Debate: is god true?
Side: no ,god is not true

First thing's first:"philosophy is technically science."When I say "science", I am referring to Modern Science. In its birth, science was a sub-set of philosophy that dealt specifically with the natural world (as opposed to Religions and other spiritual philosophies that dealt with supernatural phenomena.) Modern science is still all about natural phenomena, but it is now more constricted by the use of a universalized methodology. It is about quantifiable data, about measurements and consistent observations. It is about reporting what you see, not what you feel. By this definition (which excludes other uses of the word, such as "Political Science"), your assessment is backwards. All science may be philosophy, but not all philosophy is science. Philosophy ("love of wisdom") is about intellectual pursuits, regardless of the methodology or particular subject matter. But modern science is rooted in a very strict methodology that other forms of philosophy (ethics, religion, etc.) do not universally conform to. And frankly, I've always seen philosophy as ultimately rooted in speculating about what we should do, whereas science is not directly making those types of value judgments, so I'm not sure if modern science should even be considered philosophy anymore, even though it was born there. Now onto Mr. Lewis:"Supposing you hear a cry for help from a man in danger. You will probably feel two desires - one a desire to help (due to your herd instinct), the other a desire to keep out of danger (due to your instinct for self-preservation)."His observation is valid, but his final reasoning is unsubstantiated speculation. Evolution is simply a process, it has no goals. However, because those that are benefited by the process survive, we sometimes argue that evolution's "goal" is survival. Furthermore, because the process works on populations and not individuals, this "goal" is more accurately survival of the species. While individual survival is a part of that overall "goal", it is not the only part. Thus "herd instinct" and "self-preservation" can both work towards survival of the species. So up to this point I totally agree with him. But then he goes on to describe the method that we use to choose between these impulses:"But you will find inside you, in addition to these two impulses, a third thing which tells you that you ought to follow the impulse to help, ans suppress the impulse to run away. Now this thing that judges between two instincts, that decides which should be encouraged, cannot itself be either of them."If there is a "third impulse", why does it have to be some universal construct that applies to all variants of this scenario? Most people might be more willing to help the man in danger if they know him personally, especially if they are related. This concept relates to kinship-based altruism which is well observed in various animal species. Then there is the other extreme, what if this person has wronged you in the past? Failure to help him could be argued to be an evolution of reciprocal altruism (we help others unless they prove they wouldn't help us) which has also been well-documented in other animal species (mainly primates, which we are). Also, there could be other factors. You might be a very brave and altruistic person, but you just happen to suffer from ophidiophobia (irrational fear of snakes.) So if this person is being threatened by fire, you may have no problem jumping in, but if they are being menaced by a large snake, you might not be psychologically capable of helping them. So morality isn't always the issue. As it turns out, in most occasions where there are conflicts between instincts within a person, "third factors" do manage to come into play, but Lewis immediately labeled them some kind of universal "Moral Law" without empirical justification. We now know something that he probably didn't: these factors are almost always chemical reactions, and there is no rational non-faith-based reason to assume that some God placed them there. "Because we need something does not mean that we will have it. yes, those that have it are more likely to survive and pass it on, but how did they get it in the first place?"You more or less answered your own question there. As far as "first cause", logic tells us that there has to be a first cause. But logic alone doesn't tell us what that first cause was. We create the concept of "unmoved mover" because that is a way of answering the question, but the very concept flies in the face of the line of reasoning being used in the first place. One second we say everything had to be moved, then we say that everything except an unmoved mover has to be moved. Its cheating. One minute we say nothing can come from nothing, then we say that God came from nothing. Instead of cheating, we should keep investigating until we find the unmoved mover, and then describe it at that time. Maybe we should consider that our original premise was wrong too. If time travel is a part of the creation of the universe (which is a proposition put forth by some of the current theories), than there would not need to be an unmoved mover, especially if the process is a true, ever-repeating cycle in which there never was a starting point at all. All speculative theory of course, but as much a potential answer as God. "Also, many philosophers aren't religious, and many scientists are." I never said otherwise. In fact, I know this extremely well. This man ( http://www.af.mil/information/bios/bio.asp?bioID=13751 ) is my uncle. He and his wife are both outstanding physicists who have taught nuclear physics at the Air Force Academy. They are also both life-long Christians who attend church every Sunday and made it a point to teach their children Christian values. The thing is, what they do in church and what the study professionally are two different things. When they work on experiments, they aren't studying Christianity and they aren't using faith. If the results of the experiment help affirm their faith, that's one thing. But the experiment itself was pure science, and would have yielded the same results whether or not they were religious. And you'll note that those doctors at the Catholic hospitals aren't practicing religion when they work there, they are practicing medicine. They get results from their knowledge and training, not from faith and prayer. When I read your scenario involving the