God exists

In keeping with the format outlined by Pro in R1, I will not offer any rebuttal in this round. Before I begin presenting arguments, I would like to clarify something- (a)gnosticism and (a)theism are separate issues. (A)theism is about belief- you do (not) believe in a God. Whereas, (a)gnosticism is about certainty- if you are (un)certain about something, you are (a)gnostic about it. These are completely separate issues, in that one can be an agnostic atheist, an agnostic theist, and so on. [See source[1] for a visual representation of this] Now, atheism is not the active belief that God does not exist- that is gnostic atheism. Rather, it is the group of any number of positions among which one does not positively believe in a God- it can also include those who have never heard of the concept of a God, those who just shrug in disinterest, and so on. Someone who simply says "I have no idea whether or not a God exists" may not call themselves an agnostic atheist, but that is what they are- if you don't know whether a God exists, you also do not believe in any given God(s). With that side note out the way, I'd like to begin presenting my arguments: Omnimaximality, and the problem of evil: So, omnimaximality- this includes omnipresence, omnibenevolence, omnipotence, omniscience, and so on. In short, God is everywhere, is perfectly good, is infinitely powerful and knows everything. Such a being is fundamentally incompatible with the world in which we live. To quote the Greek philosopher Epicurus: "Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?" [See source 3] In layman's terms, if God is all-powerful and all-good, then he must stop all bad things from happening (as he can and wants to). There are bad things out there, and so God cannot exist. Now, this is where religious people usually respond either by saying "well there's some upside to the bad thing that you haven't realised" or "But without bad things, we couldn't appreciate good things". Once again, though, God's omnipotence and omnibenevolence lay waste to both of these claims- God could have caused the "upside" of the bad thing to happen without the bad thing itself (made the omelette without breaking the eggs, so to speak) and would want to do so, if omnibenevolent. Likewise, though it may be the case that we do need to experience bad in order to appreciate good, God could easily have created us, and the universe, such that we do not need to experience bad in order to appreciate good, and, if omnipotent, would want to do so. In short, God does not exist, because omnimaximality is inherently incompatible with the world in which we live. [See sources 4:6 for further explanations of the problem of evil]. Omnimaximality- inconsistencies: There are a number of questions which reveal the inconsistency of omnimaximality: Can God create a boulder so heavy he cannot lift it? If he cannot, he is not omnipotent. If he can, he cannot lift such a boulder, and thus is not omnipotent. Omnipotence is self-contradictory. Can God learn something? If he can, he is not omniscient, since there must be something he doesn't know in order to be able to learn it. If he cannot, he is not omnipotent, as there is something he cannot do (learn). Omnipotence and omniscience are incompatible. Can God go somewhere he has not yet been? If he can, he is not omnipresent, as there is somewhere he has never been. If not, he is not omnipotent, as there is something he cannot do (go somewhere new). Omnipotence and omnipresence are incompatible. Can God do evil? If he can, he is not omnibenevolent, since he is capable of evil. If he cannot, he is not omnipotent, as there is something he cannot do (evil). Omnipotence and omnibenevolence are incompatible. These show that the very concept of a God is inherently paradoxical, and thus a God cannot exist. Brute force method: Imagine I were to ask you to prove that the local zoo has no dragons in it. The simplest way to do so would be to simply go to the zoo, observe and identify every animal in the zoo, and show that none of them are dragons, and hence prove there are no dragons in your local zoo. This is the only way to positively prove something does not exist within some set- observe every element in the set, and show that none of them are the disputed item. This is relatively simple to do with small numbers of animals. Imagine, though, if instead of 50 animals, there were a hundred billion. You simply couldn't check every single animal- it would be logistically impossible. Instead, you'd simply have to look at the animals you can see- if you see a dragon, problem solved. If you can't see a dragon, you have to search for evidence of the dragon- after all, if there's a sheep that's on fire, that is a pretty compelling reason to think there may be a dragon nearby. However, if you see no dragons and absolutely no evidence for dragons, but simply see sheep as far as the eye can see, would you conclude there are dragons? The rational conclusion is something along the lines of "It is extremely unlikely that there are dragons here, but in principle I cannot be 100% sure due to the logistics of brute-forcing such a large search space". If you reach this conclusion, you do not positively believe that dragons exist- you are an agnostic a-dragon-ist. This same logic can be applied to God- we cannot observe God directly, and nor can we find any evidence of any God(s). This is exactly what we would expect if we were living in a universe in which there is no God. Thus, it is extremely unlikely that a God exists, but in principle we cannot be 100% sure due to the logistics of brute-forcing the entire universe. This conclusion is agnostic atheism- we do not positively believe that God exists. This leads me nicely into Hitchens' Razor: "That which is asserted without evidence may be dismissed without evidence" [See source [7]] This principle is useful and it readily dismisses the premises of many common theistic arguments. I will expand on this further in the rebuttal sections. So, to summarise my arguments: 1) God does not exist because omnipotence and omnibenevolence are fundamentally incompatible with the real world. 2) An omnimaximal being is necessarily self-inconsistent. Thus, omnimaximality is impossible and God does not exist. 3) Brute forcing God's nonexistence is impossible, so the logical conclusion is agnostic atheism due to the lack of evidence in favour of God. Sources: [1]: https://www.google.co.uk...: [2]: http://www.thethinkingatheist.com... [3]: http://rebirthofreason.com... [4]: [5]: https://en.wikipedia.org... [6]: [7]: https://en.wikipedia.org...