Team Debate: God Exists

We look forward for an engaging debate. Contention 1: Pool Table ArgumentThe Pool Table Argument for the existence of God was created by Salam Morcos, and it goes as follows:1. P1: Every cause was either caused or uncaused (Null Hypothesis)2. P2: There is a finite number of past causes.3. Let n be the number of past causes and let C be the set of all causes that ever existed: c1, c2, c3 . .. cn4. Now choose any cause cx from the set of causes C. Using Recursive process5. Does cause cx have at least one preceding cause causing it?6. If the answer is no, then cx is an uncaused cause. End of proof7. If the answer is yes, then cx has at least one preceding cause causing it8. Let cy be any of the causes that caused cx9. Remove cx from the set of all causes C. Now the size of C will be reduced by 110. Now make cx = cy and repeat steps 5 to 10The recursive process will loop until either:a. An uncaused cause is found in step 5; or b. After a maximum of n-1 iterations, the size of set C will become 1. At that point, there's only one cause left in the set. There are absolutely no other causes available that can cause it. Therefore, this single cause must be an uncaused cause. End of proof. Conclusion: The logic above, if the premises are true, concludes that there must exist at least 1 uncaused cause. There's no escape. This is called the Pool Table argument because one could argue that it’s possible to know where each ball in a pool game will end up being, and could be traced backwards. The problem is that it’s impossible to know how the white ball would be hit. For Con to refute this argument, they must either challenge the premises or challenge the validity of the logic. Con may argue that P2 that "there's a finite number of past causes" is not necessarily true. In order to keep this discussion concise, we would like to first ask Con if they agrees with P2. If not, we will show in the next round why this premise is true. Now that we proved that there must exist at least 1 uncaused cause, let's examine some of the properties of an uncaused cause:1. An uncaused cause must have behaved in a certain way that's not predetermined. Such a cause couldn't have been naturally caused!2. The cause acted freely. If it wasn't free, then what made it act this way? The answer is nothing.3. A cause that acted freely must have some form of intelligence. By intelligence I don't mean cleverness, but I mean a being with the ability to apply knowledge and skills [1]. An unnatural, free and intelligent cause that existed before all other causes is God. Contention 2: Kalam Cosmological ArgumentThe Kalam Cosmological Argument (which I'll start referring to as the KCA in order to save space) was created by William Lane Craig and is a simple argument that goes as follows:1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.2. The universe began to exist.3. Therefore, the universe has a cause. [2]The first premise is highly uncontroversial. If a car begins to move, one would argue that this didn’t happen by itself and for no apparent reason. That would be incoherent! Something must have caused this movement. When an apple fell from a tree, Newton thought that something must have caused it to fall (even though it can’t be seen), and that’s how he discovered gravity [3]. We argue that science is a great defense of P1. The second premise is backed by scientific evidence. The Big Bang theory has shown that the universe had a beginning 13.74 billions years ago [4]. The Borde-Guth-Vilenkin theorem proved through the use of Redshift that the universe is expanding, and that any universe that is expanding must have a beginning [5]. Now at this point you're probably arguing: What does this have to do with God? Well, let’s examine the implications of this conclusion:- This cause must be outside of space and spacetime which began with the Big Bang [6]- It must also be non-physical because it’s outside of space. - One has to be extremely powerful in order to create the universe. - It’s non-abstract (like number 7), because abstract things don’t cause anything. Therefore, a cause that is non-physical, non-abstract, extremely powerful, outside of space and spacetime and is the creator of the universe. .. if this is not God. .. then God help us (pun intended! )Contention 3: Fine Tuned UniverseThe universe is governed by many constants. For example: π = 3.14159…, G (Gravitational constant) = 6.67384… × 10-11 and many like those. What's interesting is that if these constants were slightly different, the universe wouldn't come to existence as we know it. By that, we mean there will be no stars, no planets and certainly no life. In order to start off the universe in a state of low entropy, so that there will indeed be a second law of thermodynamics, the factors must be within 10^10^123 [7]. This number is insane! If the gravitational constant was off by 1 over 10100, the gravity force would either be too strong and the universe