God exists.

On Dreams:I have a few things to point out in terms of dreams: 1. The first I will take from the following video on "coincidence": (http://www.youtube.com...). The question of dreams and their accuracy or relevance with regard to objective reality are ultimately dependent on probability. It it a problem similar to the main problem of epistemology: if you hold a belief that is "correct," one must make an effort to justify it, even if it is correct, because there is a chance that you were correct simply by chance. For example, if you are about to flip a coin and believe it will land on heads, and then it does land on heads, it cannot be said that you actually knew that it would land on heads. You must show that you hold not only a true belief, but a justified true belief. It is a similar issue with dreams: one must show that their dreams have a probability of showing significant and relevant information with regard to the outside world, and that it is not probable that there are other reasons for these dreams. As the video says, "Statements of prediction are equally subject to the laws of probability." I propose my opponent has made a statement of prediction, in that he is making a claim of the source and reason for his visions that has probability lying on the claim. The video asks you to think of the "dizzying variety of behaviors that you engage in as just one person... the permutations of the vast number of experiences allow for at least a small number of the world's population to witness these bizarre and astonishing coincidences you might imagine." What is the coincidence? The question underlying this tangent is what the coincidence is, so I suggest to my opponent that the incredible amount of coverage and attention Christianity gets in this day and age provides a better explanation for his dreams and visions than the inherent truth or relevancy of said visions. The second thing I would like to bring into this discussion of my opponent's dreams and visions is from Friedrich Nietzsche's Human, All-Too-Human. Nietzsche tells us in Section 1/Part 12 of the mind while asleep: "Arbitrary and confused as it is, it continually mistakes things on the basis of the most superficial similarities; but it was the same arbitrariness and confusion with which the tribes composed their mythologies, and even now travellers regularly observe how greatly the savage inclines to forgetfulness, how, after he strains his memory briefly, his mind begins to stagger about, and he produces lies and nonsense simply because he is weary." He continues on why this happens in Section 1/Part 13: "When we sleep, our nervous system is continually stimulated by various inner causes: almost all the organs secrete and are active; the blood circulates turbulently; the sleeper's position presses certain limbs; his blankets influence sensation in various ways; the stomach digests and disturbs other organs with its movements; the intestines turn; the placement of the head occasions unusual positions of the muscles; the feet, without shoes, their soles not pressing on the floor, causing a feeling of unusualness, as does the different way the whole body is clothed after its daily change and variation; all of this strangeness stimulates the entire system, including even the brain function. And so there are a hundred occasions for the mind to be amazed, to seek reasons for this stimulation. It is the dreams which seeks and imagines the causes for those stimulated feelings -- that is, the alleged causes."And further:"The stimulated imagination turns the recent past, disclosed in this way, into the present. Everyone knows from experience how fast the dreamer can incorporate into his dream aloud sound he hears, a bell ringing, for example, or cannon fire, how he can explain it after the fact from his dream, so that he believes he is experiencing the occasioning factors, and then that sound."So here I propose that we have a much better explanation for my opponent's visions and dreams (which I cannot possibly take upon myself to prove did not happen) than the validity and relevance of said dreams. I think it makes quite a bit of sense, having understood the nature of coincidence with regard to the immense number of experiences we have each day and the mind's incredible ability to be deceived, even while sleeping. I will also point out with regard to probability that if dreams and visions are to be given such a power, the power to give us eternal and objective truth, then probability requires of us to consider all dreams and visions in such an analysis. Thus, anyone's vision of a pink elephant while on LSD or while dreaming must be taken just as seriously as the vision of Christ, and I propose there is no difference, practically or theoretically, between my recurring nightmare of being eaten by a fire-breathing t-Rex when I was a child (how strange our dreams can be, mind you) and my opponent's recurring visions of Christ. My opponent has given no reason to believe they should be treated differently, and the fact that speaking of Christ is quite a commonplace in today's world, especially for a born-again Christian like my opponent, gives a very likely explanation for why these dreams are occurring, as opposed to my opponent's insistence that these dreams are somehow not just a coincidence but a source of revealed truth (a "source" of truth that, mind you, has not been validated by my opponent). My opponent says that dreams appear "so real," and he is correct. I propose I have given a reason for this (or, more precisely, Nietzsche has given a reason for this), and anyone who has suffered from night terrors and had to be convinced of their innate arbitrariness by their parents will recognize that the perceived "realness" of the dreams is no indication of their truth claims or relevance to objective inquiries into the nature of things or the cosmos. This, I have done what my opponent has asked of me, and shown him why dreams and visions are not a "reason to believe in God."On the validity of the Bible:My opponent has further claimed that the Bible is 100% accurate and correct." I will first ask him which stories in the Bible are 100% accurate, as there are many stories which are mutually exclusive describing the same supposed "event." He says that to "trust the bible you need to read the Bible." I have read numerous books, including Homer's the Odyssey. I would ask my opponent to lay out why these ancient tale of the travels of Odysseus are not 100% accurate, and I suspect he would turn to historical documentation and the nature and scope of fiction. It is a level of analysis he apparently has not used on the Bible, and fails to recognize that the reading of a series of text does not suffice in demonstrating their usefulness or their accuracy. One must provide reasons outside of the Bible that point to the validity of the Bible, and this is a commonplace and widely-accepted process of justification. My opponent claims that history speaking of the fall of Jericho is reason to believe that said fall happened the way the Bible says it does. He asks "would history lie?" I think anyone who has read history knows that history has a long and complicated history with falsifying the truth, making the study of history much more than simply reading ancient accounts, but requires one to engage in cultural, literary, and historical analysis. It is a quite common notion to say that "The victors write history," and the methods by which we examine texts for historical truth must be, and oftentimes is, much more complicated than taking their claims at face value. For example, the Gospel of Judas says that Jesus told Judas to betray him so that it would be thought Jesus was the Messiah, fulfilling the ancient prophecies. I realize the historical controversy over this text, but my opponent's historical evaluative criterion provide no reason to believe the canonical bible over this account.