It is improbable that God exists

It is certainly a pleasure to debate you. I would like to call you out though on a violation the second round was for opening arguments only and you brought in refutations to my opening statements. In this first rebuttal I will address some of the problems with RT’s argument for the existence of God. In the subsequent round, I will address his rebuttals to the arguments in my opening statement. REBUTALS TO CON’S ARGUMENTSTo defend a belief in God, con brought up two arguments: 1) The teleological argument; and 2) The resurrection of Jesus Christ. The teleological argument shows that the universe is mathematically impossible and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ shows that without God; Jesus could not have risen from the dead and that Jesus’ resurrection did occur. THE TELOLOGICAL ARGUMENTCon attempts a fine tuning argument for the existence of God. There are several flaws with the argument that I am going to exploit in my first rebuttal. Problem 1: God’s attributes cannot be determinedThe first and foremost problem with this argument is that the attributes of God cannot be derived nor deduced from this argument. My opponent’s burden is to prove that a Judeo-Christian type God exists, which cannot be done with this argument. As such, the argument is bugged. Why do I say that? Well, for the sake of argument, let’s concede that this argument successfully shows that there is a divine being or a prime mover that guided the formation of the universe: we cannot, in any way, show that God is morally perfect nor can it show that God is omnipresent. God can still exist, but be malevolentProblem 2: The Atheist Teleological ArgumentAs for the rest of the argument, it does not fare much better. It is true that the universe appears to be finely tuned. However, that is just an illusion and is far from the truth. As Richard Carrier notes:"Similarly the “fine tuning” of the universe’s physical constants: that would be a great proof—if it wasn’t exactly the same thing we’d see if a god didn’t exist. If there is no god, we will only ever find ourselves in a universe finely tuned (in that case, by random chance), because without a god, there is no other kind of universe that can produce us. Likewise, a universe that produced us by chance would have to be enormously vast in size and enormously old, so as to have all the room to mix countless chemicals countless times in countless places so as to have any chance of accidentally kicking up something as complex as life. And that’s exactly the universe we see: one enormously vast in size and age. A godless universe would also only produce life rarely and sparingly, and that’s also what we see: by far most of the universe is lethal to life (being a deadly radiation filled vacuum) and by far most of the matter in the universe is lethal to life (constituting stars and black holes on which no life can ever live). Again, all exactly what we’d expect of a godless universe. Not what we’d expect of a god-made one. Thus, we have exactly the universe we’d expect to have if there is no god. Whereas a god does not need vast trillions of star systems and billions of years to make life. He doesn’t need vast quantities of lethal space and deadly matter. Only a godless universe needs that. I make a more detailed survey of this kind of evidence in “Neither Life Nor the Universe Appear Intelligently Designed” in John Loftus’s The End of Christianity. It also does no good to say such a random accidental universe is improbable, because the convenient existence of a marvelously “super-omni” god is just as improbable. Either way you are assuming some amazing luck. Which leaves the evidence. And the evidence is just way more probable if there’s no god. Thus, we’re forced to choose between which lucky accident it was, and the evidence confirms the one and not the other. " (Carrier, Richard Carrier Interveiw, 2012)Indeed, the universe is one cosmic killer! Richard Carrier further nails this point in his book Why I am Not a Christian: "The fact that the universe is actually very poorly designed to sustain and benefit life is already a refutation of the Christian theory, which entails the purpose of the universe is to sustain and benefit life--human life in particular. When we look at how the universe is actually built, we do find that it appears perfectly designed after all--but not for producing life. Lee Smolin has argued from the available scientific facts that our universe is probably the most perfect universe that could ever be arranged for producing black holes. He also explains how all the elements that would be required to finely tune a perfect black-hole-maker also make chemical life like ours an extremely rare but inevitable byproduct of such a universe. " (Carrier, Why I am Not a Christian, 2006)So the teleological argument fails—miserably. Not only does it fail to meet the burden of proof, but it can be changed around to be support for atheism rather than Theism. So, how do Atheists get around the problem of the improbability of life? Simple: By showing that the universe, though improbable, is not that more improbable than winning the lottery. Why are lotteries won so frequently? Because of the amount of time that the lottery is played. To quote Richard Carrier again:“[T]he laws of probability entail the odds of winning a lottery depend not just on how unlikely a win is--let's say, a one in a billion chance--but on how often the game is played. In other words, if a billion people play, and the odds of winning are one in a billion, it is actually highly probable that someone will win the lottery. Now, if the game is played only once, and the only ticket sold just happens to be the winner, then you might get suspicious. And if the game was played a billion times, and each time only one ticket was sold and yet every single time that ticket happened to be the winner, then you would be quite certain someone was cheating. For nothing else could explain such a remarkable fact. ” (Carrier, Why I am Not a Christian, 2006)So, in short, the universe is indeed unlikely—yet it is overcome because of the amount of time that the game of life is played. THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRISTMy opponent has not even attempted to prove that the resurrection of Jesus even occurred. Even still, this debate is not focused on a specific deity per se; rather it is on a Judeo-Christian type God. Therefore, the argument itself violates the rules in round 1. I’m out of room and will defend my opening statements in the next round. Thank you. BibliographyCarrier, R. (2006). Why I am Not a Christian. Richmond, California, United States of America: CreateSpace. Retrieved June 22, 2012, from . http://www.infidels.org...Carrier, R. (2012, January 3). Richard Carrier Interveiw. (TheBestSchools, Interviewer)