The existence of God

Pro states that my presuppositions stop me from examining the evidence, but it is the distinct lack of evidence that has formed my presuppositions. You are correct in saying that I cannot prove that the universe is all that exists, I never said I held that position because there is no evidence. If there is evidence for a creator which I should examine then kindly present it in the final round. Cosmological I've got him on the ropes here folks! I did indeed ignore the second half of your argument because there was no need to address it, I've provided a blanket refutation to the Cosmological. Pro states that there is non-cosmological evidence for God... then fails to mention a single scrap of it. Pro then either misunderstands or evades my argument, I presume the latter. "Once our minds accept the mutability of matter and the new idea of the vacuum, we can speculate on the origin of the biggest thing we know—the universe. Maybe the universe itself sprang into existence out of nothingness—a gigantic vacuum fluctuation which we know today as the big bang. Remarkably, the laws of modern physics allow for this possibility." This is a quote from Professor Heinz Pagel, acknowledging the fact that the laws of physics would allow for such a possibility. Pro states that this could not happen because quantum fluctuations occur in a vacuum. Well, I've already solved this by postulating an eternal, timeless vacuum before it, from which the universe-creating quantum fluctuation could occur. Remember that this is just another what if, just like the creator hypothesis. And just like the creator hypothesis it ticks all the right boxes for it to fit as an explanation, except of course, my version is more likely because we actually know that quantum fluctuation's happen, we do not know of a God in the same observable way. Suddenly my alternative is not only just as possible, but more likely. The creator hypothesis gets its strength from being able to provide the only possible uncaused cause, which is exactly what my explanation does. This makes the creator hypothesis redundant... God of the Gaps You misunderstood what I meant by “the scientific community.” If you pick up a science textbook you'll see The Big Bang, evolution, atoms, quantum theory etc etc. But you'll never see a page about the immaterial, translucent God. Why? Because science has never found empirical evidence for such a being, therefore it is very reasonable to say that the scientific community (not necessarily individual scientists, as a collection of information), sees God as unsubstantiated and without evidence. He then states that, in order to find God, scientists must abandon the materialistic worldview. This is a pretty moronic thing to suggest science to do, because science is purely materialist. I wonder if you could explain how science should/could look for God if it did abandon the materialist worldview, where do they start? What should they do? Finally, I don't think science really cares to look for a God for which there is no material evidence. Your the one making the unsubstantiated claim, you provide the evidence. You've got to come to terms with the fact that, until it is proven that there is an immaterial, transcendent realm, science isn't going to accept that which is a product of it. Pro then labels my Leprechaun argument absurd because it's mythology and the way to prove Leprechaun's existence is to look for it's presence at the end of a rainbow. Well, today's religion is tomorrows mythology, there was a time when people believed in leprechaun's as fervently as you believe in God. But Leprechaun's are besides the point, your original argument was 'despite the fact that there is no evidence for this, maybe there is evidence we don't know about.' I'm going to stand by my point that this is grounds to postulate absolutely anything for which we have no evidence and is thus ridiculous. Until some kind of evidence is provided then it is perfectly logical not to take any extraordinary claim seriously. If I postulated a flying spaghetti monster and you asked for evidence, I could simply support it by saying “despite the fact that there is no evidence, maybe there is evidence we don't know about.” It goes nowhere. You call my oxygen fairies explanation a reduction to absurdity. But that is only your opinion, I hold the opinion that it is no more absurd than God. You state that when you look at a watch it is reasonable to assume a watch maker. This is true because we know watches are made by human beings. It is an extremely misleading analogy to apply to the natural world. For example, you could comfortably apply that argument with life on earth and how well it fits with its surroundings, it may almost seem reasonable to assume a creator. However, we both know that evolution is the true answer. It would be faulty reasoning to apply the watch maker analogy to the universe for the same reason, we don't know it was designed and to assume it would be premature. Applying the watch maker analogy to nature is a false analogy. I guess you're guilty of it this round. “I said the longer that these gaps are unfulfilled then the more likely a natural creation did not occur and that the gaps are permanent.” Okay then, well the fact that science is at its starting stage is certainly not irrelevant because it means that it would be very premature to assume assume the gaps are permanent. I'm not sure how to respond to this because it isn't really arguing anything, I suppose if the gaps were there for 10,000 years it would start to seem permanent. But we don't know how long these gaps will be there so I don't see what this sentence proves. TAG I'm sorry if I've been slightly opaque with my arguments in this section, I will try to sum them up as simply as I can now. Logical absolutes are the inherent in existence. They are the properties of a thing or things. Greg Koukl sums it up much better than me when he says “What the laws of logic refer to are essentially the properties of reality itself, for lack of a better term. Basically, in order for an entity to be possible, it must have attributes like 'being itself' and 'being non contradictory.' And we describe these in statements we call the laws of logic. Those laws indeed require a mind (as they are descriptions), but the necessary facts they describe only require the existence of anything at all.” So, a mind can think, “such and such laws of logic govern the universe.” But these laws don't actually apply unless something exists because these necessary facts are inherent within existence. Therefore they are not independent from the universe or transcendent. They rely on existence to exist, yet a mind could still think them even if nothing existed. But that description that mind produced, would not actually be these necessary facts, nor would it be equal to them, it'd just be a description.