Religion is wrong.

Aname for his contribution to the debate. Faith My opponent states that “Thus no matter what the definition or thinking upon the word faith. .. It must mean that nobody knows the answer to God's existence. ” I assume his argument is because we don’t know with epistemic certainty that God exists, we are unjustified in believing God exists. This fails in several ways, with respect to what knowledge is and how it is justified, what faith is, and how it supports his argument. First, under my opponent’s view of knowledge, the only concepts we could know are non-sensory a priori truths, including mathematics (1 + 1 = 2) and logic (P→Q, P, ∴Q). [1] This is certainly an absurd skeptical view of what knowledge is. We are perfectly rational in believing our sensory experiences and intuitions to be true, until we have a defeater that contradicts them. For instance, if I see a mug in front of me, I am prima facie justified in believing there is a mug actually there, without knowing with absolute epistemic certainty that there is indeed a mug there. My opponent later in his response will discuss religious history; in his view, he is not justified in holding this because he came to it through a posteriori knowledge based on sensory experience. Justification in many theories of epistemology does not require absolute certainty; we are perfectly justified in trusting our senses and a posteriori knowledge without certainty. Second, my opponent still misses what faith is. Faith can be blind or it can be based in reason – either way, it’s simply a strong confidence that a certain proposition is true. Thus, my opponent, if we accepted his view of justification as epistemic certainty, is using faith in trusting his sensory experience to correspond with reality. Such an odd view of justified knowledge is truly absurd, and faith would support the opposing view that he seems to simultaneously hold (knowledge of past religions through interaction with the external world). Third, even if my opponent were correct in his view of epistemic certainty as necessary for justification, he still has not made the connection between this and moral wrongness. Fourth, granting my opponent’s epistemic certainty view to be true, the modal ontological argument, for instance, argues for the existence of God on pure modal logic. That is, one can reject the external world but still come to the conclusion that God exists through modal logic. I’d invite readers to review the ontological argument in my previous round. Thus, one can still rationally conclude that God exists on a priori knowledge. Wrong My opponent has presented three definitions of what wrong is and affirms that religion satisfies each one. This is contrary to our first round where we argued moral wrongness. However, let’s take a look at each of his definitions. • “Not in accordance with what is right or morally good. ” – My opponent here asserts that religion has many aspects within its teaching that are not morally right or good. First, he fails to support this claim. Second, my opponent would have no basis for claiming what is right or wrong without God, as my opponent would not hold a belief in objective morality. Morality is not a fundamental law of the Universe; however, we all have a deep understanding of what morality is, in the same way that we have a deep understanding of basic mathematics, which supports objective morality. However, objective morality would not exist without a personal and moral God to command it. Thus, my opponent has no basis for this claim without first accepting that God exists. Third, I’ve shown in my last response that religion has done plenty of good in the world. [2] • “Deviating from truth or fact. ” – My opponent once again asserts that “religion also deviates from the truth and is questionable on facts. ” Okay, how? I have nothing to rebut if my opponent doesn’t specify his contention with religious truth. Moreover, this wouldn’t equate to moral wrongness, and if my opponent is trying to force me into advocating omnism, I’ll simply ask for the conduct point, as he not only did not specify what wrongness he was referring to, but his arguments supported a moral sense of the word wrongness. I even stated in my Round 1 response that we would be arguing moral wrongness. • “Not correct in action, judgement, opinion, method, etc, as a person. ” – My opponent seems to miss the “as a person” condition of his own definition, and because religion is not a person, but is a collective of people, there’s no certain directed action, judgement, opinion, or method of the belief system as a whole. I’d like my opponent to either stick with moral wrongness of religion, or, if he’d like to argue against factual wrongness as well, stick with one religion at a time, as you did not make it clear you would be arguing against factual correctness as well. Diversity My opponent still attempts to universally quantify all religions as exclusivist, but fails to substantiate why this is true. I’ll once again repeat that religions can also be inclusivist, such as within Christianity, where inclusivism is the doctrine that “people actually appropriate God’s salvation only on the basis of Christ’s work. ” [3] Thus, religion is not exclusivist in nature, because there are inclusivist followers. My opponent should bridge the gap between his supposed exclusivism and moral wrongness. Ethics My opponent argues that morality is innately within us, that religion not only tells people the obvious, but enhances it, and then argues that it dictates false information. This is pretty much an argument for my position. My opponent has conceded that “religion merely tells people the obvious,” obvious referring to ethical values, and that “religion does not teach about how to be good, just enhances it. ” Well, if it enhances our understanding of moral goodness, then it does teach us how to be good, but that’s not my point. If my opponent concedes that religion teaches us obvious moral values, and then enhances them, he’s conceding that religion teaches us moral goodness, which is my position in this debate. Also, let’s humor my opponent’s argument and grant that religion merely tells people the obvious: if I came to you with a piece of paper proclaiming that one plus one equals two, which is obvious with mathematical knowledge, how is that wrong in either the moral or the factual sense? My opponent has not only conceded the entire moral goodness aspect of the debate here, but also fails to substantiate his implication that religion’s communication of the obvious is wrong in either sense. Secondly, my opponent is basically arguing that objective morality exists. He says that “these laws are innately within us,” and that “the first human beings on earth would have known these rules. ” This is fundamentally an argument that morality is not relative, but absolute. Because I’ve demonstrated earlier in my response that objective morality can only exist with God present, arguments from objective morality would argue for God’s existence. Thus, my opponent is basically implying God exists whether he knows it or not, which would support the factual correctness of religion. Thirdly, my opponent contradicts himself within his argument. He states that “religion tells people the obvious,” which I take to mean both morally and factually obvious, because he’s arguing from objective morality, and then just a few sentences later that “religion is wrong because it dictates false information. ” How can religion both teach right information and wrong information simultaneously? Sources 1. Craig, William Lane and JP Moreland. Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview. p. 85. (. http://goo.gl...) 2. “Earthly Concerns. ” The Economist. Retrieved 21 October 2012. (. http://goo.gl...) 3. Craig, William Lane and JP Moreland. Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview. p. 617. (. http://goo.gl...)