# Does God exist?

Questions about the nature of ultimate reality have been asked as long as humans have been conscious. For thousands of years, across thousands of cultures, belief in a supreme being has been more or less common, but some have always called into question whether or not God exists or can even be known.
By "God," we mean the metaphysically ultimate being, all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good, timeless, simple, and devoid of any anthropomorphic qualities; we do not necessarily mean the Abrahamic God, although these ideas may share some overlap.
So is there a God?

## God exists
### Pro

* Pro Energy cannot be created or destroyed. Therefore energy is eternal. Zero-point energy is in every single point in space. Therefore energy is omnipresent. Power is the transformation of energy. Therefore eternal and omnipresent energy is all-powerful. These are the properties of "God". By the identity of indescernibles it follows that there is no God save energy. In other words, it's a scientific fact that God exists. QED.
** Objection Energy is not God. It's a natural phenomenon, not a complex being with attributes like being "all-good" or "all-knowing". This is actually an argument against God's existence.
*** Objection The Divine is natural. Eternal and omnipresent energy contains all information which suggests "all-knowing". If energy was "all-good" then there would not exist evil; an omnipresent God would include everything, including the evil of mankind. In other words, God is inherently evil, to the extent that we are evil. The OT Bible even says 'Jehovah is the cause of evil and good'. Anyway, Pantheism is an old doctrine about God. The Apostle Paul even quotes the Stoic philosophers and espouses the teaching of Pantheism; "for in him we have life and move and exist".
**** Objection Eternal and omnipresent energy does not contain all information and if it did that doesn't mean it / an energy being would be "all-knowing".
***** Objection Name what existing information that eternal and omnipresent energy does not contain.
****** Objection The Universe contains all information, yet the universe does not "know" everything. The same thing applies to such energy. Knowledge is "an awareness of facts, a familiarity with individuals and situations, or a practical skill" but containing information does not mean one is aware of the info contained. If one eats some spinach one doesn't know all the genetic information contained in the plant and any further details like microbial compositions.
******* Objection That's true. I said it "suggests" but does not prove the issue.
**** Objection The divine is considered supernatural in all major monotheistic religions. What is described may if anything apply to pantheism which is not what this debate is about.
***** Objection "By "God" we mean the metaphysically ultimate being,... all-powerful,... timeless,... and devoid of any anthropomorphic qualities." And this I proved is energy. Also consider that all major monotheistic religions hold the Bible as sacred text. Read Jeremiah 23:24 and Acts 17:27-28 for the doctrine of Pantheism.
****** Objection This energy is not all-powerful in that it can't do anything at will and also does not meet other standard criteria, like the one in this debate.
******* Objection I suppose you would have to disprove it has a will.
******** Objection There is simply absolutely no reason to think it could and would have (neither evidence, nor reason, nor even any hint). Things don't become true or likely or worth believing just because it hasn't been disproven.
* Pro The laws of logic are necessary true propositions. Propositions are real entities, but cannot be physical entities; they are essentially thoughts. So the laws of logic are necessarily true thoughts. Since they are true in every possible world, they must exist in every possible world. But if there are necessarily existent thoughts, there must be a necessarily existent mind; and if there is a necessarily existent mind, there must be a necessarily existent person. A necessarily existent person must be spiritual in nature, because no physical entity exists necessarily. Thus, if there are laws of logic, there must also be a necessarily existent, personal, spiritual being.
** Objection In an individual mind, not real evidence of the god.
** Objection Thoughts are electrical synapses in the brain, so they are physical entities.
** Objection This is an argument that the mind exists. That is not the question. The ‘spiritual’ is also undefined, and it’s logical connection to a god is not evident
** Objection This proposition is not correct: "Since they are true in very possible world, they must exist in every possible world". Why? Because the expression "possible world" has two different meanings. Is an amphibology. In first case, its meaning is: "possible world that we imagine". In the second case, its meaning is: "possible world that can exist".
** Objection Propositions are not thoughts: they are abstract objects existing in the world of abstract objects together with numbers, shapes, mathematical functions, etc.
** Objection Re: "They are true in every possible world, they [propositions] must exist in every possible world": Untrue: propositions do not exist in possible worlds; they exist in the world of abstract objects together with numbers, shapes, mathematical functions, etc. Propositions are true in possible worlds.
* Pro Existence of God has been proven a priori using higher-order logic and reasonable axioms. Axioms used in research papers to prove are as follows: A1: Self-identity is a positive property, self-difference is not. A2: A property entailed or necessarily entailed by a positive property is positive. A3: The conjunction of any collection of positive properties is positive.
** Objection A3 begs the question. If God doesn't exist, then, by the principle of explosion, his existence entails everything, and this would include negative properties. Therefore, by A2, if God doesn't exist, then whatever conjunction of properties he has cannot be positive. In other words, A3 assumes that God does exist.
** Objection Non-existence of god has been proven a priori using higher-order logic and reasonable axioms.
*** Objection What axioms and logics are used to prove it? Logics, Arguments, deductions, explanation, and axioms used to prove existence of (simplified) Supreme being are given in paper.
** Objection Without statement of a specific proof, there is nothing to respond to. A general reader is left with the option of believing that there exists some kind of proof without being able to verify it, or even get a vague idea of what the proof consists in. The above is essentially the "faith" stratagem.
*** Objection *God* is merely subjective to interpretation. With that logic, you can’t disprove my version of God, so it is correct.
**** Objection And you can't prove the existence of your god.
**** Objection According to this logic, we should worship the Flying Spaghetti Monster
* Pro Various phenomena in the Universe appear to be designed and suggest a designer, God.[for example?]
** Objection Many of these by now have natural explanations such as biological evolution. Any potential remaining cases are similar to this case and either will also be replaced with scientific theories if they haven't yet or "God designed/created it" is not an explanation to begin with and not having any supporting significant rationale.
*** Objection This is just a blanket generalization. There is no evidence provided that the remaining cases will be replaced by scientific theories. In fact, such an assertion begs the question against the theist.
**** Objection There are no remaining cases where a designer God explains it (better).
***** Objection By remaining cases, the argument meant everything that is not explained by biological evolution, such as nomological laws. That nomological laws are better explained by God has been argued by various philosophers.
** Objection The characteristics of “appearing to be designed” is vague and subjective. At best, the appearance of design suggests some force or forces of nature that manifest as complexity and pattern. At worst it is an argument based on projected biological traits. In no way does it necessitate a god.
** Objection Consider Auroras, these phenomena occurs due to scattering of charged particles in atmosphere which exists as of evolutionary phases of Earth. Not designed by anyone.
*** Objection Not a good objection. Just because a farmer grows potatoes doesn’t mean that it’s design wasn’t created.
*** Objection The fact that some phenomena were not designed by God does not imply that no phenomena were designed by God.
**** Objection You cannot use some things as proof for the existence of God on the basis that they seem designed, while ignoring others which exhibit similar 'designed' characteristics but which are scientifically proven to be natural.
** Objection Animals and plants do appear to be designed, but Darwinian theory of evolution by natural selection explains how their design-like features originate without divine intervention. Before Darwinian theory, it was difficult to explain the origin of function in living things. One should not conclude from a lack of explanation for a natural phenomenon that no explanation can be found, thunder and disease being examples of phenomena for which explanations were found later.
*** Objection Darwinian theory by no means proves that life originated without divine intervention. It just shows that the universe behaved someway at a particular point in time. Why it behaves the way it behaves may have been predetermined by divine intervention.
*** Objection While Darwin's theory attempts to explain how life evolved, it draws no conclusions at to how it first began. Science has yet to reasonably explain it
**** Objection Religion is yet to reasonably explain the origins of God. Similar to the chicken and the egg paradox, nothing can be created from nothing
***** Objection Specifically God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob has no beginning and no end, He simply has existed forever. For if He was limited by time, then time would be limiting a limitless God
****** Objection You could apply the same logic to the universe. This is a special pleading case for a God that ignores not only other Gods but also the universe.
*** Objection While Darwin's theory attempts to explain how life evolved, it draws no conclusions at to how it first began. Science has yet to reasonably explain it
* Pro Language plays an integral role in the laws of nature and of DNA. "As encoded meaning, language is non-material in its ultimate essence. Apart from something akin to the human mind, there are no serious candidates for explaining how linguistic phenomena might otherwise arise. The only reasonable way to account for the linguistic aspects of the laws of nature and of DNA is an intellect with capacities so vast that most people would immediately identify this entity as God."
** Objection The human mind is accounted for more easily by reference to billions of years of biochemical accidents in a massive cosmos. The leap to the “reasonability” of the existence of god is only assumed here, not argued or articulated.
** Objection This is simply a poor understanding of genetics
*** Objection This is more of a personal attack than a helpful, edifying argument.
** Objection Human language plays no role in them at all, integral or otherwise. Genuine laws of nature exist without mind and language, and so does DNA. Laws of nature can be expressed in language, but do not depend on language. DNA, a code that gets transcribed into amino acids, resembles a language, but does not depend on language and precedes language.
*** Objection The very fact that it resembles a language makes it count for the original argument
**** Objection Things that resemble a language can emerge from random processes. That something resembles a language isn't evidence that it is a language.
* Pro Under a naturalistic worldview, the coincidence of all the cognitive faculties required for knowledge is highly unlikely, since evolution favors survival, not truth, and any overlap of survival and truth is highly implausible. If the reliability of cognitive faculties is low, any belief is not warranted including metaphysical naturalism, which becomes self-defeating.
** Objection Implausible situations become increasingly possible over a cosmic scale — without a god-function.
** Objection This is the God of the Gaps fallacy. Just because something cannot be explained does not mean it is proof of God.
** Objection This doesn't imply that God exists, only that naturalism is false.
** Objection The requirement of survival indeed does not require a perfect capacity for truth. However, 1) "any overlap of survival and truth is highly implausible" is clearly untrue: there is a considerable overlap between search for truth and the requirement of survival; and 2) the overlap is far from perfect.
*** Objection There is often benefit from accurate representation of the world: for instance, when planning the required stock of water to cross a desert, it pays off to make a good estimate of how much is required; and it pays off to avoid a hole instead of falling into it, driving accurate representation of physical environment. Similar requirements impact a huge range of practical human activities.
**** Objection This reads like an objection to the argument, rather than to the parent objection.
*** Objection Humans do not have innate intuition for modern physics including general theory of relativity, and yet modern physics seems to approach truth better than human intuition for space. By human intuition, the Earth is still, yet we found that to be untrue.
*** Objection The human capacity for science is in need of explanation since much of scientific activity is not directly tied to survival of the genes. However, to find the explanation is the task of evolutionary psychology, and finding it may be more challenging than inexpert intuitive reasoning allows.
* Pro Chanting of names of God (like Hare Krishna) gives immense happiness to devotees. One can't expect such happiness from a non-theistic worldview, but God existence could explain such happiness.
** Objection The happiness derived from chanting a name of God stems from the belief that said name identifies God, not from the actual presence of God
** Objection Chanting in unison in a crowd during a sports game can cause similar feelings of happiness. Happy feelings from chanting is not evidence for God.
