God more than likely does not exist

I thank 1Credo for their opening arguments.Opening remarksIn this round I will among other things attempt to defend my arguments and examine whether the Kalam argument as presented by Credo1 now referred to as the Con should be accepted.The Kalam Cosmological ArgumentTimeless causation options/lack of information about timeless thingsAfter the argument claims the universe has a "cause" it then gives further argument what this cause has to be. Seeing the cause must be non physical, timeless, etc etc Con gives us two options a timeless (unembodied) mind and abstract objects (like numbers).But how exactly did Con come to the conclusion that these things are the only two things that exist or even possibly exist in this timeless non physical realm ?. I don't know what does or does not exist in the non physical, timeless realm and I suspect either does Con. Lets be clear here, this is Cons burden to carry, he doesn't get to try and shift the burden by asking questions to me or others and declaring justification until answered.As such my counter here is that we have no idea what does or does not exist in such a realm.What determines metaphysical possibility & impossibility ?Consider the premise..."P1: Everything that begins to exist has a cause."Something should be noted here, the premise is NOT everything that begins IN the universe has a cause. Why does this distinction matter ? because it is making a claim not only about what can or can't happen in the universe but also outside and beyond it (for lack of a better term). That is to say it is a META physical claim, it is meta physically impossible for something begin to exist without a cause.But what it the justification for this claim ? I will now examine Cons justification for this.Absurdity does not justify falsity Many things have being rejected as "absurd" yet have latter on have be found to be true. The problem with justification to the kind of absurdity that Con relies on here is that our every day experiences shape our commonsense/intuitions. These intuitions are then used on things which are NOT everyday experiences eg (what can or can't happen outside the universe) to support various claims of what should be accepted as false based on such violations of this commonsense/intuition and thus are "absurd"As such I submit that Con use of appeal to absurdity should be rejected as a justification for their metaphysical claims.What we observe (or don't) justifies metaphysical claims ?Con may want to maintain that what we observe or don't observe justifies such a metaphysical claim but I think this backfires for Con as Wes Morrison explains..."Here are some other well-attested empirical generalizations, each of which is incompatible with that hypothesis about the origin of the universe.(A)Material things come from material things.(B) Nothing is ever created out of nothing.(C) Nothing is ever caused by anything that is not itself in time.(D)The mental lives of all persons have temporal duration.(E) All persons are embodied.It might of course be said that while these generalizations apply within the natural order, they do not apply to the natural order as a whole or to its cause. But then, of course, one could reasonably ask why the same should not be said of the claim that whatever begins to exist has a cause.It is also worth pointing out that prima facie, at least, quite a number of these generalizations have as much claim to be metaphysical truths as Craig"s premise 1. One might be left with the impression that the friends of the kalām argument are picking and choosing metaphysical principles to suit the needs of the argument they want to make." [1]Mind & brain/matter connectionMind-body dualism is explained as such..."in philosophy, any theory that mind and body are distinct kinds of substances or natures. This position implies that mind and body not only differ in meaning but refer to different kinds of entities. Thus, a dualist would oppose any theory that identifies mind with the brain, conceived as a physical mechanism." [2]It gets worse for Cons position here. Cause not only can we use the same kind of reasoning to justify the metaphysical impossibility of a mind without a brain/matter there are other reasons to think that mind has a dependency on brain and/or matter as Austin Dacey explains..."There are many highly specific correlations between specific mental phenomena and brain activity. That we would not expect if dualism is true. For example particular cognitive abilities such as language use and spatial reasoning are localized to particular regions of the brain. Brain injuries very distinctive changes to perception, cognition even personality. Some mental diseases like schizophrenia have being shown to have a genetic component. But why would this be if the mind was entirely independent of the brain ?" [3]Under theism it is more likely that mind-body dualism is true since theism is already committed to the existence of such a mind, namely God and in Cons case a mind absent brain/matter as the cause of the universe.Under non theism there is no such prior commitment and thus the fact that we find mind being dependent on matter is more likely if mind=body dualism is false and thus more likely God (as mind absent brain/matter) does not exist.The universe did not begin to existRecall Cons premise which states..."P2: The universe began to exist."Consider what it means for something to BEGIN to exist. This debate would be claimed to exist but not only that, that it BEGAN to exist, cause we recognize that it exists but also there was a TIME PRIOR when it did not exist. This can be formulated as such...X begins to exist if and only if X exists and there was a time prior where X did not existAbsent the universe there is no "time" therefore there was no time prior when the universe did not exist, thus the universe did not begin to exist.I submit this as a direct refutation that the universe began to exist.Divine Silence Part 1) God neither confirms nor deniesCon says..."I would note that we aren't debating a specific God or religion in this debate."Yes we are, the specific kind of God we are debating was defined at the start as..."God - An omniscient, omnipotent, loving, morally good, just, supernatural, personal being."Con says..."It's entirely possible that God is not concerned about worldly matters"But this isn't just about so called "worldly matters" this argument deals with claims made about God it's self. Recall how I pointed out the fact that humans beings exploit a fact of this world that God will not contradict them, as God neither confirms or denies claims about it's self.A rationalization for God doesn't change the fact that Gods absence here is what we would expect to find if God did not exist.The argument stands.Divine Silence Part 2) Lack of comfort and understanding in time of needPrayer to God has not being shown to workIf prayer had being shown to work(outside of confirmation bias) that would be used for evidence in support of God (and rightfully so).But it works both ways, Once again the fact that prayer to God has not being shown to work (outside of confirmation bias) is what we would expect to find if God did not exist.Again rationalizations are a dime a dozen.God & the best possible world (or not)Moral ParalysisGod exists vs God does not exist & occams razorGods inaction is both logically compatible with the proposition God exists and choose not too act and God does not exist and thus did not act. Occamz razor enjoins us to go with the least assumptions (God does not exist).Con says things like it could be argued......these are not arguments.I will try to respond to Cons claims in those other area's where I did not respond in the next round.I look forward to Cons replay.Sources[1] http://spot.colorado.edu...[2] http://www.britannica.com...[3]