Is it advisable to believe in God

Firstly I would like to apologise for my comment regarding my opponent’s sources, to the extent that I mistakenly miscounted the number of sources, and confused the broken link of the third source with that of the second. My bad. Secondly, I thank him for his post, and wish him continual good luck as we proceed. This being the rebuttal round, I will refute all of my opponent’s principle arguments. They are; The ontological argument. Abiogenesis The laws of thermodynamics Pascal’s wager The unfounded assumption that religion gives a person “strength and morals”. The ontological argument is perhaps the most persuasive of those that my opponent presented. It does however have a variety of flaws that make it simply ridiculous. The statement my opponent used to summarise the argument is as follows. "God, by definition, is that for which no greater can be conceived. God exists in the understanding. If God exists in the understanding, we could imagine Him to be greater by existing in reality. Therefore, God must exist." The philosopher Bertrand Russell, responded by stating; “The real question is; is there anything we can think of that by the mere fact that we can think of it is shown to exist outside our thought… If yes is the right answer, then there is a bridge from pure thought to things. If not, not. [1]” To put it in perspective, if I were to think of a giant bi-pedal robotic shark equipped with lasers and hydrogen bombs, does that mean it exists? The answer is a resounding no. What this argument proposes is that if because we can think of something, it can exist. While it is certainly possible, it becomes as likely as Russell’s Teapot [4]. To make my point clearer, I present the ‘Ontological proof that god does not exist' (put forward by Douglas Gasking). 1 – Creation of the universe is the greatest achievement imaginable. 2 - The merit of such an achievement is the product of its quality and the creator's ability. 3 – The greater the disability or handicap of the creator, the more impressive the achievement. 4 – The most formidable handicap for a creator would be non-existence. 5 - Therefore, if the universe is the product of an existent creator, we could conceive of a greater being - one which does not exist. 6 – Therefore a non-existent creator is greater than one which exists. 7 – Therefore god does not exist. While obviously satirical, the point is that you cannot point out the flaws in this argument without conceding the flaws of the other. Abiogenesis is quite simply irrelevant. Yes it is extremely improbable that it will occur, but how can it be proposed that it is more unlikely than god? The universe is big. It is very, very big. In all of this space, how is it inconceivable to suppose that the required ‘biological soup’ appeared? And I would argue that biogenesis is not a theory; it’s a process whereby living things are created by living things. To prove it true does not prove abiogenesis false. And for that matter abiogenesis has not at all been disproved. If one presumes that life exists, and then reasons that it has not always existed, there has to be a point of beginning. The two main contenders to explain these are creation and abiogenesis, and creation has such a ridiculous number of flaws, imperfections and irrationalities that it makes abiogenesis seem inevitable. Now for thermodynamics. I think it’s important to understand that the ‘formal’ part of the article sourced is from a book entitled ‘In Six Days - Why Fifty Scientists Choose to Believe in Creation’. I would like to direct you to http://www.gate.net... [2]. I just hope this highlights how much they were scrapping the bottom of the proverbial barrel to get this book written. Regardless, the point that my opponent has made is that since the laws of the universe do not allow something to come from nothing, something must exist outside these laws for existence to have been created. He proposes that something be god. What he has stipulated is a regress, where by an event causes an event, which causes an event and so on to infinity. He puts god in this as the terminator to the regress. To quote Richard Dawkins; “The problem is they make the entirely unwarranted assumption that god himself is immune to the regress. Even if we allow the dubious luxury of arbitrarily conjuring up a terminator to an infinite regress and giving it a name, simply because we need one, there is absolutely no reason to gift that terminator with any of the properties normally ascribed to god.” [1] What Dawkins is saying that we needed an answer to an infinite regress, and produced god. We then made a ridiculous amount of assumptions to make him fit in with conventional religious beliefs like omniscience, intent, etc. Moving on to Pascal’s Wager. The argument is flawed to its very core, as it defines belief as something that can be wilfully turned on and off. That is ridiculous. Oh, you can be all means say that you believe in god, but would not an omnipotent being be capable of seeing through such deception? Another principle issue with the wager is that it for some reason places faith as the only entry requirements for heaven/hell. I already outlined this in my main argument, but is it inconceivable to propose that a god would judge based on other, far more important virtues. The only evidence the contrary is the Bible, which as I outlined previously, cannot be considered a legitimate form of evidence. You cannot claim the bible must be taken literally, as then we are urged to commit a wide variety of atrocities. The issue then arises that it should be taken symbolically, and as such is ambiguous, and therefore open to an infinite amount of different interpretation. This coupled with the fact that it was written down many hundreds of years after the events it describes, and that it contains a tremendous amount of contradictions simply renders it irrelevant to logical discussion. And finally, the statement that religion gives people “strength and morals”. To attack each of the claims individually; Strength – I do not deny this at all, religion can certainly give people the strength to act outside the realms of reason and, ironically, morals. One only has to look at the actions of a number of Islamic fundamentalists or Christians in the crusades. Morals – The bible teaches a wealth of good morals, like the act of murder is wrong. It also frequently displays that it is perfectly acceptable to break these morals for the sake of religion. For example, the bible repeatedly teaches that women are objects, and that rape is perfectly acceptable. It is through reason, rational discussion, and an underlying sense of human morality that we know this to be false [3]. It is clear that, unlike my opponent claims, his arguments do not prove the existence of god. And since his other reasons are simply not adequate or rational, he provides no logical reason that supports the notion that “It is advisable to believe in god”. Sources The God Delusion – By Richard Dawkins http://www.gate.net... The Bible – By various members of random desert tribes http://russellsteapot.com... I pass over to the affirmative, good luck!