The Existence of God

Forfeit Scandal: “Hayd, I tried to contact you be email to tell you that the server has been down and I've been locked out of the system for days. You can call that a forfeit if you want but it would be a bit dishonest.” I posted my Round 3 response before reading your email. After I had posted I checked my email a while later and saw your message, I apologize. I would like to tell Jon, and anybody reading this that Jon is hereby forgiven for forfeiting in Round 2. Since the Round Structure was messed up because of the forfeit, we will move everything down a round. I will post my rebuttals of Jon’s arguments, and Jon will post his rebuttals of my arguments in Round 4. The counter rebuttals part will be deleted. Rebuttals: I will take this rebuttal paragraph by paragraph. Paragraph 1: I read this entire paragraph five times, looking for how this proves that the God of Christianity exists. I could not find anything for that does this. Evidence of this is, The concluding sentence of the argument was, “We can know that God doesn't have bad intentions in what He does or allows.” This does not prove that God exists, only shows that he doesn’t have bad intentions. Even this is false and I will show why, “God is the creator of all material and spiritual existence.” According to the Christian culture yes, but we are debating whether or not this is true, so you cannot make this statement. This statement is only true when you can prove that God exists, since you have not done that yet, this statement isn’t true yet. “When God made people; He wanted people who could be free to choose Him and enter into a loving relationship with Him.” Why did God want this? How did you know that God wanted this? “Goodness (Morality) is whatever is consistent with God's will.” This is God’s will, yet I believe it is immoral. Unless you believe that this is a moral thing to do then Jon is wrong. "The people of Samaria must bear the consequences of their guilt because they rebelled against their God. They will be killed by an invading army, their little ones dashed to death against the ground, their pregnant women ripped open by swords." (Hosea 13:16 NLT) “God is the owner of all things in a very complete sense. If God destroys something or allows it to be destroyed it cannot be said that God is doing something wrong. Isn't God free to do what He wants with His own things?” This is not the way at all to morally justify God killing people. This just made me sick to my stomach that a person would actually think this. Jon’s first paragraph is defeated. Paragraph 2: In Jon’s second paragraph, he uses the Creation argument. Stating that, “Modern scientific thought tells us that it appears that some 13.8 billion years ago, all of time, space, and energy, which then led to matter, erupted into existence at a single point… Upon investigation it seems that a Creator was involved in the mechanics of the Universe.” This is called a God-of-the-Gaps argument. I found that GotQuestions.org gave a good explanation of it, “The ‘God-of-the-gaps’ argument refers to a perception of the universe in which anything that currently can be explained by our knowledge of natural phenomena is considered outside the realm of divine interaction, and thus the concept of ‘God’ is invoked to explain what science is, as yet, incapable of explaining. In other words, only the ‘gaps’ in scientific knowledge are explained by the work of God, hence the name ‘God of the gaps.’ ” (1) It is not logical to assume that the God of the Christian origin started the Big Bang when an infinite number of other things could have started it (E.g. Zeus, Ra, Hera, Buddha, etc. for infinite). This is why what Jon said is a logical fallacy. Jon’s second paragraph/argument is defeated. Paragraph 3: Jon’s third paragraph was a rebuttal. This gives Jon the advantage in the entire debate now. Since I only got to post my opening arguments in round two, I would have nothing to rebut. But since Jon posts his response after mine, he would be able to post a rebuttal on my arguments as well as post his own arguments; which gives him an advantage throughout the rest of the debate. This is why I specified Round 2 for arguments only. Since Jon forfeited Round 2, it would be courtesy to only post his arguments, and no rebuttal to keep the debate fair, but he has failed to do that. Now I am at a disadvantage for the rest of the debate, which should be penalized in the voting section. I will still have to post counter-rebuttals though, so here they are. “I warned Hayd not to base arguments off of semantics… Hayd wants to use his own definition of omnipotent and ignore how it's actually used in theology.” So starting off, Jon accuses me of using semantics because of using my own definition of omnipotence. This is not my own definition; I can give you tons of legitimate sources that support “my definition.” “the quality of having unlimited or very great power.” (Google) https://www.google.com... 1. “almighty or infinite in power, as God.” 2. “having very great or unlimited authority or power” http://dictionary.reference.com... “having complete or unlimited power” (Merriam Webster) http://www.merriam-webster.com... “Having unlimited or universal power, authority, or force; all-powerful.” http://www.thefreedictionary.com... “Having unlimited power or authority” Webster’s New World Dictionary 2nd College Edition These are only a few, I could go on, but I believe that my point was made. Now that the first part of the accusation was defeated, I can move onto the second. Jon accuses me of ignoring how omnipotence is used in theology. Omnipotence in theology is used exactly how I used it, evidence of this is, “Great is our Lord and mighty in power; his understanding has no limit.” Psalm 147:5 “The Almighty is beyond our reach and exalted in power; in his justice and great righteousness, he does not oppress.” Job 11: 7-11 “But Jesus looked at them and said, ‘With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.’ ” Matthew 19:26 “For nothing will be impossible with God.” Luke 1:37 “Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is anything too hard for me?” Jerimiah 32: 27 My definition is upheld and Jon’s isn’t. Jon’s rebuttal/accusation is defeated. Paragraph 4: In this paragraph Jon does another rebuttal. He attempts to defeat my argument against God about morality. He does this by proposing that, “I believe that the greatest good from God's perspective is not that there above all be minimal suffering. I believe that God's first principle of greatest good is that there be maximum possible freedom. Minimal suffering is good but it isn't ultimate.” I will defeat this two ways; one there is actually a lack of freedom in the world (E.g. Isis control, strict laws, etc.) and two; that since God is omnipotent, he could be doing both, yet isn’t. Jon’s rebuttal is defeated. Paragraph 5: In this paragraph Jon says that using King James Bible isn’t a good choice. It is not right that Jon gets to choose which Bible to use and not to use in accordance to his arguments. Jon cannot just defeat my argument by switching to a different Bible. Conclusion: I am out of room, so I will make this brief. This has been a fun debate, I wish Jon the best of luck and Vote Con! Citations: (1) http://www.gotquestions.org... (2) http://www.openbible.info...