God is existant

I will spend this round mostly summarising my case and voting issues with the exception of the argument from religious experience, for which I will provide a full rebuttal. Summary &Voting Issues Definition of God Pro clearly defined from the outset, and we agreed that the definition of God is “a maximally great being” – thus to win Pro needs to affirm that a being of this definition exists. So note that any affirmation of a being of a different definition is non-topical to this debate e. g. his affirmation of a “greatest possible being” etc. do not affirm the resolution. Priority of Arguments If my argument form non-cognitivism of God is upheld, then one must vote Con, since any argument that affirms God’s existence necessarily presupposes that the concept of “God” is cognitive. It is impossible to affirm anything’s existence if the concept itself it not cognitive since it can not form a coherent metaphysical object. Thus, even if my rebuttals to his modal ontological argument, or his argument from religious experience fail, then Pro will lose, since it will not affirm a God as defined within this debate. It may well be the case that a “God” of another definition (that is cognitive) is true which explains those arguments – but it would lose for the purposes of this debate. Furthermore, IF all of our arguments fail (non-cognitivism, modal ontological argument, religious experience), then again one must vote Con, since Pro has failed to uphold his burden of proof on a positive resolution. Non-Cognitivism Modal Ontological Argument I will summarise by outlining the major red flags within the argument: 1. A maximally great being existing entails modal necessary existence 2. Logical Possibility vs Metaphysical Possibility 3. Subjunctive Possibility 4. A maximally great being is logically possible Any of these flags outright renders Pro’s entire argument unsound. 1. A maximally great being existing entails modal necessary existence Pro’s entire defence of this has been one big appeal to intuition. I have argued at length at how using this “magical power” is absurd in these contexts, and how modal necessity is clearly not something we can ever claim to have any intuitive grasp of – since modal logic plays virtually no role in our everyday lives. Bad evidence is not sufficient evidence for something to be true – one should not need to appeal to bad evidence in order to make a case which rests on the assumption made on bad evidence – its a house built on sand – liable to crumble. My arguments have been along the lines of an argument from unreliability – which I provide the following quote: “1. One is justified in believing on the (sole) basis of a putative source of evidence only if it is reliable. 2. Intuitions (or intuitions of type T) are not reliable. C. Beliefs based (solely) on intuitions (or intuitions of type T) are not justified. “[ . http://plato.stanford.edu...] Pro would first have needed to affirm intuitions are generally reliable outside of everyday contexts in order to make a good case. I digress with my plethora of examples from physics and mathematics (from which modal logic is strongly derived). 2. Pro has spent this entire argument affirming logical possibility, but this is all moot given that metaphysical possibility is the required mode for the argument to be valid. The world isn’t brute logic, it is physical, it contains “stuff”. Thus contradictions in the physical world depend on the state of physical reality. Pro has failed to appreciate this important distinction – hence even if one buys his (non-existant) arguments for logical possibility – it is insufficient to sustain the resolution. I have upheld my case with examples where this distinction applies, with many more being readily made on the whim . 3. Subjunctive Possibility Pro still blatantly misunderstands the differences in subjunctive possibilities and much of his affirmation of the logical possibility of God assumes the equivalency of epistemic possibility with logical/metaphysicial possibility. This is asinine, and a blatant fallacy of equivocation. Thus based on this alone, the argument fails. 4. A Maximally Great Being is Logically Possible I have demonstrated at length how one simply cannot just assume anything is logically possible by: i. Possibility of modal collapse ii. Reverse possibility premise is mutually exclusive iii. Assuming this for other well-established purely logical propositions such as mathematical theorems entails absurd conclusions Virtually all of Pro’s rebuttals to ii can be reversed, or rely on fallacies of equivocation/appeals to intuition. Pro’s case here has completely collapsed. Moreover, I assert – that a world without a maximally great being is very intuitive, since one only needs to consider a possible world with absolutely nothing within it, or a world with a single particle and nothing else, obeying basic physical self-contained laws in order to satisfy this premise. I assert that these are infinitely more plausible than a world with a “necessary maximally great being” within it – thus by both brute logical, and intuitive counts, this premise spectacularly fails for Pro. Religious Experience Sound mental health =/= most likely not being mistaken. If this was true then the field of astrophysics would have been completely solved by now with the abundance of hypothesis that are continually being proposed everyday. Pro is constantly skipping over the important epistemological step – which is the inference to best explanation. 1. Person has an experience associated with God 2. Experience associated with God – is an experience caused by God Pro’s arguments here are a mere shifting of the burden of proof (“no reasons to believe mystic is mistaken”), and thus not remotely impressive as an argument in favour of anything’s existence, let alone God’s. I double dare Pro to provide evidence against the Higg’s Boson’s existance, otherwise it exists by default. Clearly we didn’t build a multi billion dollar collider because we can just “shift the BoP something into existance” – the argument isn’t remotely compelling. One must make an inference to the best explanation to provide an explanation for religious experiences (which for the sake of debate – I will affirm they do exist, albeit of a range of flavors expected if it was an entirely natural phenomenon). I would actually like to see provide these arguments that ghosts etc. do not exist anyway, especially since one can assert these ad infinitum. The lack ofrefutation in practice does not translate to a lack of refutation in principle – and these examples were deliberately chosen to show that Pro’s method of argumentation is inherently deficient. Pro has simply not responded to the fact that Pro’s method of argumentation does entail absurd conclusions without further arguments – thus Pro’s route of argumentation is insufficient for reliable results. Natural Explanation Pro baldly asserts it’s absurd to think all religious experiences have a natural explanation – but gives no reason to believe this is not the case. If there is a common mechanism for religious experiences – then we would expect numerous religious experiences to occur anyway. Much like there is a common mechanism for virtually any physical process – we do not make the argument that any other physical process is divinely caused (would it be absurd to posulate that ALL times it rained, it rained due to natural causes – of course not, we have a common mechanism). We already know of extant mechanisms by which religious experiences occur (hallucenations, drugs, dreams, daydreams, etc. etc. etc. ) thus to conclude that God is the best explanation is quite frankly absurd. Until Pro addresses the inference to best explanation by considering factors such as consistency with background knowledge, explanatory power, simplicity, and predictive power then it simply fails as a good explanation. Non-Cognitivism I present virtually Pro’s entire defence as my own evidence for non-cognitivism. 1. The concept of a “maximally great being” must be objective 2. Greatness must be coherent Pro’s arguments in favour of what “maximal greatness” entails is laced from beginning to end in subjectivity. He appeals constantly to intuition, yet this is by definition subjective, since it is dependent on individual biases and preference. Pro has provided no non-question begging objective definition of “greatness” within this debate, and clearly it cannot be defined objectively given that “greatness” is so closely tied to anthropomorphic desires. The intuitive argument in fact works against Pro on every turn here. I presented an argument that the differences between people in what “greatness” entails is only consistent and coherent if greatness is a subjective concept – we all have different concepts of what entails greatness. For anything to be cognitive must entail a primary nature which relates to objective or even subjective features of reality – and where Pro has not appealed to intuition to define greatness, he has instead appealed to other relational terms which beg the question. Thus we do not have a concept of what “maximal great being” is, and hence affirming such a being’s existence is impossible.