** Objection Let us assume that only chanting names of God can give unique exhilarating experience. If that is so, that may well have a Darwinian evolutionary explanation. Even if we do not know for sure what it is, the lack of specific explanation at any point in time does not preclude future discovery of a good explanation. See also W:Evolutionary psychology of religion.
* Pro For the Universe to exist, there must be an uncaused cause, God, or the Universe is eternal. So either there's no explanation for God, or there's no explanation for the Universe. The Big Bang is not an explanation, it's a description with no explanation for why it came to be. We then have to rely on chance and happenstance. God fits the picture better.
** Objection Chance and happenstance are observed but any “causal god” is assumed without presenting evidence or argument.
*** Objection If "causal god" better explains the phenomenon (something claimed in the original argument), then that constitutes Bayesian evidence for said god.
** Objection If there must be an uncaused cause, then why can't the Universe be the uncaused cause? Adding God to the chain only adds unnecessary complexity making it a less likely explanation. Just start with a natural, unintelligent and minimally powerful uncaused cause.
*** Objection Everything that we know in the Universe has a cause external in space and previous in time. Why should the Universe itself be any different? But God is timeless, so the same rules don't necessarily apply.
**** Objection This is an instance of special pleading: if God is timeless and has special rules to circumvent causality then another argument is required to prove God is the only possible being or entity that can circumvent causality, otherwise we could just say something else timeless caused the big bang.
**** Objection One could just as easily argue that the Universe is timeless
**** Objection The Big Bang was the beginning of spacetime. As such, we cannot say that the particles that cause the Big Bang follow the same rules.
** Objection Not knowing how the Big Bang came about is not proof or evidence that God exists.
*** Objection While not definitive proof of God, it is definitive proof of the possibility of His Existence.
**** Objection Something being possible is not evidence that it’s likely, nor a reasonable belief.
** Objection This assumes the need for an explanation, which is just a false equivalence. Things within the Universe require an explanation, but the Universe itself does not require an explanation, because we explain things inside the Universe based on the assumption that there is an external factor already explained. This does not apply to the Universe itself because there is nothing external to the Universe by definition. Either the Universe caused itself or simply has no cause. This might strike many as nonsensical but that is simply because they are unconsciously and inappropriately extending the logic of parts to the whole.
*** Objection You state the Universe either causes itself or simply had no cause. It's a bald faced assertion with no supporting facts.
*** Objection You state the Universe either causes itself or simply had no cause. It's a bald faced assertion with no supporting facts.
*** Objection Everything we know has a cause different from itself. Thus, we must pursue this principle to its natural end, and conclude that the Universe has a cause different from itself, unless contrary evidence can be provided. You can't merely assume that the Universe is all there is and write in an exception into the definition of the Universe.
**** Objection If you question the origin of the Universe, it's like questioning the water cycle. Where does evaporated water come from? From condensed water. Where does condensed water come from? From precipitated water. Where does precipitated water come from? From ran off water. Where does ran off water come from? From evaporated water. And the cycle goes on and on and on. Similarly, if you question the origin of the Universe, I would say from the Big Bang. If you question the origin of the Big Bang, I would say from the Singularity. If you question the origin of the Singularity, I would say from the Big Crunch. If you question the origin of the Big Crunch, I would say from the Universe. If God does exist, why did he make principles that lead to his non-existence? If God created science, why we can't connect science to him? Even principles are self-looping, so there's also indeed no creator. Energy loops, matter loops, the burnt paper turns into carbon and gas, it just turns into something else to become paper again. The Universe exists in the first place because it loops so there's no beginning or end. The law of conservation of energy states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, only be transferred or transformed from one form to another. This implies that energy and the Universe existed in the first place. There's no creator. Just accept the fact that there is no zero in the Universe, there's a fixed number of materials and energy. The Universe is just a continuous loop of energy. It inflates through the Big Bang, reaches the maximum inflation, deflates through the Big Crunch, and reaches the maximum deflation, and the cycle goes on.
***** Objection I agree; like questioning the water cycle, or our seasons, distinguishing the beginning from the end is a laborious task. However, who's to say in x years from now science won't find evidence reconciling God's existence? If something is currently out of sight and therefore out of mind, does this negate its existence? And emotions: do these not exist because we do not validate them so through our physical senses without having first experienced them? No; emotions make themselves real through their physical manifestations, subject to human interpretation and understood by empathy. Thus, we come to understand one's happiness through its reflexes in the face, voice and body for we have experienced this same sensation ourselves. (Accordingly then, if we have not experienced happiness we would be deficient in empathising and thus recognising happiness). Science seeks to account for the natural phenomena of our world to which we physical beings are inextricably reactive. Yet where technology falls short is in its incompatibility with the human experience; does technology have the same capacity to react impulsively, emotionally and intellectually to its environment? Humans seek personal connections with God, or the divine, as seized by the inarguably human thirst for meaning (again, exempt from the "interests" of insentient technologies). Perhaps science and religion/spirituality should simply be segregated from one another for their languages and interests are incompatible.
****** Objection Just Because It Hasn’t Happened Yet, It Doesn’t Mean It Won’t Happen In The Future. And this statement is relatable to laws of Universe as well. Even if they havent broken in our presense, it doesn't mean they haven't at all. Owing to this fact we cant say that Universe was always in that way of physics. For example, ultramassive black hole which is approximately 5.7 billion light years far from Earth which means we see his 5.7 billion years old version(He start his existence about 10b years ago). But how did it appear in this huge size only in 4b years? It means that the laws of universe more likely to change over time or even to be changed
* Pro God hasn't provided conclusive evidence to everyone, because not all people want God.
** Objection Nothing supports the statement such as claims that is the reason in religious texts like the Bible that believers may interpret as being communication from God. It's just a strange human idea.
*** Objection It is unclear how this objection refutes the claim that not all people want God. Furthermore, even leaving that aside, such an idea can be found in some Bible verses such as Psalm 14:2-3.
**** Objection Now this psalm in an old book written by humans is all that supports that statement which is incredibly weak support. That psalm says "The Lord looks down from heaven on all mankind to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God." but clearly those people who believe in other Gods seek [the true] God.
***** Objection It is unclear that all of the people who believe in other Gods seek [the true] God, since some of them turn to other Gods, precisely because of their rejection of [the true] God in question.
****** Objection Most of them have not rejected the alleged true God in questions. Their belief is largely determined by which religion is associated with the geographical location of their place of upbringing.
******* Objection Sure, but there are some who did reject true God in question pretty explicitly, for example, theistic Satanists.
******** Objection Such are a tiny minority and thus this objection does not address the point above which is about [direct quote] "Most of them" and should likely be deleted or considered moot.
********* Objection But the objection above isn't addressing the original argument which is merely making a statement about not all people wanting God.
** Objection According to the religious texts like the Bible and religious doctrines, people generally want God even if they don't know it as believers think it's the one true God and that they get the benefit of an afterlife.
*** Objection People generally wanting God doesn't refute the original argument which merely states that not all people want God. In order to refute that argument, it needs to be shown that all people want God.
**** Objection No, it doesn't because the original argument when matched to reality isn't just about not all people believing in any particular God like the Christian God but the majority of humans on this world. No God is believed by the majority of humans and even then still ~50% would still believe in other things or in no God at all. God also hasn't provided conclusive evidence to all or most of those who want God.
***** Objection Let's focus on this sentence: "God also hasn't provided conclusive evidence to all or most of those who want God." It is either an objection to the original argument, on an objection to God in general. If it is an objection to the original argument, then it talks past it. That God hasn't provided conclusive evidence to all or most of those who want God doesn't refute the idea that God hasn't provided conclusive evidence to everyone, because not all people want God. The original argument didn't say that God hasn't provided conclusive evidence to some people, because they in particular don't want God. So as an objection to the original argument, it appears to talk past it. Now, if the purpose of this objection is to make a general argument against God, then it would need to be shown that there is no possible world where God exists and where he doesn't give conclusive evidence of his existence to all people who want him. Furthermore, it also would need to be shown that people who want God, weren't provided with relevant evidence, as opposed to them just not following evidence to where it leads.
** Objection Not everyone wants to believe the Moon landing is real, but there is still conclusive evidence that it is real.
*** Objection This appears to be a non-sequitur that doesn't address the original argument.
** Objection Absence of evidence is not evidence of presence. Absence of evidence is evidence of absence. Lack of evidence doesn't imply that God is fulfilling the desire of people who don't want God, nor that God exists.
*** Objection The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence, as Carl Sagan has said.
*** Objection Subjective evidence or described subjective experience of God suggest that God can exists who wants to known to people as God choose. And principle of incredulity say that we should believe in experience unless there is good reason to not otherwise. Now if there is positive evidence for non existence of God, it can't counted. But as far as we know, there is no positive evidence of non existence of God. Therefore subjective evidence can't be rejected. Now question one can ask is why would God don't provide subjective evidence to everyone? So, one explanation is not all people want God.
**** Objection Subjective evidence for the existence of god is usually sourced in childhood cultural indoctrination and narcissistic wishful thinking.This is not a reliable data set on which to base a fundamental assumption about reality. Subjective evidence like this should be rejected regardless of any lack of proof of god’s non-existence. The lack of objective evidence is for believers to address.
* Pro If the Universe is a simulation, then there's a creator beyond spacetime who designed and fine-tuned the simulation. Now either the Universe is a simulation or the Universe is base reality. If the Universe is a simulation, it can be a simulation level 1, level 2, level 1000 or any level. If the Universe is base reality, it can exist in only one way. Therefore, there are more possibilities of the Universe being a simulation than base reality.
** Objection Even if our Universe is a simulation and has a creator, that doesn't imply a creator of base reality. Our Universe could be a simulation one level below base reality, which implies a creator outside of our local spacetime that exists in base reality, but that does not imply a creator outside spacetime for that base reality since the argument only applies to simulations.
** Objection There being more possibilities for the simulation hypothesis does not logically necessitate the acceptance of it. The construction violates Occam's razor. If we are allowed to violate Occam's razor and posit an arbitrary number of entities without any evidence, we may 1) posit God, 2) posit God and meta-God who created God, 3) posit also meta-meta-God, 4) posit a chain of meta-Gods of length n, 5) posit an infinite series of Gods, each higher one creating a lower one. All these fanciful hypotheses are unfalsifiable, not bound by observation and experiment, with no basis for differentiating between them. Occam's razor allows us to pick one of the multitude of hypotheses, and do without all these Gods, including meta-God and also God; we can do with the universe itself. Here, the force of Occam's razor was shown without any reference to simulation, but it applies to simulation as well: there being so many constructions of the simulation hypotheses is a weakness, not a strength, of the argument.
