It is reasonable to believe that Santa Claus exists.

"I gave three arguments in support of modal realism: (1) the fine tuning the of the universe; (2) the law of parsimony; and (3) assuming all other evidence is equal, it is a pragmatic belief to hold. Let's see how they have have held up thus far." Let's. "1. Fine Tuning Con seems to agree that the universe *does* need to be finely tuned to permit life and that modal realism is at least a plausible explanation for how these conditions were met. I'm not sure what his objection is; he claims I haven't supported my contention, but doesn't mention how so. I'll leave this to my opponent to clarify in the latter rounds." No, I agree that if things had happened differently at the universe's beginning that things prbably would be different, but not that because of this it is reasonable to believe modal realism is true; that's just nonsense, which is my objection. "2. Modal realism is parsimonious Con expresses doubts regarding my sanity. This is nothing but an argument from incredulity.[1] Note that he hasn't actually argued against the law of parsimony; his sole objection has been that God would be an even simpler hypothesis. Con has not explained how this is so. Additionally, the existence of God does not conflict with modal realism. Indeed, the "many worlds" theodicy attempts to explain the existence of evil and suffering in the actual world by arguing that God created every possible world where the good outweighs the bad." Well, what you're actually suggesting is that we should just believe in whatever it is that can be explained the quickest. So, it's "God did it" Versus "Well, see the chances of the universe unfolding like it did were actually 1 seeing as it had infinite attempts, so you see it actually all makes perfect sense afterall... lol". The first one's shorter. And why are you positing other universes anyway to explain how ours turned out? If you drop a coin and it lands on heads do you assume that because it coud have happened other ways that it must have and not just the way you saw it occur. That's a bit silly isn't it? "3. Pragmatism Con asks of mathematical sets "they can be accepted as what?" As real objects, like I explained. The same is true of possible worlds." First of all, mathematical sets are just things we make up, not real objects, and we know this because we make them up and they're just not even things... they're like names. But you think we should accept that they are real things because they're useful. That's like saying the boogie man's real because I can use the idea of him to scare my kids into doing what I want. And that's reasonable? I'm not even getting how you think it's useful lol. "Con claims that I have contradicted my point about the law of parsimony. I don't see how this is the case. If anything, modal realism offers us the simplest way of understanding the ideas outlined." Well, by your logic, it ties into other things, so there's more explaining to be done, so it's likely not the case... a joke :) What ideas outlined? === My case === "I appreciate the Grinch's concern, but I'm actually only minoring in philosophy; I'm a neuroscience major with an emphasis in pre-med." Not as much as a waste of time I suppose. "This is merely restating the obvious;" Yeah... "the whole point of the debate is to show that there are good reasons to believe that Santa Claus exists." And where're the good reasons? "This is a question begging tautology.[2]" Are you trying to tell me that my argument is so good and obviously true that it doesn't even need to be stated? --- My Conclusion --- Santa's not real.