The God Hypothesis qualifies as the best scientific explanation for the origins of existence

Beginning of the Universe 1."Yet GR says no such thing. It doesn't demand there be some ‘kick off' cause to the universe, still less this cause must be timeless spaceless etc. Indeed, GR says the opposite: that the universe had no cause at all" If CON is arguing that the causal principle only operates "temporally" between "temporally" related entities, then he is assuming a big burden of proof. What he is saying is just an assertion NOT a fact. The onus is on him. Otherwise, CON will be engaging in what is called the "Taxi-cab" fallacy "when one hops in and assumes a certain system of thought or worldview in an attempt to make a particular point but then jumps out of the system of thought when it suits their fancy". In science, every effect has an explanation but CON wants to arbritraily stop at the beginning of the universe. In other words, he would be special pleading and violating the Principle of Sufficient reason. 2. "Yet why on earth think these are the only two options? Why not have some sort of non-naturalistic aether without agency, for example? Or a generating principle without agency? Or (as weï¿½ï¿½ï¿½?ï¿½ï¿½?ï¿½ve seen PROï¿½ï¿½ï¿½?ï¿½ï¿½?ï¿½s ï¿½ï¿½ï¿½?ï¿½ï¿½?must be timeless/spaceless/immaterial because GRï¿½ï¿½ï¿½?ï¿½ï¿½?ï¿½ case is actually turned) why not just some pre-Big bang naturalistic state of affairs? No reason is offered." CON is unable to articulate or clarify in better terms what he means, so I don't feel obligated to explain why those cannot be the cause. If CON really feels the cause can be metaphysical but yet have no agency, then he needs to explain and demonstrate more clearly how. I have to be able to falsify this metaphysical claim or it cannot be considered a scientific explanation. Remember the title of the debate is about the best SCIENTIFIC explanation not philosophical one. The God hythopothesis is falsfiable making it one of the reasons why its a scienctific explanation even though the cause is metaphysical in nature. Now, in terms of a naturalistic cause, CON has yet to demonstrate how it could still be a natural cause despite what the space-time theorem implies. If he can successfully demonstrate this, then he would falsify the God hypothesis. I still await for this from CON. 3."So PROs reliance on GR to arrive at a non-naturalistic cause of the universe is not actually supported by the science ï¿½ï¿½ï¿½?ï¿½" indeed, the science best suggests a tenseless, uncaused universe." Again, CON did not demonstrate, explain or provided evidence why things can come into being without a cause. 4."There seems nothing logically impossible that there be an infinite regress of causes - I can conceive it without contradiction, and some sets just don't have a first member (cf. the negative integers). Further, we don't need to say that the universe being first cause entails a past infinite, and even if we did that doesn't mean we'd 'never have gotten here', as we can have (for all we know) hypertasks and things like that. " Well first off, its one thing to concieve of an infinite regress of causes, but its another thing to translate it in the physical world. So CON conceiveing of it in his mind does not count, he must demonstrate how by giving an example of an infinite set within the real world like proving the universe is infinite. For instance, a perfect circle is mathematically possible but actually drawing a perfect circle in general is impossible. If the universe never began to exist, then the number of past events would be infinite. For example, if I told someone that before I go to bed to sleep I would flip the light switch for an infinite amount of times, would I be able to go to bed still? the answer is NO. Since Time is part of the universe and therefore signifies the motion of matter, then it follows that if time was infinite we would of never of gotten here in the first place. Lastly, again, CON needs to remember the title of the debate. What's the best SCIENTIFIC explanation NOT philosophical one. I was not using the first cause argument as an actual argument for God's existence. I was using it to establish an hypothesis that can be translated within the physical world, which is what the scientific method would require, that would eventually show that the God hypothesis is the best explanation for origins of the universe. Fine tuning 5."PRO has not responded to my rebuttal that we lack access to say there is fine-tuning, as we don?t know the field of possibilities to say whether life permitting universes are rare. Until he does so, this reason has no merit." Well first off, PRO has not any even explained how there could be more than one universe in the first place so posing these alternatives makes his point moot. However, for the sake of argument, let's assume there is more than one universe that could exist outside of our own. Second, to clarify my fine-tuning, Fine-tuning just means that the laws and constants fall under an extraordinarily narrow range of life permitting values in which the right value was chosen every time. Therefore, this is called fine tuning, but it does not mean its design. A cosmic designer would be one of the explanation of this fine-tuning that I am advocating but the terms are not synonymous. An alternative explanation for the fine-tuning of the universe is physical necessity ( i.e. laws of nature) which is what CON is referring to in the above quote. The problem with this being the explanation is that the fine-tuning constants and values do not apply to the laws of nature and are independent of them. So this explanation has to be automatically ruled out. 6."PRO also offered nothing to rebut a multiverse ensemble, which would also explain the fine tuning data without recourse to a divine being ? again, until he does, this reason has no merit." The other alternative explanation is based on chance. The problem with this explanation is that it does not answer the question as to why this "life-permitting" universe exist. All it does is just beg the question of "well, it just has to exist" because under a large number or infinite number of universes its possible that there could be at least one life permitting universe from an infinite or large number of chances. 7."PRO asserts this round (again) that you?d need infinite knowledge to be able to know what the right constants would be because they are from an infinite range of values. " Another reference to why we can conclude this being to be all-knowing. Principle of Universality states, that the same general scientific principles are probably true throughout the cosmos.This principle can bring us to the conclusion that by extracting from the unknown amount of intelligence in the natural sciences to the most likely degree of intelligence that is applicable throughout the cosmos. Since the universe is semi-infinite in the future, there's potentially an infinite number of mathematical relations out there to be discovered. Each of these relations by definition represents a small amount of cosmic intelligence waiting to be understood, so it follows that the universe must necessarily possess an infinite degree of mathematical intelligence. Origin of life 8."The fields of evolutionary biology and abiogenesis do this, and their conclusion is not ?there is no hope of finding a naturalistic explanation of life coming from non life, or complex life forms from simple ones?. Until PRO shows why we should think otherwise, he has no case." The origin of life argument was suppose to be connected to the beginning of the universe and the fine-tuning claim. If the data point from the beginning of the universe and fine-tuning claim are true, then it follows that the origin of life and complex life forms came from the same source. Therefore, we would have reason to believe in the God hypothesis explanation. So tell you what, I will just push aside this data point and just focus on the other references of fact in order to be reasonable for now.