Agnosticism is the Correct Religious Stance

My distinguished opponent seems to have strayed off topic, and while he still holds to agnosticism seems to be arguing in favor of a deistic god more and more. I will answer these in order of appearance: Defining the deistic god You have still failed to give any reason to think this being is in any way how you described it to be, and it would be the deists themselves who would tell you that to so label god in this way is a mistake: “Belief that the nature of God is abstract and generally incomprehensible which puts it beyond definition for humanity at this time. Furthermore, human language is limited and inadequate to define God; however, man can use Reason to theorize and speculate on what this possible nature is” (1) Now while you may speculate on what this being is or does, you cannot claim to know for sure that it was any of those things. Philosophers may try to come up with an answer and speculate as to this “Designers” attributes, but for all we know some grand being sneezed and we came into being… No design intended. So to claim that this being is, [Fill in the blank], is unknowable and therefore a logical inconsistency. Adherence to the empirical school of evidence This method is used in every single aspect of science and my opponent’s insistence to the contrary does not make this any less so. For instance, to say that quantum mechanics is an exercise in logic and does not apply to the realm of empiricism is flat out wrong. Allow me to explain: 1.My opponent I believe is referring to the observer effect which is a byproduct of the very nature of quantum mechanics. From what I can tell from the reading I have done (I’m not a quantum physicist so I had to have a crash course) is that since the nature of quantum mechanics is that of dealing with things on the atomic level, the measurements we use to detect behaviors of say electrons for instance is unrefined and therefore unable to be used without altering the atomic state of said partial. I would say that while this does give quantum mechanics an element of mystery and uncertainty it certainly does not prove the empirical method to be ineffective. (2) 2.This “Uncertainty” that my opponent attributes to the quantum model in no way discredits the empirical method in any way, since ironically it was the empirical method that allowed us to come to this conclusion about the observer effect in the first place. 3.It is my claim therefore that since it is the observer and the instrument at fault in the “Uncertainty” claimed, that this does not prove the empirical method wrong, but rather states that scientists need to come up with better methods of measuring quantum events to ensure that interference does not occur, and in the meantime, make adjustments to ensure these conditions are accounted for, which they clearly do. And just because we don’t have an empirical answer today as to why atomic particles behave the way they do, does not mean that one day in the near future we will. I’m not sure how to even address my opponents allegations regarding the probabilistic waves he refers to, except to state that just because we don’t know how to explain something now, does not mean that we won’t know sometime in the future, and that does not even imply that the empirical method is useless to this since correlation does not imply causation. While my opponent argues that science does not require replication and experimentation sometimes to prove events happened, I say to what does he attribute this theory to? Simply put, any claim is subject to testing and observation, and from this we can deduce other thing so while my opponent says the empirical evidence is not necessary for indirect conclusions, I say again he is wrong on that flawed assumption. And even if this was all irrelevant and my opponent had a valid claim, he would still be wrong since all the indirect logical data so far seems to indicate that a god did NOT create/design the universe, and that this whole universe happened with no clear design (As the chaos and destruction bit earlier discussed indicates which my opponent did not refute). Therefore again the logical conclusion would be that the universe was not designed at all, which is the whole argument for deism in the first place. Back to atheism While I will concede to my opponent that the scientific method is not perfect, it is the best way we have to understand the world we live in to date. Appealing to a deistic god as an answer to any question regarding the universe gets you nowhere, and simply put was a place holder for atheism in the early days of the enlightenment since their understanding of the world as they knew it was not as comprehensive as ours today. The god of the gaps analogy to which my opponent is referring to when he says that there may be questions that can only be answered by inserting god into the equation is flat out wrong, since that argument has been used for the entire duration of the struggle between theists and atheists to which the theist loses ground every day. I would also like to again point out that my opponent seems to think that logic may answer the god question in the future, and says that science cannot play a role since the being in question is independent of scientific discovery. I would like to ask then, how would one go about proving the existence of something that is by its very nature unknowable and un-provable? Logic can explain what exists in our universe, but since this being exists outside of our universe, I would ask how one would go about proving the existence of this entity since we can logically deduce that logic and any other “Constants” we apply in our universe would not apply to this being? Arguments of destruction revisited I would like to point out that the reasoning behind this is to prove the very lack of design the universe portrays since it is the assertion that the deistic god designed the universe then stepped back and let it run its course. To say that the universe is designed is to make several assumptions which logically don’t correlate with what we know. And the same could be said that this is all some cosmic accident on behalf of this being and it wasn’t designed at all. You have to be open to this possibility as well, and since this point is essentially un-provable I will leave it alone for now. EWS Revisited Again the whole idea is circular and a slippery slope in explaining things. Some things are self-evident and need no explanation. Maybe deism would fit better since technically we can prove or disprove neither, but to say that theism which is so easily disproved is in the same category is nonsense. I will grant the fact that I can’t disprove EWS, but again I feel this is a slippery slope for this discussion. Why agnosticism is not the answer While my opponent seems to indicate that he feels that the question of whether we may be able to answer the ultimate question of god is a possibility, I say that he has adequately shown that no such answer is possible, and has said so on more than one occasion, just not directly. Furthermore, the atheist is doing nothing more than expressing their non-belief in something, not claiming to be able to prove anything, as I have stated more than once. While the agnostic attempts to be neutral, they miss the basic tenant which is any claim needs some evidence to hold water, and so far I have not heard any convincing arguments to indicate that agnostics are in a better position than the atheist when the question of god comes up, and I think we can both agree that the evidence for god is non-existence or simply an appeal to the god of the gaps argument which has been refuted on numerous occasions. To this end I would politely invite my opponent to join me on the dark side, and remind him of the cookies we possess. They are delicious! (1)http://moderndeism.com... (2)http://van.physics.illinois.edu... http://www.youtube.com...