THB: God exists.

Atheists believe our universe can be explained without need of an outside force. Theists, however, believe the contrary. We believe in a divine creator, outside of the confines of space and time. I will give the evidence of a divine creator. OUR UNIVERSE HAD A BEGINNING A common theory is the theory of an infinite universe, and it attempts to stay within the universe. The universe has always been here. There are a few flaws in this, though. One is that it is widely accepted that the universe will eventually die somehow [1]. But, in order for the universe to end, it must have a beginning. Let me put it like this. Say that I am training you for a track meet. You put your foot on the starting block, but then I tell you to move it back several feet. You do so, and then I tell you to do it again, and this keeps happening. Without a starting place, you can never run the course and reach the finish line. The same is true for the universe. If the universe does not have a starting place, it cannot run its course and reach the finish. So, we know that the universe had a beginning, but it does not necessarily show a divine creator, which brings me to the next part of my evidence. OUR UNIVERSE APPEARS TO BE FINE-TUNED No one can deny that the universe appears to be fine-tuned. While some come up with theories to explain this, let"s go over the evidence first. For the majority of theists, a higher power created the universe. For the majority of atheists, a happy little cosmic accident. If it was an accident, it was a pretty convenient one. The theory of fine-tuning is that the universe has been specially designed to sustain life. Even Stephen Hawking, the world"s most famous scientist and atheist, has stated "The laws of science, as we know them at present, contain many fundamental numbers, like the size of the electric charge of the electron and the ratio of the masses of the proton and the electron ... The remarkable fact is that the values of these numbers seem to have been very finely adjusted to make possible the development of life." [2] For instance, if the strength of the Big Bang had differed in its strength by 1 in 10^60 more or less, the universe would have collapsed back onto itself or have expanded too fast for stars to form. For an illustration, imagine shooting a gun from one end of the observable universe to a one-inch target on the other side, which is 20 billion light years away, and hitting it. There is more evidence in favor of fine-tuning, but for the sake of time, I will move on to the most common explanation of it, the multiverse theory. It states that there are an infinite number of universes, each one different from each other. It is a good explanation for fine-tuning, we just so happen to exist in a universe that had the right necessity for life, but it does have its flaws. For instance, let"s say that I don"t believe anything that doesn"t have sufficient evidence, but I believe in a multiverse. There is no evidence of a multiverse, so why would I believe in it? Simple, it is the simplest explanation. But it avoids the necessity of a creator. It would still need to be created. In the next round, I will go into rebuttals against my opponent. [1] http://www.physlink.com... [2] Stephen Hawking, 1988."A Brief History of Time, Bantam Books, p. 7, 125.