The Christian god exists

Good round Skepticalone! "After reading my opponents responses, it seems clear that we have a misunderstanding of "personal god" By personal, I mean "mean endowed with rationality, self-consciousness, and volition"the usual sort of qualities associated with being a person" (William Lane Craig). This is what I meant by personal. So I guess our definitions are slightly different. "It is not mandatory that a lawgiver have personal contact with the governed or to be known by name." That is true but a moral God would have had to do something about the state humanity is currently in. An amoral God would ignore humanity and do nothing for them. But a moral God would care and love his creation. So the creator of an objective moral law would have to be objectively moral as already stated. "It might be that this hypothetical lawgiver, due to omniscience, perceived the necessity for moral values and built them into consciousness through any number of ways without directly interacting with humanity." When a person is making a car, they cannot put doors on it without directly interacting with it. I would think that the creation of humans would be similar. If there is a God that created an objective moral law, he would have to directly put this law into every human being. Romans 2:15-16 actually does say that the Christian God wrote the moral law on humans hearts. "To claim, that a moral law giver must be a personal god simply doesn"t follow from the premises." In the case of the moral argument, the concept of God involved in the argument is "that of a personal being, since moral values, if they exist, reside in persons, not in inanimate things, and since only a personal being can be a source of moral duty by issuing commands to us" (William Lane Craig). So it makes sense to claim that God is personal. "It is our continual evaluation of which actions are best for the welfare (what is best for continuing survival) of the relevant community (family, friends, species, other species) and our responsibility to it." I would agree with that statement. I was merely explaining how Darwin explained morality. Our morality is the thing that helps humans decide which instincts to follow. So if my opponent isn't arguing that morality is an instinct due to evolution...how can you argue that morality comes from evolution? And why didn't my opponent answer my questions about morality for the evolutionist? Evolution would certainly make morality subjective. "To be clear, I am not advocating subjective values. It is possible I was not clear on that, so hopefully this will help us avoid strawmen." You indicated that morality came from evolution which would in fact make it subjective. I proved that in the last round. "It is our continual evaluation of which actions are best for the welfare (what is best for continuing survival) of the relevant community (family, friends, species, other species) and our responsibility to it." Since when does evolution give people moral responsibilities? And why does a person's subjective opinion on what is best for the society make it best for society? Hitler believed that he was killing people for the greater good and according to evolution...this was the way he evolved. What makes him wrong? "Some of the moral values laid out in the Bible are now considered barbaric and immoral such as owning another human (Exodus 21:2-6), forcing a rape victim to marry their attacker (Deuteronomy 22:28-29), or stoning a disobedient/stubborn son (Deuteronomy 21:18-21)." My opponent first needs to state how he can objectively state something to be immoral. If he can't, then his comment is meaningless. But just for the record, the thing about marrying the rapist was beneficial to the victim since the victim would have never gotten married (due to being a non-virgin) in that time period.They would spend a life alone and they would die without any children. The law actually helped the victim as you should see. There are examples in the Bible where a rapist (who didn't marry victim) has ruined lives (David's daughter was raped by her brother). Also, in the rapists who choose married women to be raped were put to death as recording in Deut. 22. As for slavery, we are talking about people who sold themselves into slavery in order to pay off debts. These people were considers members of the family (Lev. 22:11), set free after six years (Ex. 21:2), given gifts to help them survive once freed (Deut. 15:14), and etc...It should also be noted that God freed thousands and thousands of slaves in the book of Exodus. As for the boy...http://www.gotquestions.org... "Empathetic objectivity provides a much better explanation for this change in moral perception rather than a shifting transcendental source." Empathy really just makes us think about the real right and wrong which still doesn't answer the question. Where do we get the idea of right/wrong from? And you never answered my questions (just added two). If you say that your moral standard, whether social or personal, is evolving and getting better, then by what non-subjective standard do you judge that it is getting better? If you say that your moral standard, whether social or personal, is evolving and getting better, then how do you know it is getting better without committing the logical fallacy of begging the question by saying that things are getting better because they are evolving? EVOLVING STANDARD If you say that your standard is evolving and getting better, then can you assert that it won"t evolve into something that contradicts what you believe now, thereby demonstrating that your moral beliefs now were really wrong? EVOLVING STANDARD If your moral standard is evolving and can contradict itself, can that system of moral determination be true since it can produce self-contradiction? (https://carm.org...). You haven't provided an objective source of morality but still seem to say it exists. I argue that it could only come from a moral and a personal God which makes sense as I have discussed at length. "Pro seems to acknowledge the god posited in this argument is not a personal god. However, he bears the burden of showing the Christian god exists -which is said to be personal. This argument is irrelevant to his burden." I understand why my opponent doesn't see this argument arguing for a personal God. However, this argument does establish that the creator is intelligent which means he is endowed with rationality, self-consciousness, and volition. So this argument can be used for a personal God. And again, I fist have to prove that there is a God before I prove it is the Christian one. "Ultimately, complexity is not how we determine design. Design is determined by comparison to nature. We have no other nature to compare this alleged 'designed' nature to, and as such, claiming unnatural nature as proof of a creator is spurious." No one is claiming that nature is unnatural. I am claiming that natural is complex. But your objection does nothing to show that the universe is not rigged in our favor which makes my point still remain valid. "Much like the last two arguments, Jerry contends the Cosmological argument posits a personal god. This is simply not true. The Cosmological argument does not argue specifically for a god, in as much as it argues for a cause which might be a god." God is the only possible cause of the Universe. The cause must be eternal (created time), omnipresent (created space), moral (created moral values), intelligent/creative, and etc...Nothing else but a personal God could do all of this. "His premise was 'everything that begins to exist has a cause', not "everything that begins to exist from nothing has a cause". My objection stands." If virtual particles begin to exist, the cause is the physical vacuum. If you are arguing that the particles are nothing (and don't being to exist), then my point about everything beginning to exist (and having a cause) remains valid. If nothing exist and doesn't have a cause, that doesn't refute my first premise. "However, he had no response for how the cause must be a being over a force of nature. My objection stands." Well...the force would have created nature since nature is apart of the universe. Your objection just had its legs cut off (this is meant in a humorous way). "Clearly, WLC"s priority is not to evidence and reason, but to his belief. While all humans may be biased, WLC embraces his bias at the cost of objectivity." The problem here is that the evidence does support his view and he can sate facts objectively. He always admits when something is just an opinion of his. The fact is that the evidence does support an empty tomb. His bias is no different than the atheist that rejects God no matter what the evidence is. Nevertheless the facts support what he says on the resurrection of Jesus. "Let us start with the synoptic Gospels: they are not thought to be eye-witness accounts nor are they independent from each other." They are thought to be eyewitness accounts (for the most part). Anyone who says otherwise hasn't read them. Matthew and John were eyewitnesses. The other two were surrounded by by other disciples who were eyewitnesses. I with have to go more into this in the last round due to character limits. See this link for info: https://carm.org... That last paragraph you made never established why anything was circular. You merely stated some (not all) correct facts about the disciples. You never even explained why first century non-biblical sources are needed. Why would people who didn't know Jesus be better than the people who did know him or be better than the people who knew people who knew Jesus? I will mainly focus on Jesus in the last round. I hope my opponent is okay with this. I don't see the point in dropping all arguments since that would leave me with nothing to do.