Atheism or Theism

I want to remind the readers that Round 3 is to be used for rebuttals only, so I will not be defending my opening arguments from Pro's rebuttal until the last round.Contention 1: Extraordinary Claims; Extraordinary EvidenceThe main problem with this argument is how utterly arbitrary it ends up being. Moreover, I think my opponent doesn't understand the nature of evidence.First, evidence is not in and of itself proof. Evidence, rather, supports a proposition. A prosecutor's proposition—that the defendant was at the scene of the crime—is given support by the evidence—that matching boot prints were discovered at the scene.Second, something is not always exclusively evidence for exactly one proposition. For example, DNA between species has many similarities, and is considered to be evidence for speciation through natural selection. However, it could equally be considered evidence in support of the Biblical notion that creatures were created similarly, e.g., God created animals according to "kind." The evidence can support either proposition even though neither proposition can be simultaneously true.Third, evidence comes in degrees. Strong evidence is evidence that makes the proposition far more likely than not. Weak evidence makes a proposition a little more likely, but the proposition will probably need to have more evidence to make it more acceptable. In fact, lots of weak evidence can be just as effective as a single piece of strong evidence in some cases.Fourth, there are different kinds of evidence. There is appeal to rationality, in which the evidence could come in the form of statistics, experiments, logic, facts, analogies, etc. Then there is ethical appeal—evidence that comes from the testimony of eyewitnesses, field experts, etc. Sometimes evidence is experiential, which might involve emotions or subjective experiences. Certainly rational evidence is considered to be of higher value, but that does not mean other kinds of evidence do not have their place. Even in court, all types of evidence are usually provided in order to make a stronger case.Given a proper understanding of the nature of evidence, it is startling to see my opponent assert that there is simply no evidence for theism whatsoever. The Bible is testimonial evidence. There is the experiential evidence of the millions of Christians around the world. There is even rational evidence in the form of a multitude of arguments: The Transcendental Argument for God's Existence, the Cosmological Argument, the Moral Argument, the Ontological Argument, and the Teleological Argument, just to name a few. Whether my opponent is convinced by the evidence is irrelevant. The point is that evidence is not the same as proof, and to insist on it is intellectually dishonest.This should also increase our skepticism over what exactly is meant by extraordinary evidence. What makes evidence extraordinary is completely dependent upon the person evaluating it. I personally find the evidence for theism quite extraordinary. So, there you go. According to KRFournier, there is indeed extraordinary evidence for theism. If my opponent wants me to use a more objective standard, then he is tasked to explain what precisely extraordinary evidence is in the first place. Otherwise, this whole argument is wishful thinking.Contention 2: God is IncoherentEvery example in this contention is a straw man argument. God is only incomprehensible if every attribute of God is misrepresented to such an alarming degree as to render them intrinsically meaningless from the start.First, I reread both Round 1 and 2 and was unable to see where I or anyone I cited claimed that God was ineffable. Moreover, if God were ineffable (unable to be described), it wouldn't matter how we described him would it? Any being that is ineffable would be intrinsically impossible. My opponent has to render God unintelligible without warrant from the start in order to make his case.Second, I defined God as most loving. To say that God must not keep records of wrong is to insist that God is only Agape and nothing else. Given Pro's equivocation here, it would be permissible to say that God is Love and Love is God, i.e., that God is the thing called love and not a person or being at all. This is as ridiculous as saying that I cannot have other attributes because I am kind. In normal, everyday language, when someone says So-and-so is X, they mean that they possess the attribute of X, not that they are X and only X. Thus, Pro's efforts in this regard reduce to absurdity.Third, my opponent repeats the above mistake with justice and mercy. Now, I tried to view his quote from Matt Slick to verify that he was being quoted in context, but Pro's links are broken. Suffice it to say, the only way to say that mercy is wholly incompatible with justice is to define God as only one or the other. What merits such unscholarly use of language? God is, per our accepted definition, most just and merciful. The term "most" implies that He is the being with the capacity for being the best arbiter of justice due to his omniscience. It does not imply that God is so just that he cannot be anything else or even have a free will for that matter. Pro needs to do more than make a bare assertion that justice and mercy are mutually exclusive attributes.ConclusionPro is tasked to provide convincing philosophical support for atheism, yet what he gives us are arbitrary standards of evidence, unscholarly claims that there is no evidence for theism (as though an absence of evidence for theism constitutes evidence for atheism in the first place), misrepresentations of Christian theology, and hyper-literal application of common terms.