God Exists

C1) Argument from incoherence Pro’s defense is based on this logic--since there is nothing except God outside the universe, God is automatically the greatest being. But that serves only as a defense for greatest being, and an entity can be the ‘greatest’ entity without being ‘great’. But in this debate, God is defined as possessing immense greatness, which is impossible when paired with transcendence--God may be the ‘greatest’ being if he exists, but cannot be called a ‘great’ being, thus Pro’s refutation is irrelevant. C2) A caused universe is incoherent a) Pro’s sole refutation here is that I’m defending a universe without an origin. But that is a straw-man of my argument [1]. As Pro states, I’m defending an *uncaused* universe--but an uncaused universe is *not* a universe without a beginning. An uncaused universe is a universe without a cause. A cause is something that *created* the universe, not the universe’s beginning. The position I defend is a universe that came into existence ex nihilo, i.e. out of nothing. Furthermore, Pro argues there was a “time before the universe”--but that is incoherent. The ‘universe’ is defined as all of time and space and its contents [2], or, as physicists Michael Zeilik and Gregory Boyd write, “[t]he universe is the totality of space and time” [3]. In other words, time is a part of the universe, and, sans the universe, there is no time. b) This response has two major errors, that I shall attempt to address. First, human *perception* of events is entirely subjective. The second error is what I shall stress on. The events happening prior to the appointment to a dentist and after do not occur at different time--they occur at a different point on the arrow of time [4]. There’s a fundamental difference. Time is another dimension, according to four-dimensionalism [5], while the passage of time is illusory, according to the B-series, which in turn is entailed by four-dimensionalism [4][6]. Time is real, but the *arrow* of time is not. So, the events occurred in different points on the arrow of time--but not different ‘time’. Pro drops the Rietdijk-Putnam argument. C3) Occam’s razor Pro asserts that the sole assumption of theism is the existence of God--which means, Pro doesn’t assume the universe or physical laws exist. This contradicts the position of the existence of God, since God is defined as the cause of the universe, which would mean a universe would have to exist for that assumption, so theism does assume the existence of the universe. R1) Omnipotence Ob1: This is entirely ad hoc, to claim that “God is beyond logic”. If something is logically contradicting, it cannot exist--everything that exists has to be logically possible. Ob2: “Belief in God” is irrelevant, since you *concede* God is non-existent. The resolution is not “God is real”, it’s whether God exists--reality can be subjective, as this argument implies, but objective reality has to be present. Unless objective reality is demonstrated, it’s irrelevant. Ob3: This is hopeless violation of the rules. I said they cannot be changed without asking in the comments, but Pro interprets this as they CAN be changed IF they ask in the comments--this is not what the rules imply. Even IF you ask in the comments, it doesn’t mean the definition is changed--what I said was if you DO NOT ask in the comments, the definition *cannot* be changed. Pro is shifting the negative to the positive. For example, if one says “science can’t explain it” doesn’t mean “God exists”--similarly, if one says “you can’t change without asking in the comments” doesn’t mean “it changes if you ask in the comments.” a) Omnipotence Is Incoherent If omnipotence is incoherent, it can’t exist, even if it can interact with reality (you can’t change definitions without my permission--turning a negative claim into a positive claim), thus the existence of omnipotence is questionable. b) Possible Worlds & Reverse MOA Pro is confusing ‘reality’ with ‘existence’--reality can be subjective, thus epistemically possible worlds can be real while not existing. Similarly, only the possibility of God is justified, not the necessity. The reverse MOA doesn’t refute God--it refutes this flawed ontology, which shows that the same logic of extending from possibility to necessity can prove or disprove anything, acting as a reductio ad absurdum to this argument. R2) Descartesian ontology I did not assert that the Flying Spaghetti Monster doesn’t exist--I’m asserting that the exact same logic can demonstrate that all products of imagination exist, which means you must *prove* this logic is valid. Descartesian ontology is a bare assertion. You’re just shifting BoP and committing the fallacy of negative proof [7], while you must prove that all products with ascribed properties do exist, or it would be ipse dixit fallacy [8]. Basically, the logic of this argument is expressed in the following syllogism: 1. All things exist. 2. God is a thing. 3. Therefore, God exists. But P1 is only true epistemically, and Descartesian ontology deals with the epistemic possibility of God’s existence [9]. R3) Argument from religious experience #1. This is a bare assertion, and commits ad populum fallacy, i.e. it is assumed that widespread acceptance of an idea is proof of its validity [10]. #2. Once more, this commits ad populum fallacy [11]. God is an additional assumption, and Occam’s razor IS widely accepted and true, as seen in Russell’s teapot analogy [12]. #3. Pro asserts that majority of religions believe in only one God. But this argument shows that each religion’s view of God is different, thus homogeneity of theological belief isn’t justification. And there are, thus, varying religious experiences. And I’ll give you a list of polytheistic religions: Greek traditional religion, Roman traditional religion, Chinese traditional religion, Shinto, Hinduism, Yoruba, Germanic paganism, Slavic paganism, Wicca, Serer religion, Reconstructionism, Ancient Semitic religion, Ancient Egyptian religion, Ancient Vedic religion, Baltic paganism, Finnish paganism, etc. It seems polytheistic religions comprise a majority in number (though not in followers), so there would be variant religious experiences. #4. Quantum superposition entails that transcendence would result in particle wave collapse. The majority of scientific understanding yields testability, simplicity, etc., which the God hypothesis does not. Furthermore, that God exists is the positive assertion, and there’s no scientific knowledge to support it--Occam’s razor allows shifting BoP without committing logical fallacies, and background knowledge of science does not yield the existence of God. #5. There is no testability to demonstrate that God caused these religious experiences. Weak magnetic fields, as illustrated, can trigger such subjective experiences--and the Earth has a magnetic field, so there is a weak magnetic field in many spots across the globe. R4) Belief in God Pro asserts that atheists think of God more. This is a bare assertion--I think of God because it’s my favorite debate topic, just like many people think of their favorite debate topics. Furthermore, Pro has given us no reason to believe that this implies God is “calling to atheists”. The resolution is negated. Pro *must* waive the next round, by simply typing “round waived” or “no round as agreed upon”. Any crystallization, rebuttal, or arguments must be penalized with a loss. Thanks for a fun debate. Vote Con! 1. http://www.nizkor.org... 2. http://en.wikipedia.org... 3. Michael Zeilik and Gregory Boyd. Introductory Astronomy & Astrophysics, glossary. 4. http://plato.stanford.edu... 5. http://plato.stanford.edu... 6. http://www.ditext.com... 7. http://rationalwiki.org... 8. http://en.wikipedia.org... 9. http://plato.stanford.edu... 10. http://atheism.about.com... 11. Ibid. 12. http://russell.mcmaster.ca...