The Existence of God

"Everything that begins to exist has a cause." True, and this would also mean that God would need a cause if he began to exist. "There is no evidence, scientific or otherwise, that something has come out of nothing." I agree that it is impossible for something to come out of nothing, there is also no evidence of God. "It is impossible for an actual infinite to exist. Since the universe has currently reached now, and it is impossible to count from negative infinity to now, then it is safe to conclude that infinity does not exist. The above statements are probably all for naught though, because I assume my opponent agrees with the Big Bang. The Big Bang states the universe started with the Big Bang [1], which means the universe is not infinite. Conclusion - the universe has a beginning." It depends what you define as the universe. If you define it as when the Big Bang caused the universe to expand, then the universe is about 14 billion years old. If you define it as when the matter and energy existed, even before the Big Bang, then the universe has always existed. This is because the Law of Conservation states that matter cannot be created or destroyed, so it would've have to have always existed. This would also make the idea that God created matter and energy impossible. How do you know that an infinite is impossible? That is simply an idea thought up by fellow humans, it isn't necessarily true. "Since everything that begins to exist has a cause (1), and the universe began to exist (2), then we can conclude that the universe must have a cause." If you define the universe as the start of expansion, then the cause was the Big Bang. The matter and energy before the Big Bang didn't need a cause since they didn't begin to exist. "The cause is God." This is simply jumping to the conclusion that an invisible man in the sky did it, based off of absolutely no evidence. "My opponent's objection to this conclusion would be that since I posited that everything needs a cause in P1, then God needs a cause. However, God exists outside of time. Since God exists outside of time, he is not bound by any laws of the universe or any restrictions thereof." You can't simply assert that 'God exists outside of time,' and 'is not bound by any laws of the universe or any restrictions thereof.' This is simply an attempt to dodge the question that can cause the whole Cosmological Argument to collapse. Nothing exists out of time, as that is simply impossible. Everything is bound by the laws of the universe, so not only does that make God impossible for many reasons, (God has to exist on something, God would have to be a living thing to be all-seeing, all-knowing etc, but all living things die) it also completely destroys that argument, since it causes an infinite regression of causes. Who made God? Who made the person that made God? Who made the person that made the person that made God? etc "suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place, I should hardly think of the answer which I had before given, that for anything I knew the watch might have always been there." http://books.google.com... There's actually a whole book debunking this argument, it's called 'Evolution is a Blind Watchmaker,' by Richard Dawkins. The reason we know things such as watches, paintings, and Boeing 747s were created, is because we have no other explanation for their existence. But we know that things such as life, planets, stars, and the universe itself were not created because we do have scientific explanations for their existences. For instance, we know evolution is the cause of the diversity of life on Earth, and abiogenesis started life. We also know that the cause for the universe is the Big Bang. "A complex object like the universe necessitates a designer. --->The designer is God. C. God exists." Jumping to conclusions once again. "1. The fine-tuning of the universe is due to either physical necessity, chance, or design. 2. It is not due to physical necessity or chance. 3. Therefore, it is due to design. C. The designer is God." Again, you jumping to conclusions does not present a good case for your position. Even if we didn't know how the universe came into existence, there's still no reason the assume 'God did it.' The universe is not 'fine-tuned,' we simply perceive it that way. If it is fine-tuned, then why is the Earth and its inhabitants susceptible to danger? Black holes, asteroids, and other things could easily threaten the existence of our planet. Natural disasters can threaten life on Earth. Also, there is no mention of aliens of other planets with life in any religious texts. Why would an entire universe be fine-tuned, just to support one planet with life? "if the weak force had been different by 1 part in 10 raised to the 100th power our universe would not be life permitting" This is not true, life would have simply evolved differently to adapt to the different environment. Now I will let my opponent present his arguments.