God Probably Doesn't Exist.

Ontological ArgumentPremise 2Multiplicity of AttributesThe term being does not directly imply sentience (although sentience is a corollary from a boundless being existing), it is just an existential qualifier (otherwise we are left with “a boundless exists”, which makes no sense) – thus the qualifier “a boundless being exists” adds the existential qualifier to the attribute of boundlessness. I was explicit when doing this when I argued against existence as a predicate, and hence “being” cannot be a predicate, or an attribute, only its attribute of being boundless can be. Pro is equivocating between two definitions of “being” here, and hence his arguments that it entails a multiplicity of attributes based on this are logically invalid. Virtually every philosophical definition one comes across, including Heidegger’s utilisation of it in his acclaimed Being and Time use it as an existential qualifier of some form (e.g. as Dasein). [8]“However, it seems “boundless being” gives us two properties"I am concerned about Pro’s use of “seems” here, as this is just an appeal to intuition which is just a biological tool for guesstimating without thought – not for abstract thought. Virtually all of our scientific laws are notoriously counter-intuitive is a testament to this.[9] Either it has two or more properties, or it does not, it should be straightforward to elucidate that much deductively without requiring “seems”. Given that I have deductively (not intuitively) justified why God is of one fundamental attribute, my arguments take priority.Sentience & BoundlessnessEven assuming that sentience is a primary attribute of God, Pro’s objection here lacks any force or merit. How is it coherent to say “bound to sentience”, when sentience gives one their nature and identity. Sentience would grant freedoms rather than subtract from them. It would entail a contradiction to say that a boundless being was not sentient. Going “beyond” God’s nature, when God’s nature is to be boundless makes absolutely no sense – it is contradictory.Existential Predicate“The argument states, by God’s definition, nothing is prohibiting God’s existence. This is synonymous with saying God exists by definition.”I don’t see how this statement is tenable, didn’t my argument require three premises and not just one? God’s existence doesn’t immediately follow if there exists no external constraint to God’s existence, since God needs to be internally coherent too. To make a cup tea you need both tea leaves and water – teabags are not a cup of tea by definition. If it was synonymous with saying it then I wouldn’t have needed the first or second premises for the argument to be coherent.Pro argues for descriptivism regarding what attributes are, however if we run this in reverse, and assume God does not exist, then we run into contradictions. Thus, regardless of the nature of us playing with words, attributes, qualifiers, etc. we run into logical contradictions and nonentities if we ignore that these entail truths in reality. A priori truths entail truths about objects in reality. If you take a tape measure and run it around the perimeter of any circle, its value will always be the value of the diameter multiplied by pi. This a priori truth is exemplified in reality – and is inherently contradictory to assume it may not be exemplified in reality. It follows it is necessary epistemologically, but not causally.The key difference between God, and anything else is the fact that God is boundless, and other hypothetical objects are not. For example, if we conceived of the proposition that “a teacup orbiting Mars that exists”. If teacup doesn’t exist orbiting Mars, then using my argument assumptions we are left with two options:1. The proposition “a teacup orbiting mars” is incoherent2. The proposition “a teacup orbiting mars” is externally constrainedThe former is false, since teacups are known to exist, and orbiting Mars isn’t that big a jump. So the latter must be true – and there are numerous external constrains that can exist for example “there exists nothing but space and meteorites” is an external constraint, since space and rocks fill up the space that a teacup requires to occupy. Thus to say that a teacup exists in orbit around mars is a proposition, but one that is easy to come up with possible external constraints which prevent its existence. The same cannot be said of a boundless being.Premise 3 “However, Con’s defense is an a priori defense. It deals with the definition of God, not with the external world. A priori arguments cannot tell us about the nature of the complete external world"I don’t find this response sustainable. A priori arguments tell us plenty about the external world, as they prove tautologically what must happen and what must not happen. We know that logical incoherencies are impossible to exemplify in the external world. These are most often cited to demonstrate impossibilities (such as the possibility of an exemplified square circle/married bachelor), they can also be cited to demonstrate necessities given that the inverse is incoherent. Pro would have had to explicitly challenge my first premise if he wanted to make the argument against a priori justification for the nature of the external world, yet he has already conceded that crucial premise.Furthermore, “the inductive world” makes no sense – since induction is an epistemological term, not ontological. If Pro is talking about the knowability of the external world – then he just begs the question in light of the weight of the arguments I have presented so far – it is thus a bare assertion.Pro appeals to the possibility of sentience needing to be realised in biological material, well this doesn’t work for 2 reasons:1. It is not (and certainly hasn’t been shown to be) a necessary truth2. The universe is tautologically contained within God by this argument, thus he is of physical (ergo "biological" material)Argument from Religious ExperiencesExplanatory Power and SimplicitySuch revelations are consistent in their common ontology and core of their attributes. While there is superfluous variation in the interpretation of these religious experiences – it doesn’t follow that these are inherent of God. Every experience we have varies in some manner according to pre-existing beliefs. As Pro points out – even atheists have such experiences – which is exactly what we would expect of a general explanation instead of something cooked up in the mind of the religious person. Regardless of whether or not someone believes in gravity – they are still going to hit the ground if they fall.Pattern seeking is completely irrelevant, as it is the incorrigible experience (basic belief) of God that is being premised here – not the interpretation of such an experience. I am doing the interpreting here via. my argument from abduction by interpreting the data set and fitting an explanation/interpretation of those facts to which I posit God as the cause of them.HallucenationsThus Pro is left with hallucinations as an explanation – yet Pro drops that these experiences are noetic/veridical – and hence are equivalent to our everyday perception of reality. That cup on the table is a veridical experience, and thus you are justified in believing the experience is genuine, and not hallucinatory. Similarly religious experiences without good reason to think otherwise (especially in every case of religious experience) – are veridical and hence probably genuine. Furthermore, yes hallucinations exist – but so does consciousness, minds and the idea of God. Theism need only appeal to a different version of what we already know exists.Pro concedes that God provides tremendous explanatory power even outside of religious experiences at the cost of very minimal assumptions. Pro makes the assumption of hallucinations to explain all religious experiences – I posit God to explain religious experiences and everything else. Furthermore Pro drops that God is indeed a very simple and concise explanation for religious experience. God gives predictions on what a religious experience of him would be – and the data fits the general area of what such a being would predict (transcendence, perfectly good, etc.), and also expected features of the universe (e.g. presence of design). Atheism nor hallucenations do anything to predict the nature of religious experiences.[10]Background knowledge“Just because we have knowledge about other sentient beings doesn’t entail we would have knowledge that a God would interfere in the development of humanity”No, but we have knowledge of attributes of a God that would. Regardless of what a beetles sentience is – if we know a beetle’s sentience exists – then positing that a human-like sentience exists is not a significant jump – since we already know of one such sentience that is possible. Thus it is no longer in principle impossible or implausible.References8. http://goo.gl...9. https://goo.gl...10. http://goo.gl...