Science has rendered theism unreasonable

I will not be addressing Pro's contentions in chronological order, because somethings are logically related in my rebuttal, but not in his. Round 1 quote: "unreasonable: not guided by or based on good sense." Pro's first objection is that I misunderstood modal logic. The basis for this debate does not require or imply modal logic. Pro seems to be confused between the difference between unreasonable and logically disproven. Reasonable, by the definition of unreasonable agreed to in round 1, does not require absolute proof. Furthermore, most theists agree that there is an element of faith to belief in a deity, even if that faith is based on reason. For example, a person may have faith in a friend that they will accomplish a task promised to be done by that friend. That belief does not require formal proof, but it is based on good sense given a history of dependability shown by that friend. Pro seems to require absolute proof for theism in order to deem it reasonable. Pro claims to have proven that the known physical laws will produce the observed universe. This is an enormous claim. In order to make this claim, one would need to be able to prove all general observations of the known universe can be explained by science, a task which Pro has not done here. Pro would not indeed have enough space to do so within the limits of DDO. Voters are encouraged by DDO not to let their bias influence their decisions, rather it should be based on the debate itself. In context of this debate, Pro has not begun to address the myriad of topics required to make this statement. Pro also took contention with the premise that G-d exists, stating that super natural creation is only metaphysically possible if this premise is proven. However, Pro fails to prove this premise has been falsified by science. Pro attempted to frame theism as a G-d of the Gaps belief by using the example given of gravity either being a natural force or a super natural force. The reason I appreciate this example is that Sir Isaac Newton was the one who is said to have discovered gravity, and Sir Isaac Newton believed in G-d [16]. In fact, there were a host of outstanding scientists who believed in science, because of their faith in G-d. John Lennox writes [17] Indeed, it was belief in an intelligent Creator that convinced the great pioneers, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, Clerk Maxwell, Babbage and many others that science could be done. C. S. Lewis put it this way: 'Men became scientific because they expected law in nature and they expected law in nature because they believed in a lawgiver." John Lennox, would have us believe that even Sir Issac Newton himself would have attributed gravity to natural forces he believed to be put in place by G-d, not to super natural forces as Pro claims. I continue to agree that G-d is unnecessary for creation, although it isn't proven beyond a doubt. Even though this may be the case, that does not mean that G-d wasn't a causal agent in creation, which is also unproven. In short, Pro has given us reason why we don't need to believe in G-d but not a reason to affirm the non-existence of G-d. Thus, this claim does not render theism as being unreasonable. Because there appears to be a misunderstanding between me and Pro, I will try to restate my position on the universe without a cause. Pro and I agree on one thing here, there must be an uncaused cause. Pro maintains that the universe itself was uncaused, while many theists maintain that G-d is uncaused. When we speculate about cause an effect, though, we do so from within the constraints of the universe around us, but not the constraints of what is beyond our universe, assuming there is such a thing. Pro's arguments seem to suggest that science supports the idea of existence outside our universe. Furthermore, space and time itself are likely describable in quantum mechanics (quantum gravity) given that time is likely another dimension, given this to be the case the laws of quantum mechanics allow for "spaces" and "times" to bubble and spontaneously appear. We know under these physics that such bubbles would almost instantly collapse (transient), and hence cannot yield our universe, unless these bubbles "inflated", only then will these "bubbles" of spacetime be long-lived enough to give rise to the universe today. Pro asserts that these bubbles exist outside of any external time which is used to further his idea that they are uncaused. However, Pro gave us no reason to believe this assertion. It is left as a philosophically biased assertion. It is reasonable that if indeed other universes bubble up into existence, then there is existence in these other universes outside of our own. If these is some reality outside of our universe, then that reality may include cause and effect events, which is also implicit in the above quote from Pro. In fact, the multiverse is often used as a counter argument to the Fine-Tuning Argument that the Laws of Nature are fine tuned for the ability of life to exist [18, 19]. In other words, if some of the universal constants (strength of gravity for example) were changed even slightly, either atoms wouldn't form, or planets wouldn't form, etc, such that no life could exist. One author puts it, "The multiverse theory seeks to replace the appearance of design by the hand of chance. [20]" So, it is possible for there to be causes in some reality outside of our universe. If this is the case, neither an A-Series or B-Series of time prevents a causal agent from creating our universe, whether intelligent (e.g. G-d) or unintelligent (natural forces). Another way of looking at it is as follows. We know that cause and effect can only happen within the constraints of time. If there exist other realities outside of our universe that have cause and effect, then they too much have their own time independent of our universe's time. If they have their own time independent of our universe's time, then Pro's assertion that our universe cannot have a cause fails. The statement, "At not point did the universe ever "not exist"" is in reference to the time associated with our universe, but not the time associated with other universes/realities. Pro claims we do not have time and entropy outside the universe, but in fact we do not know what, if anything, is outside our universe. Pro did not give us reason to believe that there is no entropy outside our universe. Although I addressed this in my last rebuttal, Pro did not see the correlation to WLC's quote. Here I have expounded upon it several ways. I agree that believing anything (redundant or not) without reason is unreasonable by definition. However, Pro has not claimed that there is no reason to believe in G-d, and as I have spent my efforts addressing Pro's arguments, I have not put forth a positive case for the existence of G-d. There are, in fact, reasons to believe in G-d. The atheist tends to not find them sufficient for faith. The fact that G-d cannot be proven does not invalidate the fact that there is reason to believe. In an American court, the jury is to determine if someone is guilty only if they believe there is no reasonable doubt. That does not mean that there is no reason at all to believe the person is guilty, or that belief in guilt is unreasonable. It only implies that it is not well proven, and there is a difference. Renown atheist, Richard Dawkins, puts it this way [20]: Now one might be forgiven for not realising this, as Dawkins is quite dismissive of the fine-tuning argument. He states the problem correctly: "Physicists have calculated that, if the laws and constants of physics had been even slightly different, the universe would have developed in such a way that life would have been impossible."... Dawkins concludes, "As ever, the theist"s answer is deeply unsatisfying, because it leaves the existence of God unexplained. A God capable of calculating the Goldilocks values " would have to be at least as improbable as the finely tuned combination of numbers itself, and that is very improbable indeed." He is left marvelling at the number of people, who seem genuinely satisfied by the "Divine Knob-Twiddler" argument, as he crudely puts it. Dawkins himself affirms that Christians, at the least, have given reasons to believe in a G-d, even if they leave room for reasonable doubt. I honestly don't follow Pro's logic in asserting that G-d creating the laws of nature is a contradiction. Pro has affirmed that the laws of nature, not G-d, created the universe. Under a belief in deism, which was commonly held by many great minds including Albert Einstein, G-d created the universe and its laws which set the universe in motion. Pro didn't prove that the law of nature could have created EVERYTHING we observe, thus his statement is an assertion of bias, not fact. There was no statement that G-d created a random universe, as Pro claims. Finally, Pro continues to assert absurd claims by stating that if the super natural interacted with the natural, we wouldn't be able to do science because of the interference. In this, Pro is also claiming that the super natural WOULD interfere in science experiments if it COULD do so. Science is based on repeatable experiments. If a super natural agent did influence our universe, we would not be able to go rerun the experiment. In fact, when someone dies, we use forensic science to determine how, and that is based on logic and reasoning. It isn't perfect science. Science can show how the natural interacts with itself, not how the super natural interacts with the natural. 16) http://www.icr.org... 17) http://www.christianpost.com... 18) http://biologos.org... 19) http://en.wikipedia.org... 20) http://www.bethinking.org...