* Pro Difference between natural and supernatural is artificial. It depends on definition of Supernatural, and gives reason to reject God on artificial grounds. If Supernatural is defined as something which science can't explain, then most of phenomenon can't explainable by science because it depends on our observations, and it doesn't necessarily that observations shows real content of reality out there. If Supernatural is defined as something done that violates laws of physics, there is contradiction in definition. Because laws of physics are not fixed set of laws, but we try to find laws by observations and whatever comes, we describes it as laws of physics. If Supernatural is defined as some actions by agents, it is unclear whether to consider ghost as Supernatural because if some explanation found for it, it becomes natural. And it isn't necessary that nature behaves on it's own. If physical reality doesn't know what it does, or how it does, then it doesn't have to continue to exist. All physical reality can suddenly appears and disappears. It isn't necessarily for reality to such as it should change, it can be such as it remains static for infinity, and nothing happens. It behaves in such a way that is not expected if it run on it's own. However if material nature works under directions of God, it is exactly what we normally expect. And evidence from spontaneous emergent, chaotic unpredictability further suggest material nature can be works under supervision of God, as scripture like Bhagavad Gita also suggest.
** Objection This argument successfully argues god is possible. Few atheists dispute this, though. “Possible” is an extremely low bar for such a significant question.
** Objection The above looks like an incoherent jumble of multiple arguments. The first step would be to identify the separate arguments and make them dedicated items, and then we could look whether there is something to respond to. As for the definition of "supernatural", it can be defined by example: a tree spontaneously levitating above the ground with no apparent force to make it so would be a supernatural phenomenon, or would seem to be. Similarly, water spontaneously flowing upwards would be one. Another example is a ghost of a deceased person to haunt a place, perhaps open and close some door. Certain things do not happen in nature. Whether we need to play the genus-differentia game of stating what distinguishes supernatural from natural phenomena is unclear; it may be worthwhile for serious philosophy, but the examples of supernatural phenomena give a good idea. See W:Supernatural and Hume's W:Of Miracles.
*** Objection While the initial argument is somewhat incoherent, the objection cites phenomena that were once considered Supernatural and are now explained by Science. The Truth of God could conceivably follow the path.
* Pro The Universe is fine-tuned to support life. This fine-tuning is less surprising and even probable if God exists, but highly unlikely in a godless Universe.
** Objection The universe supports life only in certain conditions. Actually, most of it appears extraordinarily hostile to organic chemistry, never mind human life.
*** Objection The fact that universe supports life *at all* is surprising (in the Bayesian sense) according to the proponent of the fine-tuning argument.
** Objection If the universe had not been perfectly fine-tuned, we could not have debated this at all. This argument is invalid because it is one of two interpretations of all the same facts; some see fine-tuning as proof of God, others are willing to accept the improbability. If we apply Occam's Razor and the Ultimate Boeing 747 argument, the lack of a creator is the best assumption
*** Objection It is unclear whether accepting the improbability is an easy bullet to bite, given the fact that according to some estimations, the odds of such improbability happening are as low as 1 in 10¹³⁶.
** Objection The puddle analogy refutes the argument of fine tuning. Assume a puddle gains conscience. It might find that the hole it sits in fits it neatly, so neatly in fact that it must have been made for it. The puddle in this scenario does not realize that as it is made of water any hole would fit it perfectly.
*** Objection The likeliness of a puddle fitting in a hole is nowhere near the extreme unlikeliness of universe existing with all it's features. Hence atomic balance
**** Objection The likelihood of the universe existing with all its features is 100%.
***** Objection No evidence is provided in support of this claim.
** Objection This argument is biased to carbon-based lifeforms. Life could exist in ways that are not based on carbon meaning the fine-tuning of the universe is not as necessary for life to exist as a carbon-based life form might think.
*** Objection There is no clear evidence of life existing anywhere else in the Universe. Yet, the objection makes the assumption to prove something else doesn't exist
** Objection Considering multiverse theory, there may be many universes with their own cosmological constants. In this scenario, of course a life form in a "fine tuned" universe sees fine tuning even though that life form's existence can be relegated to chance, not God. This is an example of selection bias. The multitude of other universes inhospitable to life would never develop life forms capable of posing such questions.
* Pro If the Universe is ultimately meaningless, devoid of any purpose or design, then all-purpose and meaning one assigns should be imaginary. Because if the Universe doesn't have ultimately any purpose, then life just happened to appear in accidental ways such as it doesn't have any inherent meaning or purpose. However, if God is the reason for the existence of us, there can be the purpose of life. In some religions, it is suggested that God is originally in the spiritual universe with living entities. When a living entity doesn't want God, God makes a material universe for the fulfillment of the desire of them of not wanting God. The material universe is created temporarily such as living entity can realize their connection with God, and when they want God, they can return to God, which may be the purpose of life.
** Objection This argument assumes its own premise. It relies on the presumption that 'meaning' is an inherent characteristic of life, which is just a rudimentary form of Anthropocentrism. There is no reason why there should be 'meaning' to one's life for life to exist.
*** Objection While the objection is logical, the ethical ramifications of such thinking lead to nihilism.
**** Objection Nihilistic or not, a horrible reality must be accepted if it’s a reality. (Besides, meaning can come from creativity and connection.)
**** Objection The only philosophies we should accept are the logical ones; however, there are secular bases for purpose.
* Pro The Universe follows mathematical laws independently of how humans describe them. So mathematics must exist independently of human minds. But all mathematics needs axioms. How can axioms exist independently of human minds? An axiom generator system is needed, or meta-axioms that create the axioms required for mathematical laws. But how can meta-axioms exist? Meta-meta-axioms are needed, and so on. This makes it implausible or even impossible for any mathematical laws to exist. However, it's not impossible if mathematics exists in the mind of God. Because God can conceptualize mathematics.
** Objection Mathematical laws are how humans describe observed matter and energy. They do not exist independently of us.
*** Objection They do actually exist independently of us
** Objection Axioms are abstract objects that exist in the world of abstract objects, inhabited by numbers, shapes, mathematical functions, mathematical relations, propositions, pure sets, etc. There is no requirement for a mind for abstract objects to exist. If one claims that a mind is needed in order for abstract objects to exist, one does not need to focus on axioms, one may start with numbers as abstract objects that are instantiated or reflected in the empirical universe but are located in the abstract universe. God, being a magician, can explain anything and everything: existence of abstract objects, thunder, disease, floods, trees levitating with no apparent cause, water spontaneously flowing upwards, phenomena observed and those that never occur. The explanatory utility of such an all-explaining entity is in fact zero.
*** Objection If there is no requirement for a mind for abstract objects to exist, then how did abstract objects come into being? Did they exist eternally before there was mind to perceive them?
*** Objection If there is no requirement for a mind for abstract objects to exist, then how did abstract objects come into being? Did they exist eternally before there was mind to perceive them?
* Pro Objective morality exists and requires an absolute moral authority. Without some absolute authority, all morality is an individual interpretation of morals or shared morality decided by groups of people, which is ultimately subjective. If morality comes just from the survival of fittest, it can be moral to steal or murder, if it results in survival. However, most people regard it as not moral. This absolute authority is equivalent to God who may have created humans and provided some rules or laws which may be inherent in us.
** Objection The existence of objective morality is not proven. Why it requires an absolute moral “authority” is not explained. Why that authority is god is not explained.
** Objection The argument assumes its own premise, that objective morality exists, an assumption that isn't necessarily correct but fundamentally necessary for the functionality of the argument. Since, it is from the idea of the existence of objective morality that this argument derives the existence of an absolute moral authority, and from the existence of an absolute moral authority, the existence of God, we necessarily have to conclude that, since no evidence is provided for the positive claim of the existence of objective morality, then no evidence has been provided for the positive claims of the existence of an absolute moral authority or a God. Since the existence of objective morality is provided merely as an assumption lacking supporting evidence, then the existence of an absolute moral authority or the existence of a God is just that, an assumption lacking supporting evidence.
** Objection Objectively moral facts can exist in a world of moral facts, just like abstract objects like numbers, shapes, pure sets, functions and propositions exist in the world of abstract objects. One only needs to posit such a world, which is what one does if one accepts objectively valid moral facts. The existence of such a world needs as much explanation as the world of abstract objects and the empirical world, meaning none. The requirement that the existence of every single entity (including worlds) must be explained cannot be met: at least, the existence of God is left unexplained. God is just an additional artificial node in the ontology to make sure everything can be bound into a nice tree and each network of nodes stemming from a binary relation has a neat origin node (the cause of all things, the explanation of all phenomena, the first move, the law giver, the source of objective morals, the source of ultimate objectives, etc.; a neat evolutionary cognitive trick, even if incorrect.
* Pro Suppose there was no intelligence behind the Universe, no creative mind. In that case, nobody designed my brain for the purpose of thinking. It is merely that when the atoms inside my skull happen, for physical or chemical reasons, to arrange themselves in a certain way, this gives me, as a by-product, the sensation I call thought. But, if so, how can I trust my own thinking to be true? It's like upsetting a milk jug and hoping that the way it splashes itself will give you a map of London. But if I can't trust my own thinking, of course I can't trust the arguments leading to Atheism, and therefore have no reason to be an Atheist, or anything else. Unless I believe in God, I cannot believe in thought: so I can never use thought to disbelieve in God.
** Objection A similar argument applies to the theist. Suppose an intelligence designed our brains. This could mean that our brains were designed for thinking rationally, or it could mean that our brains were designed to come to the wrong conclusions. How do we know which is true? We can't. If I can't trust my own thinking, I can't trust the arguments leading to theism. Assuming God exists does not lead to knowledge that we think rationally.
*** Objection But problem is more serious in universe which just happened to be like it, which is accidental, mindless, purposeless, arbitrary. In such godless universe, there would millions or perhaps billions of coincidence required for brain to function exact right, and there would much more possibility that brain is unreliable. How can anyone know that brain is anything more than quantum fluctuations? In such, how can one can sure that quantum fluctuations should behaves exactly by which it makes logical decision when it doesn't know anything? How can one have faith in such quantum fluctuations such as it shows real reality than shows illusion of reality? However if God creates physical Universe for living entity for giving chance to those who don't want them, then living entity can realize God and can comes to conclusion of God by realizing that material universe is illusionary, and full of suffering which is not ultimate place for him, because of which they can comes to God. In such state, they can have faith in God and can surrender God. Additionally if God wants, God can make known their existence to someone at absolutely certain such as one can becomes certain that God exist, and can realize purpose of existence.
** Objection Nobody designed the stomach for digesting food either, yet with modern biology, we know through a process of evolution over millions of years that the digestive system evolved naturally through an accumulation of beneficial steps. Just like the eye, just like the mind. In short, evolution provides a better explanation than God.
*** Objection While Evolution attempts to explain how Life evolved and offers no opinion on how it began.
*** Objection Not really. How can physical reality behaves so perfectly? If everything is ultimately stochastic thermodynamics progress and quantum fluctuations, why such great coincidence occurs by which it works so well, such as it seems design? If it is not really design but apparent design, it can also be that there is no evolution but apparent evolution, and all entropic thermodynamics progression which doesn't know anything, just happened to behaves like that. But it's seems highly implausible, however it becomes likely if God direct nature or physical reality.
** Objection If God designed our minds, then why is our reasoning ability so imperfect? Why do people confuse correlation with causation? Why do people believe in astrology and other obvious nonsense?
