God Exists

Divine Hiddenness1) Pro claims premise two is a non-sequitur. But I have to ask how this is possible as it is a premise, not an inference. He could claim, as he later did, that the premise is wrong, but not that it is a non-sequitur.He ignores my justification for the premise, stating"Unless Con gives reason for why relationship with god must be conscious, this entire argument disintegrates."I have. And he deals with it under 6).2) My opponent states "There is no reason to assume that god is loving or relational. We are not debating about any specific god here"To which I respond, yes, there is and yes, we do."God - The omnipotent, omniscient, loving creator of our universe"Pro continues to make my exact point under 3), so why include 2) in the first place?3) "How does Schellenberg know the definition of "perfectly loving?" This implies that definitions and the meaning of words in general is not up to us, but somehow transcends us.If the words we use actually mean something completely different when applied to God, then what is it we are talking about?If it is beyond human reason, then we have no reason to believe in it.God, for the purposes of this debate, is defined as loving. Either, this dictates something close to what Schellenberg proposed and this point is defeated or we are not really talking about anything.No matter what we do, either the argument stands or we simply have a separate reason to deny the existence of this God.4) Pro claims"Essentially, Con's argument says that "I am perfectly reasonable, open, and unbiased, and if legitimate evidence for god existed I would surely be able to see it.""To put my response in the words of my opponent"One must admit there's a certain arrogance in this."Not only have I never said that I am any of these things, I also never said that I even desire some relation with this God.In fact, I could sit here, thinking "this God is a douche, I hate him", yet propose this exact argument, precisely as I did.Arguments like this can be understood as an internal challenge to theistic belief systems.The fact that some people do think they discovered God is not evidence against this premise. It would be if those numbers were quite a lot higher, but that is not the case.He asks"Can we ever be sure there are not unconscious motives and biases tinting our views?"Which is a question, not an argument.In fact, one would expect some life-long seekers to actually be biased in favor of belief in God, yet fail to believe just that.He proceeds to claim that it's a matter of evaluating the evidence differently. Which is to say that both sides are reasonable in their belief.But that should not be the case. If there was something close to a perfectly loving God, seeking personal relationships, then reasonable non-belief should be a lot harder than it supposedly is in actuality.5) Here Pro argues there is no perfect evidence God could present to persuade everyone and draws an analogy unreasonable antivaxxers.But God is not a physician, God is omnipotent.He could speak with thundering voice down from the skies or make everyone see divine appearances. The list of things he could do to persuade if not everyone, at least most reasonable people is potentially infinite.Note, I am not saying God would necessarily do this, I am merely showing why Pro's contention fails.6) "Jill's existence is contingent on John's knowledge of her"No, but this is not the point. The point is, to be able for two agents to be in a meaningful relation, both have to be aware of each other.It makes little sense to say "Jill and John are in a meaningful relation, but John does not know Jill".7) My opponent claims the argument, at best, shows God is not loving, not his nonexistence.This, quite frankly, is false.God is defined as "The omnipotent, omniscient, loving creator of our universe"These are the necessary and together sufficient conditions for the existence of God. In denying a single condition from the definiens, I am denying the whole definiendum. This is how definitions work.In a very simple form:P1) If God exists, God is loving.P2) God is not loving.C1) Therefore, God does not exist.Physical MindsFirst, I would like explain the argument a little more clearly.The probability of EPr(E)represents the probability of E being the case.Since we know E, we can assign a high probability here. It doesn't even have to be 1.I am asking under which assumption E is more likely, naturalism or theism. This is expressed byPr(E | MN) (the probability of E under the assumption of MN) and Pr(E | T) (the probability of E under the assumption of T)If sentient beings exist & naturalism is true (assumption), what would we expect to see?We would expect E in all possible worlds where the above two conditions hold. It is logically impossible under MN for the mind to not depend on the brain. Thus, the probability of E under the assumption MN, Pr(E | MN), is 1.If sentient beings exist & theism is true (assumption), what would we expect to see?T is of course logically compatible with E. But, T postulates at least one disembodied mind, who happens to be all powerful.If T is true, then we could expect all sorts of things. God could have created an idealist world, a materialist world or anything else we could possibly or not even possibly imagine.The point is T does not logically entail any of these, that is why the probability of E under the assumption T, Pr(E | T), cannot be 1. It has to be less than that. If it was 1, then it would be impossible for there to be a world with disembodied human minds. But that is not true, at least for theism.Therefore, the assumption MN better explains what we see than T. Or in other words the explanatory power of MN is greater than that of T.It makes fewer assumption, it is more easily falsifiable and it offers more details about the things we should expect to see and which we should not expect to see.1) Whether or not God is a disembodied mind is actually irrelevant. The argument concerns on which assumption, T or MN, is more likely. A pantheistic God relevant to this debate, would still be omnipotent. Thus, still giving at least antecedent reason to expect disembodied human minds.2) I am speaking of proof. Evidential arguments still resemble proof. The Fine-tuning argument my opponent presented is itself an evidential, not a logical, argument and would, if successful, constitute proof of a designer.My opponent states we are debating what is more reasonable to believe in, not what is more likely. But these are not mutually exclusive. That which is most likely true is what we, as rational agents, have most reason to believe in. This is how we do science, this is how we do philosophy.We do have more reason to believe in relative space than to believe in absolute space simply because it is more likely true.Pascal's WagerFirst of all, I said the probability of E under the assumption T could still be high, not that it is high or that we have even antecedent reason to think it is high. It might just be zero.Since I supposedly admitted a high probability of Gods existence my opponent appeals to the Wager.Now, I do think it is reasonable to expect an afterlife of some sorts if such a God were to exist.However, my opponent assumes a pluralist or exclusivist view on the afterlife.What does this mean? Pluralism is the belief that everyone goes to heaven who correctly follows his religion. Exclusivism is the belief that only those go to heaven who follow the correct religion.The Wager has to assume either of these views.Why should we accept any of them? My opponent did not argue in favor for them.Indeed, since we are talking about a loving God, I think inclusivism, the view that everyone goes to heaven, is the safest view on the afterlife.Perhaps we should just as well wager that one of the first two views is correct.But God is also omniscient, he knows why you believe what you believe.Pascal's Wager is an appeal to corrupt, greedy and self-interested motivations. No God interested in a personal relationship would grant you access to heaven after discovering the reasons for your belief.Indeed, such a God would most likely let those in who proportioned their belief to the available evidence and concluded his existence via rationally justifiable means, not self-interest.But since we find very strong reasons against the existence of God, like the argument from physical minds, we are not rationally justified in concluding his existence.