God most likely exists

I'll start with some overviews. OV1: Pro is presenting rules in Round 1. There's no reason to adhere to Pro's rules, especially since they weren't clarified by the instigator. The rules are overly restrictive. First, Rule 4 is *completely* unjustified. I make it clear that Pro is making the affirmative claim, therefore has the entirety of the burden of proof. The burden -- therefore -- lies with Pro, and *cannot* be split evenly. OV2: The format is overly restrictive as well. "Pro gives definitions" is also concerning, since, by standard debate convention, definitions are contestable. As long as there are no new arguments in the final rounds, rebuttals and defense can be arranged in any means. Pro doesn't give judges a reason to prefer their structure -- prefer mine as it isn't restrictive and is simple. Finally, Pro should *waive* the final round, as per Round 1 -- the structure seems to discredit this, without justification. Pro should go first and post "no round as agreed" in the final round. OV3: Round 1 clearly establishes that "entire arguments cannot be copied," but Pro is violating this -- the *entire* teleological argument is copied from Philocat's debate against me. Please note the rule violation and penalize Pro for this. OV4: Poor sourcing. Under the teleological argument, there are numbers in parantheses, which I shall presume are references -- these references aren't seen under the entirety of Round 1. Till Pro produces these references, *everything* Pro says under -- for instance -- the teleological argument is a bare assertion. [Sidenote: as Pro has the entirety of the burden of proof, I need only refute their arguments to uphold my case, and needn't produce a case of my own. Note that I haven't plagiarized any arguments.] == What is God? == The definition of the term "God" is crucial to the debate, since there isn't a clear, agreed-upon definition of that term in the world. God can be defined as "the creator and ruler of the universe and source of all moral authority." [1] This monotheistic conception of God is supported by most Abrahamic religions. [2] It is estimated that 54% of the Earth's population are members of this monotheistic faith. [3] Prefer this definition because it's the most *commonly used* definition of God. There are multiple definitions of God, and Pro can contest this definition. But I've given strong reasons to prefer this definition, (1) the definition appeals to the *majority* of theists, (2) the dictionary definition of this is the same standard conception, and (3) other conceptions are usually obscure and aren't used by the majority of the population. Further, this definition is compatible with Pro's arguments. == Atheism is the default position == The burden of proof lies *entirely on* Pro in this debate. This is because atheism acts as the "default position," i.e. if there is no reason to think that God exists, then atheism entails as most likely correct. There are multiple ways to affirm this. The first is Occam's razor. Occam's razor is an epistemological razor that posits that, among a set of competing hypotheses, the hypothesis with least assumptions is most likely. Take, for instance, a box of crayons that hasn't been opened yet. Person X and Person Y are speculating about the characteristics of the crayons within the box, without seeing those crayons. Person X proposes that there are twelve crayons in the box, while Person Y says there are twelve *red* crayons in the box. Neither has any evidence, but since Person Y has the *additional assumption,* it's a priori more likely that there are "twelve crayons in the box," than there being twelve crayons that are all red -- since there's no proof for either assertion, but the latter has more assumptions. The idea of God is another such proposition -- there's no reason to think God actually exists, therefore God is merely another assumption within the God hypothesis, along with the hypothesis of the existence of the universe and its laws. Naturalism and atheism, on the other hand, *only posit two assumptions,* the existence of the universe and its laws. The second affirmation for this is by using Russell's teapot analogy. Bertrand Russell writes, "Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time." [4] Conclusion: Judges must presume God doesn't exist, and, unless proven otherwise, the offense stands that it is -- abductively -- unlikely that God exists. == Causality is incoherent == If God exists, the universe had a cause, meaning there was something "before the universe." But *time itself* began with the universe -- sans the universe, there is neither time directionality nor physical constraint. It is impossible to cognitively process anything time-less -- we use words such as "now," "then," "before," and "after," *all* of which presuppose time directionality. Sans time, there's nothing "before" or "after" anything, so there are no events and no objects. Therefore, there couldn't have been anything before the universe, and God couldn't have caused the universe. == Rebuttal == R1) Kalam cosmological argument (1) Pro's defense of the first premise is a hasty generalization. Just because most *observable* things don't "pop into existence," it doesn't entail that *everything* can't come into existence without a cause. It's an oversimplification. You can't generalize from "who killed Roger Rabbit" to "who created time and space." Further, "causality" presupposes time. For anything to coherently "happen," you require time. Our cognitive understanding can't *comprehend* anything timeless. But *time* began with the origin of the universe. Sans time, it's impossible to use words like "before," or "after," so you can't determine what came "before the universe," since the phrase is incoherent merely because we can't cognitively process something timeless. (2) The second premise assumes that either the universe was past-infinite or began to exist. This is a false dichotomy. Under the B-series of time and eternalism, the universe wouldn't "begin to exist," it would just exist as a multidimensional block. [5] Most observations confirm eternalism as a likely model, entailed by special relativity (the relativity of simultaneity), therefore prefer eternalism. The second premise fails. R2) Teleological argument This argument is easily refuted by a reductio ad absurdum regarding the probability of the universe becoming a life-permitting universe by "chance." Consider a pack of cards, tossed sideways. The pack of cards would arrange itself in an order [as with a standard pack, it has 52 cards]. There are *multiple* orders to be arranged. Therefore, the probability of a single order arising by chance is 1:10^64. Consider these premises: 1. It is not due to chance 2. It is not due to physical necessity 3. It is due to design But #3 is ridiculous, since *all* of those patterns did arise by chance. From this, we can conclude that -- of the many possible "tunings" of the universe, all of them can arise by chance and have an *equal* probability, with or without life, of being present. Further, the rejection of physical necessity is unsound. Michael Hurben argues that the constants cannot have been "tuned" to anything else, since their tuning is out of physical necessity. [6] Pro straw-mans the idea of "physical necessity," confusing it with *modal* necessity. Modal necessity involves possible worlds. Physical necessity merely argues that all constants are physically *constrained* to be "tuned" out of necessity, and there are no other *physically* possible tunings. Pro fails to dismiss the physical impossibility, only arguing for the logical possibility. R3) Godelian ontological argument The argument itself is incoherent, and insufficiently warranted. Pro talks about "positive properties," and "strongly positive" properties. I observe that this is *subjective,* as "excellence" itself is subjective. Pro can't say their subjective interpretation of excellence must always exist, since they aren't God. Essentially, Pro is arguing: (1) necessary existence is positive, (2) X properties are positive, (3) to increase X's positivity, X has necessary existence. This doesn't entail *one* God, but an infinite regression of God-like entities, that are -- subjectively -- "positive." This subjective positivity cannot deal with objective existence. Further, Pro fails to establish what "ontological constraint" is, and fails to defend the Godelian definition, merely creating contradictory attributes. Pro fails to explain their standard for "moral perfection" either. Since this argument is insufficiently explained, prefer Con. For all these reasons, Vote Con. [1] Google ("define God") [2] http://tinyurl.com... [3] http://tinyurl.com... [4] http://tinyurl.com... [5] http://plato.stanford.edu... [6] http://tinyurl.com...