Atheism(pro) vs Theism(con)

I can tell that my opponent is going to be a fun person to debate. Please note that my moral/cosmological arguments are not rebuttals to my opponent's arguments, they are merely just the same arguments I use in a lot of these God debates. The Axiological Argument: 1. If God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist. 2. Objective moral values do exist. 3. Therefore, God exists. 1. If God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist. Since this premise is generally not disputed, I will only give a quick defense of it. Objective morals have to come from an objective source and that source can only be God. Nothing/nobody else could produce an objective moral code. 2. Objective moral values do exist. a. Since we know what is absolutely wrong, there must be an absolute standard of rightness. Murder is an action that all people (insane people are the exception) recognize as absolutely wrong. Taking the life of a human being unjustly is undeniably wrong and everybody knows it. That said, if we know what is wrong, we must have some idea of what is right. For example, if someone were to say that 2+2 were equal to five, we would know that they were wrong. But in order to know that, we would have to have some idea of what the right answer was. b. If there wasn't a Moral Law, then we wouldn't make excuses for violating it. We have all done something wrong at some point in our lives. It is interesting to note that we always try to make excuses for violating the moral law. But if there was no objective moral law, then we would not feel the need to apologize to people when we hurt them. For example, if I were to say some harsh words to a family member of mine, I might try to offer them excuses like "I was hungry. " However, if morality was subjective, and there was no right/wrong, we wouldn't feel the need to to say sorry whenever we did something "wrong". In fact, lets say that I owed a person money. I wouldn't have any moral reason to pay them back. The person I owed money to merely would have a different opinion of what morality was than me. And since there would be no objective moral standard, I would be perfectly justified in not paying him back. But this is all ridiculous since we all are aware of the same objective moral law. And that is why we make excuses for violating it and that is the reason why we just know when someone wrongs us. c. All people really do know that a standard of right/wrong exist. Most people have an idea of what is right and wrong. Now some people might argue that there is no such thing as objective morality or a real right and wrong. But the people that argue this always go back on their claim a moment later (Lewis 6). The same people that say that morality is opinion based (or subjective) would still be irritated at people for treating them poorly. I can imagine that my opponent would be irritated if the voters gave me all the votes merely because they liked my username better than his. He would certainly feel wronged. But the thing is, if morality was subjective, no one should ever feel wronged. Why would someone feel wronged if morality was based on opinions? Sometimes people try to argue that morality is created by societies. But we also understand that there are societies that have condoned evil practices when in fact people know that the society was wrong. For example, W. H. Auden, a famous 20th century poet, said that "there had to be a reason Hitler was utterly wrong. " Auden said this famous quote after going to a theater that showed pictures of the Holocaust. These pictures sickened him and made him rethink his worldview. Before watching these pictures, Auden believed that it was up to the society to decide what was right and wrong. But during his time at the theater he realized that if societies decided what was right and wrong, and if morality is subjective, this would mean that Hitler was justified in everything he did. Well, at least according to that society. And who are we to tell them they are wrong if morality is purely subjective? d. If there is no objective morality, there is no reason to be moral. If there was no objective standard of right/wrong, then all we would have is peoples opinions. Our opinion on morality would be like our opinion on what the best flavor of ice cream is. It just would not matter If we did something that people thought was wrong since there would be no objectively wrong things in the first place. Some may argue that they are moral to benefit society. The problem with this response is that benefiting society is part of what it means to be moral. The question "why be moral" and "Why benefit society" are almost the same question. Benefiting society is a moral thing to do. .. but we want to know why someone should be moral if there is no objective morality. Another objection would be that morality is merely an instinct. The problem with this claim is that people have different instincts which would make morality subjective. And again, if morality is subjective, we could never tell people that they are doing something wrong. Another problem with this argument is that morality is usually that thing that decides between which instincts to follow. For example, if a person were to hear a gun shot and a cry for help, people would most likely have two instincts. One would be to run away from danger; another instinct would be to run to help the person. Morality might push a person to choose the weaker instinct, which is to choose to help the person instead of saving themselves. 3. Therefore, God exists. The Teleological Argument: 1. The universe is fine-tuned for life. The world is so complex that there must be a creator. According to Roger Penrose of Oxford University, he has calculated that the odds of that low-entropy state's (state in which the universe began) existing by chance alone is on the order of one chance out of 10^10(123). That number is inconceivable. The odds are so against a life permitting universe that it is like a criminal (representing the universe) is about to be executed by a firing squad (representing odds against life permitting universe) and then the members of the firing squad all miss. People claim that it happened by chance. Christians say that it is ludicrous to think it happened by chance. Why? Because something feels rigged. It is completely logical to believe that there is an intelligent designer especially since everything is so complex. On the other hand, it is crazy to call all of this simple chance. What about the fact that "the amount of matter (or more precisely energy density) in our universe at the Big Bang turns out to be finely-tuned to about 1 part in 1055. In other words, to get a life-permitting universe the amount of mass would have to be set to a precision of 55 decimal places" (. http://crossexamined.org...). What about the galaxy mass distribution? If "too much in the central bulge: life-supportable planet will be exposed to too much radiation. [And] If too much in the spiral arms: life-supportable planet will be destabilized by the gravity and radiation from adjacent spiral arms. " See link below. .. And what about these other 400 factors that have to come into play? Link: . http://www.reasons.org... How can you possibly say that the universe is not fine tuned for life? How about these facts? The 23 degree axis tilt of the earth is just right. If the tilt were altered slightly, surface temperatures would be too extreme on earth. Then there is the fact that if the gravitational forces in our universe were altered by .00000000000000000000000000000000000001 percent, the sun would not exist and then we would not either. 2. Fine-tuning can potentially be explained by chance, necessity or design. 3. Not by chance or necessity. First of all, the odds are so against a life permitting universe that no one can even argue for necessity. As for chance, the chances of our universe existing are so great that they outnumber the number of individual atoms that currently exist. But not only that, chance is not even an explanation. If a coin is tossed, it may have a 50% chance of showing heads but the cause of that happening is that a human flipped the coin. So the question is, what caused the universe to exist? I want to know why the odds were beat. Since chance and necessity are not good explanations. .. 4. Therefore, the fine-tuning of the universe is the result of design. The Cosmological Argument: a. Everything that begins to exist has a cause of its existence. Pretty self-explanatory. .. b. The universe began to exist. Modern science supports that the universe had a beginning. For example, the second law of thermodynamics helps us figure out that the universe is running out of energy (hence heading towards a heat death). In an eternal universe, it would have run out of energy by now. So since this hasn't happened, we know that the Universe had a beginning. Also, there is the discovery of red-shift in 1929. Basically, this discovery showed us that the universe is expanding which means if you were to go back in time, the universe would shrink and shrink until you get this infinite point. William Lane Craig says it better, he states that "as one traces the expansion back in time, the universe becomes denser and denser until one reaches a point of infinite density from which the universe began to expand. " c. Therefore, the universe has a cause of its existence d. Since no scientific explanation (in terms of physical laws) can provide a causal account of the origin of the universe, the cause must be personal (explanation is given in terms of a personal agent). God is the best explanation for the existence of the universe.