical' means. Just because something is metaphysical does not mean it is not bound by the confines of the universe. There are philosophers who believe that metaphysics transcend physics entirely, but there are equally many who think metaphysics are merely an extension of physics and therefore are bound by the universe. William Craig's statement is not a universally accepted truth, it just his interpretation of metaphysics which is predicated on a belief in God. Pro would have to provide some justification for thinking the former, and he does not. "If the first premise is not true, why doesn't anything and everything come out of nothing?" Because anything and everything aren't the universe. I have made it clear that we are not entitled to make inference about the universe itself from evidence contained within it. This goes the other way, too. Just because it's possible that the universe came into being from nothing does not mean it's possible for things IN the universe to do so. "As for the BGV Theorem, Guth may have a personal bias towards a beginning of the universe, but Vilenkin has written a paper without him that concludes that the universe probably began to exist, as I cited in my previous round." If the authors of the theorem disagree, then we are not entitled draw conclusions. Here we must accept that the model does not do what pro initially claimed it did and defer to indifference (my position). Hilbert's Hotel: "It may be logically possible, but it certainly is not metaphysically possible! " On what grounds? Hilbert's Hotel is only a paradox in the following sense: saying "every room is occupied" and "there is no room for more guests" are NOT equal in this scenario, though they would be in a non-infinite hotel. But, as I said, this only points to the strangeness of infinity and the poverty of our language. It does not in any way show that the concept of infinity is contradictory or incoherent - logically or metaphysically. Pro has either misunderstood or misapplied Hilbert's Hotel. Conclusion: Pro has provided several reasons to support his claim that "It is likely that a God or gods exist." However, all of these claims may, at the very least, be drawn into doubt. Therefore we are not committed to them. As a result, it is clear that God is not NECESSARY for any of the reasons given by pro. Since the current models of the universe function perfectly well without God, it would be a violation of Occam's Razor to posit his existence. Therefore we may conclude that God likely does not exist. I'd like to thank pro for an interesting debate! Vote for whoever you think argued more convincingly!