God does not exist.

Ave Introductory note I want to start off by noting that I did, in fact, provide sources. Unless I’m hallucinating, there are six references at the end of my opening statement. A source doesn’t stop becoming a source just because it doesn’t have a URL. (If Con disagrees, then perhaps he should share his insights with anyone who has ever cited a book). Nonetheless, I offered to provide the URL for any source that can be found on the internet, so here they are. (I referenced three books, so I don’t have links for those.) [1] http://www.nku.edu... [2] http://plato.stanford.edu... [3] http://www.reasonablefaith.org... Pulling an Apeiron (Thanks for the term, RT.) Con has used pictures of text in order to make an argument, thereby bypassing the character limit established for this debate. The character count of his argument without pictures comes out to 9258 characters. When you add his pictures (I excluded the one that came after Wikipedia because I am not willing to type all that out), the character count comes out to a full 12,252 characters, which is 2,252 characters above the limit. I have reproduced the text of all his argument, included pictures, so that anyone can check for themselves. [1] This assuredly warrants conduct points, if not a full seven point loss. A Critique of Con’s Argument First of all, this debate isn’t even about whether the Quran is divinely inspired. We’re debating if god, defined as the rational, necessarily existing, and external cause of the universe, exists. It’s logically consistent to say that the Quran was divinely inspired while also denying the existence of a necessarily existing external cause of the universe. After all, Con has not stated any reasons that the properties of ‘’god’’ as stated in R1 must be possessed by the divine being that inspired the Quran. Con’s arguments won’t even get him off the ground in terms of affirming the resolution. Con starts off his argument by stating that many scientists, oceanologists, and archeologists have converted to the Quran after reading it. This claim does not receive any citation or reference. Besides, its relevance is as clear as a sand storm in the Arabian Peninsula. Many scientists convert to many different religions after reading their respective holy books, and many scientists lose their religion. Why are we supposed to take it as special if a few scientists convert to Islam, when it happens every day with other religions? Con admires the work of Dr. Keet Moore and his statements about the Quran. Unfortunately, his argument is a logically invalid appeal to authority. An appeal to authority is valid if and only if the authority has expertise that is 1) relevant to the subject and 2) there exists consensus among experts on the subject. [2] While Dr. Moore is clearly an expert on embryology, there is no consensus among embryologists about whether the claims in the Quran are scientific and could not have been known by people living during the time. Therefore, his argument is an invalid appeal to authority, as it fails to meet both standards. One must also ask, ‘’What do the Muslim apologists know about embryology that the large majority of embryologists don’t?’’. I would be hard-pressed to find any discussion in an embryology journal about the scientific claims of the Quran, and most embryologists don’t believe in the Quran. If Quranic embryology was scientific, you would expect these type of things to be happening. Why aren’t embryologists jumping all over this? The fact that they don’t lowers the plausibility of Con’s argument. Con’s descriptions of physical cosmology are extremely inaccurate. He describes the universe as steadily expanding, or in other words, it’s expanding at the same rate constantly. This is false, as the expansion of the universe is actually speeding up due to dark energy [3]. He also describes the universe as coming from a Prime Nebula. This is patently false as well. Edwin Hubble’s work had absolutely nothing to do with the existence of any prime nebula. All modern cosmological models are FRW models which state that the beginning of the universe was a mathematical abstraction called a singularity (it has no physical status). Con describes the Quran’s verses on the universe as unambiguous, but provides no reason to believe this is true. When the Quran says “AND IT IS We who have built the universe with [Our creative] power; and, verily, it is We who are steadily expanding it’’, what reason is there to think that it refers to the expansion of space-time? One can interpret the verse to mean that they are adding onto the creativity of their work, like a painter who keeps coming back to make their painting better. There are also many different translations of this verse, with no reason to prefer Con’s translations. These translations state nothing that would imply the expansion of the universe at all. For example, Umm Muhammad’s translation of the verse states “And the heaven We constructed with strength, and indeed, We are [its] expander.”[4] The obvious meaning is that the power of heaven is growing every day. Why prefer your translation over the others? Furthermore, the description of the origins of the universe as from a ‘’cloud of gases’’ is extremely unscientific, as the elements that make up gases exist after the universe, not before it. Another major problem with Con’s argument is that it fails to account for some other possibilities. For example, he has not provided any evidence that the knowledge Muhammad had was not available to a person of his time. That alone makes his argument a non-starter. For example, the description of ‘’sperm and ovum’’ was already known to Aristotle during the Hellenistic era [5]. The book of Genesis, which predates the Quran by thousands of years, says “And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother's wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother. And Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother's wife, that he spilled it on the ground.” Clearly people during this time knew about how semen was involved in reproduction. [6] It is very plausible that these ideas reached the Arabian peninsula through diffusion. The Seleucid and Parthian empires, successor empires to Alexander of Macedon’s empire, all touched on the Arabian peninsula. Therefore, Greek ideas from people like Aristotle could have easily reached the Arabian peninsula by time the Quran was written. He has also not disproved the possibility that some parts of the Quran were simply right by accident. Many creation myths involve the universe coming into being, which modern cosmology certainly agrees with. However, they were simply guessing. There was no divine revelation or reason for it. Nobody says that ancient creation myths are true because they said some things consistent with cosmology, so why do this for the Quran? My Case Con has completely failed to respond to any of the two arguments I presented. Remember, I gave the entailment argument, which demonstrates that god does not exist, and another argument in favor of the incoherence of a necessary being. I extend both of these arguments as they have not been touched or disputed. Conclusion Con has failed to respond to any of the arguments I have made against the existence of god. He has cheated, whether on purpose or on accident, by using pictures of text as argument. Besides this, it has been demonstrates that many Quranic descriptions of the early universe are scientifically inaccurate, such as the universe being made from gases. He has yet to provide any arguments in favor of his translation of verses rather than the other ones. Furthermore, his argument from embryology relies on invalid appeals to authority and fails to account for the current literature in embryology. Con must also show that the Quran’s verses were not 1) right by accident or 2) already known at the time. For these reasons, I think the preponderance of the evidence favors Pro at this point. Vale References http://pastebin.com... http://www.princeton.edu... http://www.bbc.co.uk... http://www.islamawakened.com... http://en.wikipedia.org... http://skepticsannotatedbible.com...