*** Objection "Why is our reasoning ability so imperfect?" Generalisation; one person's reasoning ability may seem sufficient in the eyes of one and poor in the other, both judgements relevant to what they simply believe. "Why do people confuse correlation with causation?" Not everything in nature is immediately obvious in its reason, which is why this debate exists in the first place. "Why do people believe in astrology and other obvious nonsense?" Why is this "obviously" nonsense and what are these "others" with which astrology is grouped? Astrology is a science of cause and effect, cause being time and effect the planetary bodies as they interact with the mathematical grid of the skies. Arguably, the effect is further transmitted into our experiences on Earth, the movements themselves thus becoming the authoritative causes in our subordinated lives, though I accept this hierarchy is difficult to prove. In any case, the planets never cease to move, and they do so in cycles, and so they are predictable and patterned both alone as solitary bodies and as a dynamic system; they mirror nature on Earth though they are extraterrestrial phenomena. Do we object to the natural phenomena of Earth that share these qualities: our days and nights and seasons and even our very human selves that run on cycle and patterned behaviour until eventual death? Earth itself is not exempt from this system of planets and very much follow their patterns, and if we strip the specifics from how processes manifest, all phenomena both terrestrial and extraterrestrial are alike. Stripped to the core, that is, all seems to run on the motivation to sustain time's longevity via the cyclical process of regenerated life from decay, or inception from ending, or life from death. Perhaps more bare is the omniscient motive: cause and effect. Denying the effect of astrology then does not mitigate its cause, as per all natural processes scientifically proven to exist or not. If it is the occult sciences to which you object, they are a salve to the bane of mortality yet are scrapped for the very reason that they concern that which can never truly be made known, including the greatest unknown - death - and thus gives the human mind itching for answers great irritability.
*** Objection Intelligence is a gift endowed to humans that cannot be explained through evolution. It's a gift, but humans are not perfect. If so, we would be divine. How you choose to believe this happened is a matter of faith.
* Pro If you trust your own thinking, then you must have an absolute perfection, a highest logic, against which to measure your thoughts.
** Objection Why must that vision of perfection actually exist? Is it not merely a measure in our minds against an imaginary height of perfection? Thought does not imply existence.
** Objection Untrue: I can trust my own thinking even if it is imperfect. It may be a bad idea, but I can do it. The argument has no force.
** Objection If I do not blindly trust my thinking (as I should not), I should not think in isolation but consider the best arguments the greatest thinkers have to offer. Then I can try to figure out which of the arguments have the greatest force. By giving up the power of my thought entirely, I have no basis for deciding which thinker or which argument to believe. I might just pick what my parents believed, but with a minimum amount of insight I must realize that such a choice is arbitrary and exposes me to whatever they happened to believe, and furthermore, if they used the same reasoning and acquired their belief from their parents, it means that I accept a hereditary theory of knowledge by which no knowledge should ever be acquired and no new arguments discovered since everyone, being properly humble, merely accepts the thought of their ancestors. It seems much more reasonable to combine reasonable doubt about one's reasoning abilities with courage to think and examine arguments and evidence. From which nothing about God follows anyway; what was the argument, exactly? One must not think, therefore, God exists?
* Pro A huge number of humans, throughout centuries, have reported all sorts of encounters with God, from the personal internal type to shared apparitions and public miracles. Experiences differ in many ways, but they all support a common cause: the existence of God. It is highly implausible that many reports all be false or misled, and as we trust our experience unless we have good reason to think otherwise, it is reasonable to think that God is reason behind such experiences.
** Objection Testimonies are generally inconsistent unless they are sufficiently connected by cultural myths or sufficiently vague. Many cultures have the concept of magic, not because magic is real, but because magic is a sufficiently vague concept to hold many different conceptions of it. Unsurprisingly, the reports about God are more similar to the more closely connected the cultures of the witnesses are, which indicates they are cultural phenomena rather than independent observations that corroborate each other.
*** Objection How testimony is inconsistent? In general experience of God is very difficult to describe or explain. Think how do you describe the experience of the color red to someone who is blind from birth? And cultural explanation applies to everything we experienced. Whatever we experienced is shaped by culture and our background. Like if someone who knows about tree interprets the experience of light for seeing something different than someone who doesn't know about the tree, but it doesn't mean such experience of light is not real. And when we claim that the experience of God must be the same for all, it is not reasonable. Suppose someone prays to God in the form of Lord Krishna, now if God appears as Jesus, he probably requests God to appears in form in which he remembers. Same as if someone remembers God in form of Jesus, and if they experience God in form of other, they may request God that they like God in form of Jesus, therefore, please give me appearance in the form in which I remember. Therefore, it is reasonable to think that God may not experience the same as for every devotee because devotees want God in a specific form they love, and God may fulfill a desire of devotees. Also, it is reasonable to think that God has unlimited forms, and also formless because they are absolute. Also if we reject experience because just they are different, should we also reject the experience of reality if it experienced inconsistently by different people? Most people may answer no. So why should we reject the experience of few billions of people who think they have experienced God? Unless we have positive evidence for the non-existence of God, it shouldn't be rejected.
** Objection To know that all these testimonies are testimonies about the same thing, we should know their object (God) independently from these testimonies. We should first know the object we are talking about (God) in order to be able to recognize that all reports deal with the same object.
*** Objection All knowledge ultimately reduces to the testimony of one or more people. Objects cannot be known independently of all testimony.
**** Objection This claim attempts to homogenize testimony. It fails to recognize not all testimony is created equal; some testimony is backed by evidence while some is not.
***** Objection The claim doesn't attempt to homogenize testimony. It would only do so, if it said that all testimonies are equal, which it does not say.
** Objection Eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable. Many people have testified seeing thousands of people celebrate the 9/11 attacks in New Jersey, even though this event never took place. If you put an idea in people's minds, some people will believe that they personally saw whatever that idea is, even if the idea turns out to be false.
*** Objection But people who have experienced God includes medical professionals who know about different psychological phenomenon, and also they have experienced God in which they may differentiate between psychological condition and the real one. Numbers of Medical professionals, physicists, cosmologists experienced God, which makes it less likely to be a purely psychological phenomenon. Additionally, many people go through psychological tests after such experience, in which many are shown to be normal and healthy. If the experience of God is purely delusional, they should show signs of delusion, but instead, people show no such phenomenon. And if God wants, God can make someone know about their existence with absolute certainly.
** Objection Although there are millions of believers, there are not that many of eyewitnesses, relative to the number of believers.
*** Objection It can be because the connection with God may be difficult. Some people who love God so much, God may give him direct realization than someone who is not of that level. However many people are spiritually shallow, but they have experienced God slightly like newborn babies experience light slightly and as time passes, he can more clearly experience light. But it doesn't mean most newborn doesn't have any experience of light, and maybe the same as most people who are spiritually shallow, may not experience God deeper.
** Objection Argumentum ad populum.
*** Objection It can argumentum ad populum only if it claims like "People believe in God therefore God exists". But this is not the same. This argument offers that because millions of people have experienced God, and because we have no positive evidence of the non-existence of God, the experience of God can't be rejected as delusion, hallucinations or lies because else one can reject all experience of all people by same without any positive evidence for its non-existence.
** Objection Personal experiences can't be accounted for as evidence because there's no evidence to support these reports. How would one prove that these encounters were not a trick of the mind, such as mirages or sleep paralysis, or completely fictional? Experiences of God's existence could easily all be hallucinations, delusions, or attributions of a supernatural cause to natural phenomena which, them being as theists, leading to them being caused by God. I can hallucinate too when I am a theist and I can refer to it as a supernatural occurrence caused by God. It leads to the assumption that it is God-caused because you are a theist.
*** Objection Personal experience can be accounted for as evidence. Otherwise, it would not be reasonable to believe (unless you personally experience it yourself) that all humans are conscious, certain drugs induce hallucinations or certain psychological phenomena exist, such as dreams, sleep paralysis, Alice in Wonderland syndrome, phantom limb, etc.
*** Objection When corroborated by so many people, they cannot be so handily dismissed, though.
** Objection Attributing some encounter with nature or with some unusual phenomenon to the existence of God is a speculative conclusion based on a subjective assessment of the available information. Is contemplation of the beauty of a flower an encounter with God, or simply an appreciation of the fractal nature of the cellular structure that has evolved over millions of years? Are reports of virgin birth evidence of a miracle, or simply a translation error, a misunderstanding of the mechanisms of conception, or marketing hype?
*** Objection Trying to prove the existence of miracles scientifically is like trying to prove that Gandhi was Indian linguistically. It is the wrong outlet, as we can never re-experience what they did, along with millions of others. These miracles are a matter of faith to them.
* Pro Science is built on materialistic assumptions, so it already excludes the existence of God.
** Objection If God acts in the natural world, as some religions claim, through acting on prayers, historical miracles, etc then God's existence might be inferred scientifically by studying God's alleged interference in the natural world. Moreover, this has been done and results so far show there is no reason to consider God, in the sense of its established concept, to exist. There is no notable efficacy of prayer above efficacy of related activities like meditation and specifying personal goals and there is no evidence of miracles that, in specific, are associated with a particular God.
** Objection Current science accepts the existence of many immaterial entities, such as light, energy, spacetime and mathematical entities, so it's not built on materialistic assumptions.
** Objection Even if science were built on materialistic assumptions and excluded the existence of God, that doesn't imply that God exists.
* Pro God is defined as perfect and existence is part of perfection. Therefore, God must exist. See also W:Ontological argument.
** Objection The concept of "existing smallest positive fraction" contains existence as part of the concept, therefore, the existing smallest positive fraction exists. Makes sense? In the language of philosophers, "existence is not a predicate"
* Pro Assuming nothing and using the math of the concept of nothing it is possible to deduce that an eternal, omnipresent, omnipotent consciousness exists; this monism panpsychism is usually called "God"; which means God necessarily exists. QED.
** Objection That is a false statement. One can't deduce "that an eternal, omnipresent, omnipotent consciousness exists" from neither the existence of nothing as a concept in the human mind nor the hypothesis assumption that at some point nothing existed.
*** Objection Read the link , it has the full proof. You will notice that it does not claim that "at some point nothing existed". In fact it clearly proves; (|-); ( ≡); (id: →)∧(∃ → ∃); nothing has the property of nothing and nothing exists as nothing; Nowhere and at no time has nothing existed. - Something has always existed everywhere.
** Objection the empty set is not a statement or proposition, and therefore cannot be meaningfully connected using the implication operator, ⇒.
*** Objection If I am not mistaken the empty set is a zero-arity predicate. and P⇒P is a logical tautology in Predicate Calculus. and is otherwise known as Reflexivity of Implication.. and in any case every word or concept implies the same word or concept! It's a logical necessity that the empty set implies the empty set.
** Objection The empty set is not the same thing as nothing,;
*** Objection both the empty set and the word nothing have the same properties (they have no referent or content), so by virtue of the identity of indiscernibles the empty set is equivalent to the word nothing.
* Pro There is solid historical evidence for the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, a man who claims to be the messiah as well as prophecies dated to be thousands of years old that foretell what this man does. This is sufficient evidence that this man is who he claims to be. - Evidence for Jesus life death is found more than just in books of roman historians like tacitus but also the gospels which the writers and believers were put to death proclaiming to be true.
