There is no evidence for the existence of a supreme deity.

It should be interesting, and I hope that we benefit from each other’s ideas. I accept all definitions given by my opponent. _________________________ First, I will refute my opponent’s claims. A The argument from revelation My opponent argues that revelations cannot be taken into account because there is no proof to support them (“I have brought no evidence to the table and therefore people may discard my revelations. ”). This is true. However, there have been revelations that do, in fact, have proof. For example, the Our Lady of Fatima revelation. Three shepherd children reported that the Blessed Virgin Mary had appeared to them. As early as July 1917 it was claimed that the Virgin Mary had promised a miracle for the last of her apparitions on 13 October, so that all would believe. [1] This claim was greatly ridiculed by Portuguese journalists, until on 13 October, 1917 the Miracle of the Sun occurred. This was witnessed by thousands of people from various backgrounds, including some of the Portuguese journalists. There have been many statements written about it. [2] Whether or not the Miracle of the Sun was a meteorological event or not, the children still somehow predicted it, thus proving that they did have some sort of revelation. To summarize, my opponent is correct in saying that a claim without proof is mere hearsay, but there are revelations that actually do have proof, so his argument is invalid. B Argument from miracles or testimony The pro argues that just because how something is done is unexplained does not mean that it implies divinity. Again, he is correct in this statement. The problem is, when something (for simplicity I will refer to it as a miracle) is not humanly possible there must be some other factor that made it possible. My opponent used the example of Jesus’ miracles. Jesus, unlike Penn and Teller, did things that were not and are not physically possible (such as healing the sick through touch and even raising people from the dead), and there are multiple accounts of these miracles [3]. While I cannot explain how Penn and Teller do their tricks, it can be explained (and they do explain how to do some of their tricks). The miracles done by Jesus were not possible through human means, and thus required some sort of divinity. The pro’s argument on testimony is near identical to his argument on revelation (they both say that without proof, a person’s claim to divine revelation cannot be considered true), and so I direct him back to my response to his earlier argument, that there has been external evidence brought to the table. His claim is, again, incorrect. C Argument from the majority I agree with the pro that a majority belief does not prove for certain that a god exists. However, just because it does not prove the existence of god does not mean that it disproves it either. Stated simply, this claim neither proves nor disproves that a divine being is possible. I would like to point out that my opponent states that “while there are hundreds of reasons that people say they believe in god, space only allows me to put a few” even though he did not even use half of his available 8,000 characters. This indicates that he could not think of rebuttals to other arguments for the existence of god. _________________________ I now will list reasons that there is evidence for the existence of a deity. My arguments will be organized the same way my opponent’s were. A Morality Without a supreme deity, where could morality come from? All humans have been born with morals, as shown in the Illustrations of the Tao by C. S. Lewis. In this, Lewis shows that cultures all throughout history, all over the world even agree on the same basic moral principles. [4] If these principles were made up by man, why don’t they differ? Sure, even Lewis agrees that morals differ on the finer points, but the basic principles (such as not to kill, to respect parents, etc. ), are all the same, throughout history and throughout the world. I invite my opponent to read the moral argument [5] and I quote: “If the moral argument can be defended against the various objections that have been raised against it, then it proves the existence of an author of morality, of a being that has authority over and that actively rules over all creation…this would give us proof that there is a perfect, necessary, and eternal being that created the universe with life in mind and has the authority to tell us how we are to run it. The correct response to this would be to seek God’s will and to practice it. ” So, morality proves that there must be a supreme divine being. B Creation There are multiple reasons why creation must come, eventually, to some supreme being. St. Thomas Aquinas listed five in his “Reasons in Proof of the Existence of God” [6]. The simplest among these are the unmoved mover and the chain of creation arguments. Because for something to be in motion it must have, at one point, been moved, this chain eventually will end up with the supreme mover that has not been moved by anything – god. Similarly, everything must have, at one point, been created except for the one thing that created everything. A table was created by a carpenter, the carpenter by his parents, them by their parents, etc. until you reach something that was not created but created everything – a supreme being. Thus, the existence of a deity is required for the existence of anything else. C It is impossible to disprove a deity The non-existence of a god cannot be proven, as one cannot prove a universal negative. [7] So, the pro will lose the debate due to the fact that he is trying to prove something that simply cannot be proven. Note: In source [7] there are more examples of well publicized miracles done by Jesus. [1] . http://en.wikipedia.org... [2] . http://en.wikipedia.org... [3] . http://www.newadvent.org... [4] . http://www.columbia.edu... [5]. http://nitaaiveda.com... [6] . http://www.fordham.edu... [7] . http://www.allaboutcreation.org... _________________________ Again, I thank my opponent for this debate and wish him luck. I await his response.