I will debate ANY TOPIC

Thanks for such an interesting topic. So I accept my opponents definition of the theory and will offer one more: sound - according to the rules of logic (MW Dicionary) Observation 1: The resolution uses the word "sound". Therefore my burden is to simply prove the theory is logical. Any arguments on the fact that the theory my be proven false and automatically be negated. Contention 1: The argument uses deductive reasoning. The argument uses deductive reasoning to maintain it is logical. Each part adds on to the other to show a logical chain (similar to a proof in math). It clearly has a logical chain. 1: Everything that begins to exist has a cause. 2: The universe began to exist. 3: Therefore, the universe has a cause of its existence. Logically, since we have shown that anything that exists has a cause and the universe exists, then the universe had a cause. 4: If the universe has a cause of its existence, there exists a personal, transcendent creator. 5: A personal and transcendent creator exists. Because we have shown that a creator exists if a universe has a cause, then a creator exists in this universe. Look, this may not be true as it is a religous faith based theory. Yet, I show that it follows logic. Also, realize that steps 1,2, and 4 are faith based postulates so they cannot be proved or disproves, but steps 3 and 5 progress logically. Contention 2: Each step can be justified Whatever Begins to Exist has a Cause 1. Something cannot come from nothing " in other words, being only comes from being, being cannot come from non-being. This principle of metaphysics seems intuitively obvious, when you think about it. For how could the potentiality for something"s existence be turned into actuality without something that caused it to do so? In the case of the universe, this should be even more obvious, for in this case there wasn"t even the potentiality for the existence of the universe, for there wasn"t anything prior to the universe! 2. If something could come into being out of nothing, then it becomes inexplicable why anything and everything don"t come into being out of nothing " if universes can come into being out of nothing, why can"t horses and potatoes likewise do so? If they can, then why don"t they? Why aren"t lions and tigers and bears coming into being right now, if it"s possible that they can? What would make nothingness so discriminatory? But nothingness isn"t anything, and therefore it can"t discriminate, right? 3. Common experience confirms and never falsifies premise (1) " some have appealed to virtual particles as an empirical falsification of premise (1), but this is false. If my opponent wishes to raise this objection, I will answer it. Suffice it to say that premise (1) has experience on its side. The Universe Began to Exist Here I will sketch two arguments for premise (2), a scientific argument and a philosophical argument. 1. The Impossibility of an Actually Infinite Number of Things An actual infinite is a collection of things who"s total number of members is infinite. It is not growing towards infinity, it is complete and actual. An example of this would be the set of all positive numbers. I will argue that an actual infinite, so defined, cannot exist because its real existence leads to absurdities. Imagine an infinite collection of marbles, numbered 1, 2, 3, and so on out to infinite. Now imagine that you want to give your friend some marbles because he doesn"t have any. You take away all the even numbered marbles and give them to your friend. How many marbles do you have left? An infinite amount, for you still have all the odd numbered marbles. Here infinity minus infinity equals infinity. But now rewind the scenario, so that you have all the marbles again. This time you decide to give your friend all the marbles numbered 3 and above. How many marbles would you have left? Well, 2. Here infinity minus infinity equals 2. But that contradicts the answer we got in our first thought experiment. Because the real existence of an actual infinite leads to contradictions, it cannot exist in reality. But if the universe is eternal in the past, then there have been an actually infinite number of events in the history of the universe prior to today. Because an actually infinite number of things cannot exist, the universe cannot be eternal. Rather, it had a beginning. We can summarize our argument as follows: 1. An actually infinite number of things cannot exist. 2. An infinite number of past events is an actual infinite. 3. Therefore, the number of past events must be finite. 2. The Big Bang Theory In the early 1900s, Albert Einstein formulated his General Theory of Relativity. One of the disturbing implications of this theory was that it predicted that the universe was either expanding or contracting, which contradicted the then dominant idea that the universe was static and unchanging. A few years later two physicists independently found solutions to the equations of General Relativity (GR) which predicted an expanding universe. Later that same decade Hubble observed that the light from distant galaxies was shifting towards the red end of the spectrum, which implied that they were moving away at fantastic speeds. This implied that the universe was expanding. This was the first of many empirical confirmations of what later became known as the Big Bang theory. Because this theory is based on the equations of GR, it does not predict that galaxies are being pushed apart from a central point, but rather that space itself is expanding. As you trace the expansion backwards in time, space gets smaller and galaxies get closer together. The universe gets denser and denser, until you reach a time when everything is crushed down to a point. The density of the universe at this point is infinite. Before this, the universe did not exist. Cosmologist Alex Vilenkin writes: "Some people suggested that the big bang singularity was an artifact of the assumption of exact homogeneity and isotropy that Friedmann adopted to solve Einstein"s equations"Roger Penrose and Stephen Hawking"proved through a series of theorems showing, under very general assumptions, that the Big Bang singularity cannot be avoided." [1] Of course, over the years alternative models have been proposed to avert the Standard Model, but until my opponent raises a model as a potential way of restoring an eternal universe, I will not respond to it. If the Universe has a Cause, that Cause is a Spaceless, Timeless, Changeless, Immaterial, Beginningless, Uncaused, Enormously Powerful Mind Having established that the universe has a cause, we may now inquire what such a cause must be like. As a cause of space and time, this cause must be spaceless and timeless (that is, it must transcend space and time). It must therefore be immaterial and changeless. This cause must be uncaused, for we"ve seen that there cannot be an infinite regress of causes; you must get back to an Uncaused First Cause. This cause must therefore be beginningless, for anything with a beginning has a cause. But I think we can go beyond that and establish that this cause is also personal. Abstract Objects vs. Unembodied Minds There are only two things which could be spaceless and timeless, and therefore only two things which could be a cause of the universe: abstract objects, such as a number, or unembodied minds. But abstract objects can"t cause anything, let alone the universe. That"s part of what it means to be an abstract object. Therefore, the cause of the universe must be an unembodied Mind. [1] Vilenkin, Alexander. Many Worlds in One. New York: Hill and Wang, 2006. Print.