** Objection This doesn't mean there is a God. If he did actually resurrect then it was aliens who resurrected him using advanced means.
*** Objection Why would it have to be aliens using advanced means? That seems very specific. These "advanced means" also appear to operate in ways that aren't known to modern science, so this theory wouldn't qualify as properly naturalistic. Furthermore, alien theories of Ressurection have been criticized on various philosophical and epistemological grounds.
**** Objection Being still unexplained doesn't mean it's supernatural as is the case with religions. It's a naturalist explanation. And it would be aliens such as extraterrestrials only if it's an actual genuine resurrection. More likely there has not been a genuine resurrection of Jesus but simply a look-a-like. It's irrelevant whether or not there has been criticism of alien theories.
***** Objection Aliens using never-seen-before technology that is highly speculative is not a naturalistic explaination. These aliens are using technologies that are beyond the currently known laws of nature, which is almost definitionally a supernaturalism. Not to mention that the critiques that I've linked are not just critiques of alien theories, but critiques of appealing to aliens to explain the Ressurection.
****** Objection No, they would not be using "technologies that are beyond the currently known laws of nature". This is a false assumption. It is a naturalist theory since it's a precisely defined theory, unlike theological ones, and does not imply or require anything supernatural, just advanced technology such as human cloning technology.
******* Objection A theory being naturalistic is not the same as a theory being well-defined. These things are not the same. But leaving that aside, by your own lights, theistic explaination would also be naturalistic. If appealing to advanced cloning technologies (nobody has an exact mechanism of how that works, because we don't have these technologies) on the scale which we have never seen is a naturalistic, well-defined theory, then so is theism. I really don't see how an appeal to future technologies is much different than an appeal to supernatural cause, other than the fact that the former pretends to be scientific.
* Pro (this is an argument derived from a philosophy of explicit interpretations) In terms of category, the first is concept/thingness itself (that which can be identified or systematized in some sense, as things or non-things in themselves), concept doesn't bring about the world naturally but the universe requires an unchanging set of parameters by which the universe is unique and maintains its existence superficial to concept itself, the name that might be attributed to this consistency by which the universe (no matter how old) is allowed to maintain its existence can be granted as "God", separate from the changing aspects of the universe as a consistent thing (this does not mean said God is sentient or personal)
** Objection "consistency by which the universe (no matter how old) is allowed to maintain its existence" is not how God is defined. "God" would not be the appropriate name, for instance because it's far too ambiguous but also because it generally refers to other things. In this debate, God refers to basically an "ultimate being, all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good, timeless".
*** Objection Concerning the definition concerning consistency, it is not argued that this is a necessary definition of God, rather that these properties necessitate God (one actively involved with the universe) to exist, that the universe requires an ultimate standard of knowledge and power, and in defining such would also define objective morality (in the instance this was not a personal God this definition would effectively be nothing, to where only the subjective morality of agents would really matter). You would correctly say that God for this concept would be rather ambiguous compared to the whole of what it really represents (as this is a simplified version of a much larger argument that argues for a monotheistic God that consists of three persons), but is ambiguity really enough to suggest this isn't at least *one* appropriate title?
**** Objection It's both the ambiguity and the implausibility or falsehood (e.g. internal contradiction) of the concepts – and term – of God to apply to "consistency by which the universe (no matter how old) is allowed to maintain its existence".
***** Objection What is the internal contradiction of the concept of God ("ultimate being, all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good, timeless")? It should be mentioned upfront, because otherwise, it is unclear which contradiction the argument is referring to.
****** Objection That if it was all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good, it would greatly reduce or eliminate unnecessary excess suffering for example. Depending on the case, there can be further contradictions, for example if the Bible is to be taken as the word of God.
******* Objection The argument presented has absolutely nothing to do with if the universe has suffering in it at all or in great excess, the original argument could be made even if one was to grant that the universe is not fine tuned for life. Please present objections based on what the argument actually posits, this argument also has nothing to do with the Bible and what it says, but the general concept of God as a necessary precursor and foundation for the universe.
******* Objection Right, but for this objection to work, the suffering in question needs to be ontologically evil. If suffering in question is not evil (neutral or good), then God wouldn't need to reduce it. Furthermore, it needs to be the case that suffering is unnecessary. Suffering that leads to greater good (for example) isn't unnecessary, since it would serve some purpose.
********* Objection That humans detest suffering is the demonstration that it's a kind of ontological evil/negative thing at least when it occurs to innocent people and/or at excessive level. - One could say that good and bad are intrinsically in some sense relative to conscious beings like humans. - If one hypothesizes there to be some kind of ontological good and bad and suggests that one would first need to classify things into either for God to act inconsistently with descriptions of him/it being good or "all-good", then things as bad as very premature deaths and excessive suffering still are ontologically bad if they're avoidable and are as they are to conscious beings insofar there is anything at all that is ontologically good or bad – if there is no such thing it also doesn't make sense to describe God as good or all-good to begin with which already makes little sense if we don't mean good or bad in context of humans/conscious beings.

### Con

* Con Since there are many religions in the world, all of which have their own idea of God and their own ideas of an afterlife (i.e. heaven/hell, reincarnation, etc.), then which God is real, and which afterlife is real?
** Objection In the lead section of this thread "God" was defined as "ultimate being, all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good..." So the question "which God is real" can be at least in principle answered as follows: "God that is defined as an ultimate being that is all-knowing, all-powerful and all-good"
** Objection To claim there is no rational basis for belief in any one religion if at most one can be correct out of thousands is incorrect. The mistake here is assuming all religions have equal probability of being correct, which is not the case: some religions are internally inconsistent, for example, and so have a far lower probability of correctness than more consistent religions. To claim that the credibility of a religion is dictated by its followers' backgrounds is also incorrect; the origin of someone's belief has little bearing on whether the belief is true.
*** Objection All major religions are internally inconsistent
** Objection God may have appeared in different parts of the world in different ways so that people of that place and time can understand God, according to circumstances of that time. Therefore, even though God appears different in different religions, it can be same.
*** Objection If God provides different versions of Himself to different people at different times, then the definition of God is strained. What are we talking about if the definition of God depends on the time and place? Suggesting that God only reveals himself in ways that are not equivalent to His true nature suggests that God hasn't really revealed Himself at all. It suggests he has only revealed caricatures of Himself dependent on the cultures to which he displays these caricatures to.
** Objection This does not exclude the possibility that one of those religions might turn out to be the correct one, with the correct idea of God and an afterlife, even if that religion contradicts all other religions and this means all religions except for one of them turn out to be wrong.
*** Objection If at most one religion can be correct, out of the many thousands that exist, and it is possible that they are all wrong, there is no rational basis to believe in any one religion over all the others. Most people who believe in a religion do so because of social reasons, for instance being raised in that religion, or falling in love with and marrying a follower of that religion, rather than any rational basis to believe that their particular religion is any more likely to be true than all the other religions it contradicts. No one religion is obviously superior to all of the others enough to persuade all the followers of the other religions to convert.
**** Objection We aren't debating over the merits of Christianity or Islam for example--these are matters of faith. We are debating whether a God of some sort exists as a starting ground
***** Objection It is not about the merits of a religion. This is about a lack of communication (or effective communication) which is weak evidence that there is no God.
**** Objection All monotheistic religions basically have the same main idea, which is worship of a higher power, a God. The religion itself is a set of values or ideas that one certain group "binds" to a higher power. This may be meant in a way of pleasing or satisfying the higher power, which we as humans often feel the need to do. Take away these values and traditions, which is most likely human made. What we have left is the acknowledgement of a higher power. Monotheistic religions are just different ways of saying the same thing.
***** Objection Well, you're cherry picking monotheistic religion which already is a set that can include the existence only of a single god, which is then worshiped. If you take a larger set, such as all religion, you get differing beliefs even regarding the nature and even the existence of a higher power. It is not just the traditions that are most likely human made, it is the very notion of god(s), having a clear progression from more utilitarian deities to more abstract ideas which are more resistant to empirical disproof.
* Con It makes no sense to say God exists as an explanation to why anything or why our Universe exists since the existence of God must likewise be explained. Whatever explanation people bring up for why God somehow always existed or is the first existence etc can likewise apply for the Universe without introducing an extra step that just makes it more complicated and has no explanatory power.
** Objection It is not obvious that all potential explainations for God's necessary existence can be applied to the Universe, since these two objects (at least prima facie) have very different properties.
*** Objection This also suggests the argument claims this would apply to the Universe as it is now when it referred to the initial element of the natural world. There is no need to throw that label "God" around and claim that would be better than saying it was some natural process that for example has nothing to do with a human-written millennia-old boring book and isn't any kind of sentient or possessing wills etc.
**** Objection That's what the original argument (con) would say, but it has just been assumed rather than argued for. Bringing in millenia-old books seems unnecessary, given that according the lead section of this page says: "We do not necessarily mean the Abrahamic God..."
***** Objection That was just an example. Furthermore, one can't just deny relevance of any of the world's largest faiths and religions when using the term "God" instead of any other more specific terms. "for the Universe" could maybe be changed to "for the Universe / natural world or specific initial elements thereof" – one idea is that the initial existence was the Universe which can't be equated to the Universe as it is now and if that's the case one can use the word "the Universe" which still differs from the world in totality at large we live in today.
****** Objection That's an objection to whoever wrote the lead section of the article and not to the people who are writing objections and counterobjections here. Lead section says: "By "God" we mean the metaphysically ultimate being, all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good..." It looks like that an ideal course of action would be to rename this page to something like "does God of classical theism" exist, and then start separate pages for gods of all major religions, if one wants to avoid denying their relevance.
******* Objection No, it's an objection to the claim that a God being that roughly matches the lead description exists and not an objection to the lead text or to whoever wrote it.
*** Objection Okay then: what are the properties of God and how would you know or infer them? This objections makes no sense since it just says things can't be applied to natural elements because that is different than God without any explanation why and any explanation what would be different.
**** Objection At least some of the properties of God has been defined in the lead section of this page: "all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good...". The original objection (con) says that whatever explaination people use for God's necessary existence can be used for universe's necessary existence. However, since God (at least as defined here) and universe are different objects with different properties, then it is not immediately obvious that con's original claim is true. At the very least it needs to be argued for and not just assumed.
***** Objection In the same way one can claim an all-loving unpowerful superintelligent Spaghetti monster that once had the power to create the Universe exists. Again the objection is moot and "It makes no sense to say God exists as an explanation to why anything or why our Universe exists" – i.e. in the same way that such a Spaghetti monster is not reasonable, doesn't explain anything since its origin is not be explained, and just makes the question more complex since then one would have to explain the origin of the Spaghetti monster, how it could and why it would have these attributes in addition to the question of how anything and our Universe started to exist.
****** Objection Sure, one can claim that. But this current discussion is focused on whether God (as defined in the lead section) exists, not about the Spaghetti monster. But let's use the Spaghetti monster example. If (for whatever reason) postulating universe + [Spaghetti monster] makes for a better theory than postulating universe + [no Spaghetti monster], then if we are comparing just these two theories, than the former will come out on top.
