Atheism (Con) vs. The Existence of God (Pro)

Refutation of the Atheist Case Recall that it was not my contention that God is needed to create the Universe, rather it was my position that the relevant facts of reality make better sense on theism than atheism: the cosmos coming into being from no prior material cause makes better sense on theism, where God is the necessarily existing efficient cause of a contingent creation. This creation has embodied moral and rational agents endowed with intrinsic value and dignity, we can appreciate a beautiful creation and interact with it in a good way if we so choose. This makes better sense on theism because God is intensely personal, and so its no surprise that he would create persons capable of grasping the Good. Now Con admitted that he failed to offer rational evidence disconfirming the existence of such a supreme being; but then he attempts to soften the blow by objecting that no one has experienced this God. But why suppose this is true? Has Con shown evidence undercutting the reality of religious experience as well as the existential yearning for it on atheism? His silence on this point negates this recent retreat. For I argued that nearly the entire globe admits to have some sort of personal relation with their creator; whether such experiences are veridical or not hasn’t been brought up by Con so all he can do is handwave and argument from ignorance at this point. Con also claims that his method was to disprove the Bible. But I already explained that biblical interpretation / inspiration is irrelevant to this debate. We're both engaged in natural theology, not revealed theology. Thus it is pointless for Con to disprove Adam and Eve! I already affirm evolution and showed its compatibility with theism (as well as its incompatibility with atheism, another point which Con failed to address). With his #2, I argued that God could exist timelessly without creation yet in time subsequent to creation. Defense of Theist Case Facts I. Personal Cosmos I agree with Con that we were conditioned to think the world is beautiful. But the question is what worldview better explains this fact? I argued that theism does where atheism attempts to explain away (assert) the fact by an appeal to illusion. On theism we can be realists about beauty, on atheism we cannot. This is telling. Through natural selection, I agree that we evolved in a way that allowed us to interact with our environment in a good way. Again the question is not whether this is a fact, but rather which view better explains this fact? I contend that because God is personal, it wouldn’t be surprising that he would want his created persons to enjoy his creation when they finally evolved into beings capable of such enjoyment. Atheism says that this too is an illusion, there are nothing but causal inputs and outputs, pain is the same as pleasure. This too is telling! Con asks here if God creates things for good purposes, then why are some people evil? This is a pseud-question, for it assumes that it is a coherent idea that someone is free to do what they are determined to do… But that’s false, God can’t make a person freely choose to do the right thing, because that’s a contradiction. Hence given a world with created free creatures, it will always be possible for at least one of those creatures to use their endowed freedom, a good thing, to do evil. So because persons are originators of their own will, and if that will is to do evil rather than good, then it follows that it doesn’t count against God’s existence that his creatures freely choose to do evil rather than good. If anything it affirms the need for a savior, in which case Christianity ought to be investigated more. Either way a fall into sin is expected on theism and so evil agents cannot count as evidence against theism. Indeed how could it? On atheism, “evil” doesn’t exist, for Con said that morals are just emotional brain happenings, nothing is truly evil. This then is another case in which atheism explains away the facts rather than actually explaining it! (Telling) Therefore, I know that “this is the way the universe works,” but the question is what world view better explains this phenomena, not whether this phenomena exists. And in each case I think I have argued successfully that theism better explains why the universe is tuned this way. Explanation of Facts II. Contingent Cosmos by Necessary Being Contingent Cosmos Con argues that science has not given us proof that a necessary being could exist. But is science a study of necessary or contingent beings? I agree that we can explain how things work in the cosmos in terms of science, but why think that science extends itself to explaining why there is anything at all in the first place? A metal detector can’t detect rubber any more than a project to uncover contingent reality can detect a non-contingent ground of that reality. Moreover there are at least two types of explanations for any cause, personal or scientific. But given that the cosmos came to be, and is not infinite in its existence, a scientific explanation is inadequate because there is no spatio-temporal thing beyond space and time accounted for in terms of laws operating on scientific initial conditions. So the cosmic origin can only be accounted for by a personal explanation in terms of volition! To affirm that God is a necessary being if he exists is just the opposite of affirming that he “was created by chance.” I don't know how Con arrived to this bizarre conclusion. Things coming to be from what appears to be mere chance describes things which exist contingently. I said that God is uncreated, not that he is created without being created. God has no need for generation, for he is a necessary being, hence there was never a state in which he did not exist. Otherwise he wouldn't be God; for whatever could have caused him would itself be God, if you will. Con also admits that “one cannot explain where the Universe came from without wondering how the singularity came into existence.” Actually the theist can, God, the only necessarily existing ground of being who is uncaused, created the universe at a single point which marks the coming to be of all space, time, matter and energy. Problem solved. Con admits that he can’t make sense of this, a fine example of an argument from ignorance. Con repeatedly begs the question of naturalism in each objection he raises. He assumes for instance that Planck-time must exist for a timeless entity. But that’s absurd, for he also affirmed that timelessness is just that; the universal negation of any time whatever, which includes Planck-time. True timelessness doesn’t include time let alone any measure of it. Now the Minkowskian unity of space and time into space time is a mathematical unity useful for diagrammatic representations of cosmological models. So although this 4D topology has an instrumental use, nevertheless it doesn’t have to be taken literal in a realist sense. Con therefore brings up an irrelevant and misunderstood notion into the fray. Con then complains that time is required for certain processes that a necessary being can do. But how is this an objection to the existence of such a being? Suppose that God has access to all of his thoughts and causal potentials timelessly, there’s nothing in the least bit incoherent about this! Indeed what could be more obvious that God knows all true propositions at once? Created temporal beings may not be aware of everything we know in one instance, we may have to think in terms of a “stream” of consciousness, but how does that imply that all persons must think and act in such a way? Reason To the challenge, why think it is more likely that reason should emerge if some of the fundamental causes of the universe are not more like a mind? … Con again answers that evolution provided enough time for reasoning beings to emerge. But again this misses the point. I included the emergence of reasoning beings from evolutionary processes as a fact to be explained! And I argued that theism better explains such an emergence than atheism because God is inherently the rational cause responsible for the rationality we find in the world. Whereas on atheism, arational processes caused rational beings. All Con does is cite the fact of evolution again, then glosses “atheism” as an asserted answer. But not even the gloss works, for because evolution selects for survival value and not rational / true belief value, then why should we expect nothing more to emerge than beings capable of practical reasoning to propositions which can neither be discerned as true or false, but just practical or impractical for survival if no rational being is superintending the evolutionary process? Con has no answer here and so fails to engage the theist challenge. For humans don’t just reason practically, we also reason metaphysically! And it is this fact that is better explained on theism than atheism. Personal Dignity and Human Value Con claims that morality occurs logically, but not only is it notoriously difficult to derive a moral ought from a rational is -- but Con, in the same breadth, actually reduces moral value and personal dignity to neurophysical events, which aren’t even logical events! He thinks that emotions produced as chemicals cause the illusion of true personal value and dignity (logic too). And he is correct… if atheism is true, that is. The problem is he hasn’t given us a reason for thinking that atheism is true! All he’s given is assertions for doubting everything we know as fact about reality! But we need a defeater for such things, not assertions! Hence within the absence of a defeater for assuming that humans indeed have value, reason to metaphysical conclusions, live in a beautiful contingent cosmos, etc; then it follows that such things are better represented within a theistic context than an atheistic one. Summary http://www.debate.org...