would collapse on itself, or it would be too weak and not form any stars [8]. Please don’t argue that this is random, because that’s just not reasonable. You may argue however that these numbers are just what they are. They don't need some God to monkey with the numbers, similar to number 2 or number 1,000,000. They are what they are. However, scientists disagree. They argue that "the physical universe does not have to be the way it is: it could have been otherwise" [8]. In other words, these values didn't have to be what they are and they are not unique in any special way. We argue that this argument strongly corroborates the argument that the universe was intelligently designed which supports the God hypothesis. Contention 4: Intelligent DesignArgument from Genetic InformationThe cells of all organic life forms contain information in the form of genetic code. The chain of genetic code known as DNA harbors the amino acids which themselves contain no semantic meaning, but when combined together, can be readily utilized in forming every phenotype known to biology. [9]The living cell demonstrates a system of communication, particularly between DNA and proteins. DNA codes for proteins which go on to form every part of a creature, including the very DNA from which it was coded. DNA contains 4 chemical basis: A, G, C ad T. Human DNA consists of 3 billion bases [9]! The order, or sequence, of these bases determines the information available for building and maintaining an organism. The most important property of DNA is that it can replicate. It’s basically a language system in which communication occurs between a sender and receiver. Basically, DNA holds true information. As we have demonstrated, this process is highly complex. We argue that it’s impossible, or at the very least, extremely implausible for such a process to have occurred naturally. Argument from Irreducible ComplexityIrreducibly complexity system is a system that “cannot be produced directly by numerous, successive, slight modifications of a precursor system, because any precursor to an irreducibly complex system that is missing a part is by definition nonfunctional” [12] So if it can be demonstrated that such a system exists in organisms which cannot be reduced further, this would render the naturalist claim as impossible. Naturalists argue that life began on Earth naturally through a very gradual process called natural selection [11]. We’ve already demonstrated the complexity of the DNA, and its information. But that’s not all. Cells have superbly efficient molecular motors, such as the ATP synthase, a complex protein which makes an energy-rich compound ATP. It synthesizes ATP via a motor (not kidding) from smaller chemicals [13]. These rotary motors in the membranes of mitochondria (the cell's powerhouses [14]) turn in response to transmembrane proton motive force (pmf) [15]. Each of our trillions of cells has many thousands of these machines spinning at over 150 rounds per second (9,000 rpm) [15]. Basically, ATP synthase is made by processes which all require functioning sources of ATP such as the unwinding of the DNA helix with helicase to allow transcription and then translation of the coded information into the proteins that make up ATP synthase. Manufacturing of the 100 enzymatic machines needed to achieve this require ATP as well! And making the membranes in which ATP synthase sits needs ATP, but without the membranes it would not function [16]. This example of ATP synthase exemplifies the common chicken-and-egg problem many molecular machines exhibit. Which came first the ATP synthase which requires ATP or ATP which requires ATP synthase? The same applies to DNA and its information. DNA can't work without many molecular machines already in-place. Karl Popper mused, "What makes the origin of life and of the genetic code a disturbing riddle is this: the genetic code is without any biological function unless it is translated [. .. ] [But] 'the machinery by which the cell translates the code consists of at least fifty macromolecular components which are themselves coded in the DNA. ' Thus the code can not be translated except by using certain products of its translation. This constitutes a baffling circle; a really vicious circle, it seems, for any attempt to form a model or theory of the genesis of the genetic code. Thus we may be faced with the possibility that the origin of life (like the origin of physics) becomes an impenetrable barrier to science, and a residue to all attempts to reduce biology to chemistry and physics" [17]. ConclusionWe argue that these arguments, which are logical, rational and based on valid logic and supported by scientific evidence strongly support the God hypothesis and renders the naturalistic claim as speculative at best. While anyone could basically argue anything (there are some who still believe the Earth is flat! [18]), but that doesn’t mean that every argument is a sound one. Sources in comments