******* Objection The exact same applies for a God as the term is commonly understood and especially as specified in this debate.
** Objection Contingency arguments can be used to argue that there is a single, self-existent, immaterial cause to the universe, and that can't be the universe itself.
*** Objection It is unclear how this would be an objection to the claim above – it isn't. For example, that "single, self-existent, immaterial cause to the universe" – assuming that would be required and an accurate description – can be part of the Universe itself and here it's just argued that calling that "[an aspect or part of] the Universe" makes more sense than calling that "God" which is ambiguous, undefined, and having lots of associations such as being involved with the writings of the Bible.
* Con It makes no sense to claim God exists since it is unclear what God even refers to. It is not well-defined and when it is in a given context, usually in cosmological metaphysics philosophy, other terms are clearer and less ambiguous (such as 'the ultimate cause of our Universe' or 'a benevolent alien force' – in the former case what that "cause" is would still remain to be undefined and it is unreasonable to call it God – where giving it a term doesn't achieve or explain anything – or to even associate it with e.g. communications with humans for and via the Bible).
** Objection In this particular thread, the concept of God has been defined in the lead section: "By 'God' we mean the metaphysically ultimate being, all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good..."
*** Objection "metaphysically ultimate being, all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good" is not well-defined. It is a meaningless word salad of adjectives.
**** Objection That phrase can be translated into "the most knowledgeable, the most powerful, the most benevolent possible being that exists in all possible worlds." One can argue that such a being does not exist, that's their right, but is unclear to me why that would be a word salad.
***** Objection It's just a bunch of adjectives with no reason given for why it would be that particular way and not in any other or why one should believe such a being would be possible and to exist and does not help explain why the Universe started to exist. For example, it's more reasonable to speak of things like physical mechanisms – quantum scalar fields or whatever – instead of some complex being with attributes as sophisticated as "most benevolent" or "knowledgeable" as the first being which is self-contradictory to begin with. It's a meaningless word salad and at most an expression of which attributes some humans value or would like to believe exists etc and doesn't outline what that being is and just claims several attributes with no semantic meaning.
****** Objection Here, God has been defined in this particular way. The lead section asks whether a being defined as all-knowing, all-powerful and all-good exists. That's just the topic. The question of this page is whether a being defined in such and such way exists. That's the given. We need to answer that question with yes (pro) or no (con). Asking why the page is focused on a specific definition is neither here nor there. To use an analogy, I can coherently ask whether there is a 273-meter tall building in the US. To say that I could've asked about any other height instead is true, but it doesn't answer the given question.
******* Objection That is not the "defining" referred to in the Con argument and the objections beneath.
* Con God's existence would imply that he can change the past. This would imply that some things happened and didn't happen at the same time and in the same sense. But contradictions are impossible, so not only God doesn't exist: his existence is impossible.
** Objection Being the perfect father and the most/one of the most selfless beings, God would never decide to change the past or predestine the future, as that would be enslaving all of mankind. If that were to happen, there would be no reason for God to give us the power of free agency in the first place. Therefore, God will not change the past, or predestined our future. He has only foreordained it, meaning, he urges mankind to follow his example (bring yourself to Him, and then others, to avoid hypocrisy), but does not control our lives. With blessings/miracles, he can help, but he does not control our free will.
*** Objection How can a non-human, supernatural 'entity' be characterized by human characteristics and traits? Also, how can humans know or understand the nature of a supernatural 'entity' which exists outside our universe?
** Objection Quantum Entanglement shows contradictions can and do exist, at least as far as humans can currently conceive of them
** Objection This is not a contradiction. Only the edited version of history actually happened. If God, an omnipotent being, changed the path of history, history is changed. As odd as it seemed, the previous scenario never happened.
*** Objection However you are still presenting a contradiction: a scenario which existed and never existed.
**** Objection If God is omnipotent, God would be more powerful than logic. Any contradictions regarding God's power would be irrelevant.
**** Objection It might have existed but be wiped out of the history of the universe by built in mechanisms wich are available to change a certain scenario. For example if someone saw something wich they were not supposed to see, God could suddenly hit that person by lightning or induce a stroke wich would cause memory loss and they wouldn’t remember seeing that scenario and God could cut it out or replace it from the history of the universe.
** Objection That wouldn't be a contradiction, because God would know that He changed the past (per being all-knowing). So things that God changed would have happened at the same time, but not in the same sense. God would be able to distinguish them.
*** Objection Doing one impossible thing is no more difficult than doing two impossible things.
** Objection God's omnipotence is often described as "can do anything that is not logically impossible", or similarly defined so as to rule out paradoxes deriving from His omnipotence.
*** Objection True omnipotence would require God to be unaffected by paradoxes
*** Objection If God's omnipotence is limited by "can do anything that is not logically impossible", then the fact that God is also defined as omniscient and knowing everything would mean God possesses complete knowledge ahead of time of all things that He will do, and is bound by logic to do what He predicted He would do. This would reduce his omnipotence to complete powerlessness since he would never have any choice at all other than to do what he predicted he would do, and thus he would not have any power at all.
**** Objection By omnipotence and omniscience, which theists usually refer to, we are speaking of something vastly beyond our understanding and quantifying it in human terms. Omnipotence implies that he has the choice to exercise his omnipotence in any particular way, which he knows what his choice will be. Knowing what you plan to do in a circumstance beforehand by no means makes one powerless
** Objection If God can change the past, it does not mean he would; this is dictated by his character and motivations, which are particular to different religions. This is similar to the argument that if God can create an immovable object he is not all powerful, but if he cannot then he is not all powerful either: it is wordplay, since such a definition is nonsensical. God is unbounded by the universe's laws.
*** Objection This is a hypothetical. You can't throw out on argument on the basis that "it wouldn't happen"
**** Objection The original argument gives no reasons for thinking that God would choose to change the past, it just assumes that. In response to that, it is valid to point out that just because God could do something, doesn't mean that he would do it.
* Con If we are talking about a God which affects the physical world in some way, then saying that God exists is an empirical statement. But there is no hard evidence supporting that statement, and evidence is necessary to prove an empirical statement.
** Objection God is outside of the confines of our physical world, and whether or not God is actively involved in this world is not being debated. Therefore, saying that God exists is not an empirical statement, it's a metaphysical statement, and empirical proof for metaphysical statements is not necessary or even possible.
*** Objection By this logic, there is no such thing as a false statement. Anything can be inferred. I have a 3 headed donkey in my backyard except you can't see it, it doesn't smell, and you can't touch it; there is no physical evidence for its existence whatsoever, but it exists metaphysically, above the plane of our existence. At this point, you have to ask, what do I mean when I say the donkey "exists"? If physical evidence isn't required to say that something exists, then I'm correct when I say that a 3 headed, 5 headed, 50,000 headed, and 50,001 headed donkey all exist in my backyard.
**** Objection However, donkeys exist as empirical evidence. They are real animals that can be touched or seen. God has never been defined as existing in physical form, e.g, like a man to be seen and touched, the only exception being God the son, Jesus Christ. God is described as the creator of the universe, the origin of all life. Comparing the concept of God to an empirically provable being like a donkey is erroneous. Therefore, there is still room for the existence of false statements, as far as empirically provable things( meaning things that exist in our physical world) exist.
***** Objection The objection is assuming the donkey is an entity that exists in the metaphysical sense, the same as God.
** Objection God may have perfect reason for not giving hard evidence to everyone. There are some people who don't like God, don't want God or if they know that God exist, they may becomes envy of God. God may not hides their existence from someone who doesn't want God as fulfilling their desires, and which may be better for them. As scriptures like Bhagavad Gita says, it can be that God manifest in proportion to one surrender to God.
* Con God is conceived as all-good, all-knowing and all-powerful. So, if God exists, then under any ordinary definition of evil, evil shouldn't exist. But evil clearly exists. Therefore, (all-good and all-powerful) God does not exist. If there is an all-powerful creator of the world, he or she is not all-good, wishing the best for the creation and the creatures. There is a lot excruciating pain, death and destruction. Human life starts with often painful birth and end with often painful death. Stars and galaxies die, species go extinct, humans die in childhood, old-age diseases develop, humans get murdered, killed in war and tortured, animals get killed by other animals, some animals are kept alive before being fully eaten by their predators, there is a whole predatory network of food chain, etc. See also W:Problem of evil.
** Objection Good would not be good without evil, just as light wouldn't be light without darkness. It is this precise dichotomy that allows us to distinguish between right and wrong. There would not be a world if good and evil were the same thing, just as if light and darkness were the same thing. A good person is good because they have been confronted to evil, and chose to do the right thing, just like evil people choose evil when they could do good. In more metaphysical terms, it would make more sense to see evil as the absence of good, just like darkness is the absence of light. Light can be studied, darkness cannot. To say that God doesn't exist because evil exists would be akin to saying light cannot exist because darkness exists
*** Objection Then why does suffering still occur, even in cases where somebody has done nothing wrong? Consider a stillborn child. Does the child deserve to have died so that good can exist?
**** Objection According to classical theists of certain religions (such as Christianity), a stillborn child would go straight to heaven, so one can maintain that the scenario is not unjustified. Furthermore, according to the doctrine of original sin, even stillborn children share the sinfulness inherited from Adam and Eve.
***** Objection Many innocent people don't just die but suffer or only suffer a lot and not die early.
****** Objection This would only constitute evidence against God if it can shown that this suffering constitutes some form of ontological evil. It also would need to be shown that this suffering didn't lead to any greater good whatsoever.
******* Objection It doesn't lead to greater good and the burden of reasoning and supporting evidence is on the religious believers. There is no reason for why that should be the case. The burden is on those who claim that to provide rationale. Furthermore, it's not just about whether it leads to some greater good but whether or not God has a way to enable that greater good without such levels or types of suffering.
******** Objection The burden is on those who is presenting the problem of evil (because this is what it really is) as the evidence against God. If one says "if God exists, then under any ordinary definition of evil, evil shouldn't exist", then it's on one to show why that is the case.
********* Objection That has already been done: highlighting the defining characteristics of God being good or all-good and all-powerful. The burden is thus more than met.
********** Objection This assumes that an all-good and all-powerful God cannot coexist with evil. But this is precisely this assumption that needs to argued for.
******* Objection There is evidence that the suffering is negative such as evidence of neurological nociception and their expressions of pain such as screams.
******** Objection Right, but what needs to be demonstrated is not that humans don't like suffering, but that suffering is some kind of an ontological evil. Kids may not like eating vegetables, but that doesn't make it ontologically evil.
********* Objection That humans detest suffering is the demonstration that it's a kind of ontological evil/negative thing at least when it occurs to innocent people and/or at excessive level. - One could say that good and bad are intrinsically in some sense relative to conscious beings like humans. - If one hypothesizes there to be some kind of ontological good and bad and suggests that one would first need to classify things into either for God to act inconsistently with descriptions of him/it being good or "all-good", then things as bad as very premature deaths and excessive suffering still are ontologically bad if they're avoidable and are as they are to conscious beings insofar there is anything at all that is ontologically good or bad – if there is no such thing it also doesn't make sense to describe God as good or all-good to begin with which already makes little sense if we don't mean good or bad in context of humans/conscious beings.