school children, I'm wondering why you wouldn't just superglue the balls on so the kids couldn't remove them so easily, or why you allowed 5 kids to do it simultaneously? Further, since this an allegory for God, why wouldn't an omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient being be able to teach all of the people the specific lessons simultaneously and in a way that would make the most sense to each individual? And what about all the people who do try to help themselves but just can't for whatever reason? Like all the very spiritual farmers in developing nations who are definitely trying very hard to feed themselves, their families, and their communities, and yet are turning up crop after crop of darn-near nothing? It doesn't appear that God helps everybody who helps themselves, and some of his bias seems to be geographical. I don't think an omnipresent entity would have problems with geography. As far as the article, you ignored: a) Norman Borlaug; b) the fact that no matter how much of herself she was giving, Mother Teresa was only putting band-aids on wounds while the other two were dealing with the root of the situation; c) EVERYTHING else that the article was about. "Faith is not in any way a hindrance. Give me an example of when faith is a hindrance."Okay: http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local/pa/ 20101209_In_faith_healing_trial__Philadelphia_father_said_devil_killed_son.html SO they believed that God would take care of them. They had a long standing policy of not going to the Doctor. They didn't realize how ill their child was, because they didn't go to the doctor. And then they had to face court charges for child abuse and manslaughter, adding greater sorrow to an already heart-wrenching tragedy. Now, it does appear that the child would have died regardless, but the chances of him surviving were pretty much nonexistent in the situation they put him in, and at the very least they wouldn't have had to go to court if they hadn't allowed common sense to be drowned by faith. AND: they still insist that this was the Devil's work. So they are admitting one of two things: either the Devil is more powerful than God; or the Devil is more powerful than their own faith. Either way, it sounds like faith was useless here. And I didn't say that faith was always detrimental, but I do argue that it is a horrible way to go about gaining knowledge. http://www.miketuritzin.com/writing/why-faith-is-a-bad-way-of-knowing/ Faith's best strength comes in to play emotionally, and even there it is not the only answer. Faith can make you happy, but you don't need faith to be happy. "All religious at some point doubt, and this makes us stronger."But then at some point they stop doubting, if they didn't they would no longer be religious."C. S. Lewis was once an atheist."Richard Dawkins was raised in an Anglican environment and embraced Christianity until he learned of evolution when he was a teen. The two most aggressive atheists I know personally were raised in very religious environments, were devout Christians, and turned their back on religion as adults. Meanwhile I know a very philosophical middle-aged woman who explored numerous religions in depth, and decided that Buddhism was the one that made the most sense to her. What caused any of these people to flip over? Personal experiences and understandings. Irrelevant to our conversation. "God always answers prayers, just not always in the way we expect."That's just a cop-out. When our prayers do not appear to be answered, we can just say that "God works in mysterious ways". That isn't an answer. That doesn't allow for the fact that a naturalistic explanation is to blame for why you didn't get what you wanted. And it certainly doesn't tell you what God wants or is trying to do. You can only make that assertion after-the-fact, and since God can do anything, you can mold that assessment around any situation, using your own creativity to figure out His motivation. You will never know if you are right, you create a scenario where nobody can prove you wrong, and you might even overlook the lesson that this situation should have taught you. Oh, and I am glad that your teacher survived, but if you look at a time lapsed recording of some very busy highway, you will see periods where there aren't cars for brief periods here and there. These periods are rare, and we might not even think about them until their presence makes it easier for someone to survive. This situation you describe is unlikely, but not miraculous. The two most pertinent definitions of random, from dictionary.com:1. proceeding, made, or occurring without definite aim, reason, or pattern: the random selection of numbers.2. Statistics- of or characterizing a process of selection in which each item of a set has an equal probability of being chosen. I tend to automatically go to the statistical definition, and that is the definition I have been using this whole time. By that definition, science is not random, as I have explained repeatedly. If we agree on the first definition, than I guess I would say science is random, although it does not appear to be. That is, as I said in my earlier response, we are the ones imposing the aim and reason. Partially because that's just how our mind does things, and partially because we are reverse engineering everything. We are asking why something happens, and when we get the answer it feels like that was the only reason that it happened, but a more objective view shows us that these things could have proceeded quite naturally without intelligent action. The end results, the things that work, are just doing so as a step in the chain of events. That is all there really is to it. And in my opinion, that makes everything that science teaches me that much more amazing and beautiful. "No random chance could have created something that is not random chance"Explain that better. As far as God as not being a thing, now you're just using semantics. Force, concept, persona,"Pure Who," whatever God is, we have never seen anything like Him, and that is precisely the reason why He works as an answer for everything. But that is just filling in the blanks. If we really want answers, we investigate, and whenever we do we find naturalistic answers. Every single time. Just because the origin of the Universe is bigger than anything else we have investigated so far, that does not mean the result will be any different.