********** Objection If one says that good and bad relative to conscious beings, then surely the argument wouldn't go through for all the people who don't consider suffering to be an ontological evil (like a lot of theists do). Further, this would lead to some form of relativism, which would kind of undermine the objectivity of the argument. As to premature deaths being bad, are they bad just because some people say they are bad? Furthermore, the objection mentions premature deaths being preventable. This might be true, but the cost of prevention might be the foregoing of some greater good.
***** Objection A God that thinks people inherit "sinfulness" of long gone ancestors who sinned by e.g. eating an apple against his command and should be punished for it, is no good God but a childish piece of shit.
****** Objection This just begs the question against the theist. Similarly, it can be asserted that God who *doesn't* think that people inherit sinfulness is no God at all. In both cases, it needs to be argued for, rather than just assumed.
******* Objection Such a God is more accurately described as a devil. Furthermore, there is no reasoning behind why think one should think people inherit sinfulness of their long-gone ancestors and for why what has been described in the Bible would be sinful at all. The burden of reasoning is on those seeking to instill and/or justify and/or spread that belief, not those not believing in it.
******** Objection The burden is on the side which is raising the objection. The objection in this case is "A God that thinks people inherit "sinfulness" of long gone ancestors who sinned by e.g. eating an apple against his command and should be punished for it, is no God". This objection hasn't been defended at all. People who wish to respond to this objection, don't need to do it, before the objection is actually argued for. One cannot raise the objection, not defend it, and then expect the other side to bear the burden.
********* Objection For example, people aren't responsible for what ancestors long before them did. They may themselves act differently. Especially not ancestors long ago and to this degree. People are responsible for their own and their collective acts, but not those acts before they were even born.
********** Objection Are they really not responsible? In history, we see examples of whole nations paying compensations to other nations for something that happened in the past. The concept of being responsible for something that your ancestors did is certainly not something that is exclusive to Christianity.
***** Objection There is no heaven as the human consciousness and things that could be called soul resides in the human nervous system and that goes inactive and then decomposes after death, meaning after death is like before birth and heaven does not exist.
****** Objection There are physicalist conceptions of heaven. In other words, soul isn't really necessary for heaven. See for example (Merricks 1999) and (Merricks 2009)
******* Objection Ideas of heavens without souls are not just less explained but just as implausible for the very same reason whereby the human (including soul, spirit, or anything similar) ceases existence at around the time of brain death.
******** Objection This idea is explained in detail in the papers mentioned above. They spend significant time describing and arguing for the account of personal identity, whereby a person needs not cease after death.
********* Objection The time spent by a few irrational people is not an argument. A person ceases after death.
********** Objection This is just begging the question, though. I have provided papers that support the idea that people need not cease after death. Asserting that I am wrong and calling philosophers who wrote these papers irrational is very unproductive.
** Objection We do not know what God exactly do if they have perfections. We think God should do this or other, but we can't imagine it from way God would think. We can think if I am photon, I would do this or other, but we don't know what exactly happens when one be a photon. God who is outside of material realism, may have perfect reason to produce seemingly imperfect universe. We don't know God's reason for something, and if we know it we also think that everything is like it should be as best.
*** Objection This argument that we don't know the logic behind what God does is hurt when we consider unnecessary suffering. We can't say a child dying of cancer or something similar will be a net good just because we don't understand God. This argument is that suffering makes God's existence unlikely. Alternatively, if I have misunderstood your argument, and you instead posture that God isn't trying to make things perfect, then he doesn't seem very omnibenevolent, as we have defined him to be.
**** Objection But similarly, since we don't know the logic behind what God does (as the objection above grants, we can't tell whether a scenario presented above is net bad). For all we know, it might lead to greater goods somewhere down the line. And if that is the case, then any given instance of evil, wouldn't make God's existence unlikely, unless it can be shown that it didn't lead to any greater good whatsoever.
***** Objection Even if cases of innocent people being killed for pleasure, by accidents and by cancer for example would have some good effects down the line, which is absurd to justify like so, then God would have the power to make these good effects come about in other, better ways. One can't explain the contradiction away like that.
****** Objection God would only have such power, if doing so is logically and metaphysically possible. Classical theists at least since Augustine and Aquinas, believe that God cannot do what is logically or metaphysically impossible.
******* Objection Even humans with limited powers can prevent many of such killings, reducing the total number. It contradicts defining characteristic of Gods where the God is overly powerful – usually all-powerful – and can interfere in our Universe if God couldn't do so as well and to a larger degree than humans.
******** Objection The objection is not that God cannot prevent certain event. It is that it might be the case that if God was to prevent the aforementioned events, then the greater goods that flow from them might also cease to exist. In other words, for all we know, it might be logically or metaphysically impossible to both stop the events from occuring and retain the greater goods that they contribute.
********* Objection This is a convoluted absurd claim to justify an already set conclusion. For all we know, it's very logically or metaphysically possible to both stop many of the events from occurring and retain the greater goods that they contribute if there was an all-powerful all-knowing intervening good God. The simplest explanation is that no such being exists.
********** Objection This feels like jumping the topic. The objection was to the fact that evil contradicts defining characteristic of God. It wasn't about simplest explaination. This is an entirely different topic all-together. Something can be not the simplest explaination and still not be contradictory.
** Objection We define ourselves as moral authority and decides what is good or not, but God may beyond good and evil, the absolute one. Because God is free, if living entity is part and parcel of God, living entity should be free, and because of it they have minutes of free will. Now if living entity not like God or doesn't want God, God may fulfill his desire to becomes independent of God, and creates material world where living entity can be independent of God, and enjoy without God. Now as living entity has free Will, they can choose actions for which they are responsible, to which God doesn't intervene as they respect free will. But if they choose to do something bad, it is entirely on them because they have chosen it from their will. God may created suffering in material world to let someone know that it is not permanent place and living entity can again realize God, and can return to them.
** Objection God could have given humans the power to do evil. If humans can do evil, then evil can exist despite there being an all-powerful, all-knowing and all-good God. Moral responsibility is not hereditary. If my (grownup) child commits a crime, no society will (or should) blame me for it. Similarly, if a human does evil, we shouldn't blame God for it. Giving the power to do evil is not the same as doing it. God may even be the (metaphysical) cause of evil, while not being morally responsible for it. But no one contends that God raised us that way. He merely gave us the freedom to choose. In fact, because we turned away from his benevolence, evil arose, according to theists. Should we not live with the consequences of our actions and disobedience, then?
*** Objection This would still make God responsible for evil, albeit indirectly. Moral responsibility is partially hereditary. If I knowingly raise my child in a way that makes it highly likely they will commit a crime when grown up that makes me responsible for that crime and subject to blame. An omniscient God should have known that if he gave humans the freedom to choose, we would do evil. Therefore, he allowed evil to exist, which contradicts the benevolent nature of God.
**** Objection To understand good, we must understand that it cannot exist without evil. This is how we know what is good and what is not. If good didn't exist, so wouldn't evil. They work together, like light and darkness. To say god is evil because evil exists would be the same as saying light is dark because darkness exists. God is the light in the darkness.
*** Objection Even if God gave humans free will and the power to do evil, this doesn't imply that there should be evil. A world where free will exists but evil does not is logically possible. God can create any world that is logically possible, so God chose a world where there is unnecessary evil. This contradicts the all-powerful and all-good nature of God.
**** Objection It has been argued that, in fact, world where free will exists but evil does not is logically impossible.
***** Objection Worlds with much less evil and suffering are however possible, for example via direct interference. It is less about full absence of evil and suffering but about the degree and types thereof that are present in the Universe.
*** Objection We haven't dealt with the problem of natural evil. Is cancer also the consequence of human disobedience?
**** Objection Yes, according to classical theist (particularly Christian) theology, natural evils are also a consequence of disobedience.
***** Objection Classical theist (including Christian) theology is wrong: nothing so far suggests cancer is a consequence of human disobedience and in addition, if it was so that would further refute the concept of a 'good' God.
****** Objection This might be your opinion, but the objection above ("Is cancer also the consequence of human disobedience?") is clearly asking for an explanation of cancer from a religious perspective.
** Objection Assuming God exists, since he created everything, he also would have created the moral standard. God gave humans free will to commit evil, therefore, if God exists, free will is the moral choice. Humans do not get to say that God is immoral, when God is the one who determines what is and is not moral.
*** Objection The argument is not that God is "immoral"; it is that God is not benevolent or good-wishing. The argument is that he who can easily intervene to make good but does not is not good-wishing. And he who can create in such a way that only good ensues but does not is not good-wishing either. And he who cannot create in such a way that only good ensues is not all-mighty.
* Con In order to exist, an entity must exist as something. To exist as something, the entity must have positive primary attributes (i.e. I'm a material entity, made up of atoms). All of God's attributes are either negatively defined (ex. omniscience can be reduced to 'without limits of knowledge'), secondary (i.e. good) or relational (i.e. creator). If a god is Creator, then it must be immaterial, as nothing can cause itself. But "immaterial" is a negatively defined term. Therefore a god's substance is undefined. All of this is to say that the god concept is incoherent. If this indeed turns out to be the case, then positive belief in such a concept is not possible.
** Objection Positive and negative properties are vague notions, often interchangeable. 'Closed' can be reduced to 'not open', just as 'open' can be reduced to 'not closed'. Similarly, 'omniscience' can be reduced to positive terms, like 'with total knowledge' just as it can be reduced to negative ones, like 'without limits of knowledge' or 'without ignorance'. Other properties of God, such as 'all-powerful', can also be thought as either positive or negative: 'with complete power' or 'without limits to its power'.
*** Objection Even so, saying that something is omniscient is a secondary characteristic - it's telling us what something can do, NOT what it is. If I said humans were an IQ of 120, that doesn't really tell me much of anything about what a human IS (as opposed to saying something like an entity in space/time made up of matter, etc).
**** Objection Yes, it does. Intelligence is an attribute of humans, is it not?
** Objection Dark matter and dark energy are entities whose existence is generally accepted by the scientific community, despite the fact that we don't know what they are made of. The fact that we don't know what something is made of doesn't imply that it's made of nothing, or that it doesn't exist.
*** Objection Dark matter and energy are theoretical.
**** Objection Global warming, evolution, the Theory of Relativity, and even gravity are also theoretical. This does not mean they are wrong. The scientific community can have almost complete certainty in something but still classify something as "just a theory".
***** Objection This is irrelevant to the primary point of the original argument: "All of God's attributes are either negatively defined (ex. omniscience can be reduced to 'without limits of knowledge'), secondary (ex. good) or relational (ex. creator)." The part of the original argument stating that God's substance is undefined is not necessary for the original argument to be correct... if the unnecessary sentence "Therefore a god's substance is undefined." were left out of the original argument it would be a perfectly valid argument and this objection against it would not work. The main point of the original argument is that in order to exist, that entity must has positive primary attributes, of which there still are none for God. This is a red herring, if we remove that unnecessary sentence from the original argument.
** Objection How about the fact that the Universe exists in the first place. The fact that the necessary things exist in the first place that leads to the big bang theory and the creation of the Universe. Then the Universe shrinks again into a big matter, crushing everything in its collision, bringing back to the theory of big bang, and the cycle goes on infinite time. What if the Universe is not zero in the first place? The Universe exists without the creation of anything. We can't think of anything that might have created the Universe, because it's just there.
* Con God doesn't exist because of Theophagus, the god-eater. Since Theophagus is god-eating by definition, he has no choice but to eat God. So if God exists, He would immediately cease to exist as a result of being eaten. Unless it's proven that Theophagus doesn't exist, then God doesn't exist.
** Objection Theophagus cannot exist because of Theophagus Eater. Since Theophagus Eater is Theophagus-eating by definition, he has no choice but to eat Theophagus. So if Theophagus exists, He would immediately cease to exist as a result of being eaten. Unless it's proven that Theophagus Eater doesn't exist, then Theophagus doesn't exist. This parody argument can be extended infinitely. Since, for every God-eater, there is a Godeater-eater, their probabilities cancel each other out and we wouldn't have to worry about such a scenario.
** Objection God, being infinite and immaterial, cannot be eaten. If there were somehow a being higher than God, (in this case Theophagus) then that being would be God.
** Objection Without any evidence or logical argument for the existence of such a being, there's no reason to believe Theophagus exists.
*** Objection The same argument against Theophagus works on God: Without any evidence or logical argument for the existence of such a being, there's no reason to believe God exists. So either the argument you raised against Theophagus is valid, in which case it is also valid against God, and thus there is no reason to believe God exists, or the argument you raised against Theophagus is invalid, in which case Theophagus has eaten God and God no longer exists.
**** Objection If you've read the entire "Arguments for" section, one would see that there are arguments for God's existence
***** Objection Some Of the arguments you're pointing to are all unsound or plainly invalid. There actually are not better arguments for God's existence than for Theophagus.
** Objection God is omnipotent and omnipresent, so even if Theophagus exists, God can't be eaten by him.
*** Objection By its definition, Theophagus eats omnipotent and omnipresent beings.
*** Objection Nothing about omniscience and omnipotence precludes being eaten.
*** Objection If God is the most powerful being, and Theophagus can eat God, then Theophagus is more powerful than God, so Theophagus is God, therefore Theophagus/God eats itself and Theophagus/God cease to exist.
** Objection If Theophagus can eat God, who cannot be eaten, his existence creates a contradiction. Therefore, Theophagus cannot exist
*** Objection If Theophagus can eat God, who cannot be eaten, then God's existence creates a contradiction. Therefore, God cannot exist. To refute this argument, we must prove that Theophagus does not exist independent of the existence of God.
** Objection We have two options. Either Theophagus is God or Theophagus is not God. Now attribute of Theophagus is God-like, who need to be omnipotent to eat God, who also need to be omniscient to know everything which requires to eat omnipotent God. If Theophagus is god, he has to eat himself before he eat Actual God. So, if he has eaten himself before eating Actual God, he can't eat God and this all create recursion loop. If Theophagus is not god, he needs to have less than omnipotent and omniscient, by which he can't he eat Actual God, because God is perfect omnipotent who knows everything about Theophagus.
*** Objection This is incredibly incoherent. Please, if you wish to assign qualities to Theophagus randomly, provide some reasoning.
* Con Particles don't have a position until their wave function collapses, and wave functions collapse when observed. From experiments such as the double-slit experiment, we infer that there are uncollapsed wave functions. Therefore, there is no being observing all particles, no omniscient being, no God.
** Objection God wouldn't necessarily collapse the wave function if he doesn't share the results of his quantum observations with anyone.
*** Objection So God is also in superposition?
**** Objection This doesn't necessarily follow from the argument above and properties of God.
** Objection The wave function could be an actual manifestation of God that is beyond our comprehension (currently).
** Objection We don't really understand how observation causes superposition to collapse nor how a being who is outside of spacetime (or alternately who exists in all of spacetime) would even affect superposition. As George Berkeley argued in his version of Idealism, all of the physical Universe exists because God is perceiving it.
*** Objection God of the gaps fallacy.
**** Objection He was merely pointing out that the original statement need not be always true, nor has any true weight because God exists outside of the physical world.
*** Objection What we do know about it is that observation causes collapse of the wave function (if you want to claim that being outside space time is somehow different in that regard you'll have to substantiate that claim).
** Objection The wave function collapse does not happen because of observation per se, but when a wave function interacts with a classical environment. If God is all-powerful, he can observe a wave function without interacting with it.
*** Objection Being all-powerful is self-contradictory. This is because an all-powerful God would be able to predict the future, but also be able to take actions which would contradict His predictions of the future. Since knowing things is a power, being all-powerful implies being all-knowing. And then, since an all-knowing God would know all of the actions He would take ahead of time, an all-knowing God would know in advance all actions He would ever take, and, in order to prevent any paradoxes and allow God to exist, God's "all-powerful" powers would have to be reduced to just doing what God predicted He would do ahead of time. Thus the whole idea of being all-powerful is nonsense.
**** Objection This has already been addressed in above arguments, but I'll reiterate--knowing what you will do beforehand does not take away from your freedom of choice. His knowledge is his choice.
***** Objection Knowing that something will happen effectively means that nothing different will happen. If nothing else will happen then God cannot do something else other than what he foresaw, being then effectively limited in what he can do.
*** Objection In quantum systems observation is intrinsically linked to the behavior of the system. Your assumption that God is omnipotent is therefore in contradiction which a known feature of the actual world (and being God defined as being omnipotent its very existence is inconsistent with observation of properties of the actual world).
** Objection If God is all-knowing, he does not need to observe particles to know their position.
*** Objection When a particle exists in a quantum superposition that can be described using a wave function, prior to wave function collapse, that particle does not actually have any definite position, but just probabilities of being in different locations. This has been experimentally verified in the aforementioned double-slit experiment. So talking about the position of a particle whose wavefunction has not yet collapsed as if it is something definite makes no sense, since such particles can and do exist in multiple locations at the same time, which is what produces the interference fringes in the double-slit experiment, from a particle in different locations interfering with itself in other locations, meaning, it really has no one location. So if God were to perceive such a particle as being at one specific location, God would be incorrect.
* Con Some infinite traits, such as "omniscience", have a computational complexity equal to infinity, thus the Kolmogorov complexity of a God defined with these attributes is infinite, the prior probability for his existence is epsilon, and "P(X exists) is epsilon" is the statistically literate way of saying "X does not exist".
** Objection Pure deterministic processes like computation are not the only means of finding Truth.
*** Objection We exist in a material universe, therefore empirical study is better than 'faith' or other means for finding the truth.
**** Objection A 'God' could exist outside our universe, so empirical evidence would be inadequate for a non-empirical entity.
***** Objection You've also just thrown out any way of proving His existence, haven't you?
****** Objection That would depend on material/empirical falsification being the only way to establish existence, wouldn't it?
* Con Non-theism is the parsimonious worldview. In other words, following Occam's razor, it avoids assuming existence of entities that add no genuine explanatory value. See: Argument from parsimony.
** Objection This isn't so much an argument as it is appeal to authority. And a self-referencing one at that.
* Con The laws of logic are necessarily existent; that is, their existence does not depend on anything else. If God exists, at least classically, he is the only necessarily existent being. However, the laws of logic exist, and are not the same as God. Therefore, God does not exist.
** Objection The laws of logic do not exist before anything else – it's unclear what those would be and without anything making them real they wouldn't be real or "exist".
* Con Gods are postulated to exist by religions or theology associated with a religion. However, in the present and throughout history, the human population believes in several different mutually contradicting religions. If there was e.g. a Christian God roughly as described in the Bible, one would assume nearly all humans believed in that. In the same way, these religions are mutually contradicting, meaning what postulates the existence of a God is not reliable in any way and necessarily largely wrong.
** Objection This objection relies on a key premise that if Christian God existed, then nearly all humans would believe in him. However, the premise has been merely assumed, rather than argued for.
* Con The burden of providing reasons (not proof) for why God exists is on those that claim such an entity exists. It is inappropriate to claim a God exists and then ask nonbelievers to "disprove" God's existence. No solid reasons have so far been provided where the term God is appropriate for what those reasons could argue for.
** Objection You could use this opportunity to provide why even the best argument for God fails, or the reason why such an understanding of God is absurd.
*** Objection There is no good argument for God. The understanding of God is absurd because it assumes something caused the world without explaining how that something came to be where it's a better explanation that the Universe started to exist from something simple, not a complex designer being that later cares about humans on a particular planet, where we don't yet know how it started to exist. Religious people have set the conclusion before the investigation and argumentation instead of just investigating questions like "How did our Universe begin?" and seeing where the points lead to. Arguments for God's existence only appeal to people who look for ways to justify their already-existing belief and are irrational.
**** Objection This is because, God of classical theism is considered to be a necessary being. The whole point of a necessary being is that it didn't "come to be". It always existed. Furthermore, since this being is taken to be necessary, that means that it exists in all possible worlds. So the question "how that something came to be" is a bad question, precisely because it didn't come to be. It always was, at least according to classical theists.
***** Objection The Universe considered to be a necessary being. The whole point of a necessary being is that it didn't "come to be". It always existed. There was no time before the Big Bang – time started with the Big Bang. There is no need for God, which doesn't complicate things.
****** Objection The original objection says: "The understanding of God is absurd because it assumes something caused the world without explaining how that something came to be". God wouldn't be anymore absurd than the universe. If universe always existing is not absurd, then neither is God always existing absurd.
******* Objection It's more absurd for example because God is a complex being who is claimed to care about humans and have various wills and attributes etc and created the Universe according to its will intentionally. Likewise, if both are equally absurd/nonabsurd then one would need to provide reasoning why this additional element would exist rather than a default of highest simplicity where it doesn't exist.
******** Objection Why is it absurd for a being to care about humans and care about the universe that it created? That seems like a pretty normal course of actions. Generally speaking, artists care for their paintings.
***** Objection Some aspect of the reality/existence/Universe is considered to be a necessary being. The whole point of a necessary being is that it didn't "come to be". It always existed. There is no need for God, which doesn't complicate things.
****** Objection Sure, but this doesn't show that the understanding of God is absurd. Even we grant (for the sake of an argument), that universe is a better explaination, then it still doesn't show how the understanding of God is absurd. Something not being the best explaination (if that is the case) doesn't make that something absurd.
******* Objection The original claim is not about it being absurd to begin with. Nevertheless, it's absurd "because it assumes something caused the world without explaining how that something came to be" which means answering a question with something that is not any kind of answer but just the same question made more complicated. Answering something by asking the same question but making it more complicated and thus more difficult to answer without providing any answer is an absurd thing to do.
******** Objection If the original question is how did the universe began existing, then the theist answer to the question is that God created it. If the original question instead asks how God began existing, then the answer is that he didn't. So a theist gives different answers when it comes to two different questions. He doesn't answer them in the exact same way, but more complicated. It gives two very different answers.