Is there A god?

In this debate I will be Con, and my opponent will be Pro. No new debates will be concluded in this debate, nor accusations of religion. Shall an opponent accept this debate Con and Pro will both argue until the last round, may the best debater win.

I would like to thank Nur-Ab-Sal for accepting this debate.

I believe there is no god because of lack of evidence and because of the faults in the Bible. For example, in the Bible Adam and Eve had 2 sons, one killed the other, Eve was going to punish her son when he said "Just don't tell the others" when Adam,Eve and their son were the only ones alive at the time. An example of lack of evidence is that the 10 amendments were never found, Noah's arc wasn't either.

I would first like to take a moment and similarly thank anonymous101 for instigating this debate. I will now proceed to refute my opponent’s arguments.

Introduction

Although she did not specify in the opening round, my opponents seems to only want to debate the Judeo-Christian God described in the Bible. Let it be noted that there are many other deities we could argue over, and also any supposed Biblical inaccuracy would not necessarily refute the existence of the Judeo-Christian God. To be fair to a new DDO member, I will follow her line of reasoning that if the Bible is wrong, then God is not real.

My opponent splits her argument against God into two main contentions:

• Biblical error or inaccuracy
• Lack of Biblical evidence

I will provide a refutation to each of these arguments by showing how (1) they are inaccurate statements, and (2) even if they were inaccurate, this would not disprove God’s existence.

Biblical error

My opponent states the following: “in the Bible Adam and Eve had 2 sons, one killed the other, Eve was going to punish her son when he said "Just don't tell the others" when Adam, Eve and their son were the only ones alive at the time.” Firstly, Eve never said anything of the sort. Immediately after Cain kills Abel (Genesis 4:8), Cain has a conversation with God (Genesis 4:9 – 4:16) about his punishment and banishment to Nod, a land situated east of Eden. There is no conversation with either Adam or Eve as described in the Genesis account.

Now let us operate under the assumption that Eve did indeed have this mythical conversation with her son. The accusation of Adam’s family being the only in existence would only work if the Bible specifically said there were no other humans alive at the time. I see nowhere in Genesis that states Adam, Eve, and Cain were the only humans in existence. On the contrary, Genesis states that Cain had a wife (Genesis 4:17) of a different group of humans. From this we can garner there were at least two groups of humans in existence according to the Genesis account.

To reiterate, in this section I have shown how Eve never said anything of other civilisations, as the description of Cain’s murdering and subsequent punishment includes only a dialogue with God and no conversation with either of his parents. I have also shown how even if this imaginary discussion occurred, there were indeed other humans alive at the time as shown later in the same chapter of Genesis.

Lack of Biblical evidence

My opponent states the following: “An example of lack of evidence is that the 10 amendments were never found, Noah's arc wasn't either.” My opponent makes the common mistake of assuming that absence of evidence is evidence of absence. She assumes that since the actual tablets of the Ten Commandments were never found, that must mean the entire Mount Sinai tale is false; similarly, because Noah’s Ark has never been uncovered by archaeologists, the Great Flood must have never happened. My opponent then seems to think that since the Great Flood or the Mount Sinai tale are supposedly false, the entire Bible is false.

This argument is absolutely absurd. Artifacts are but one element in determining the accuracy of a given piece of historical literature. If my opponent actually believes archaeologists must hunt down the Ark of the Covenant in order to prove the story of Exodus true, she is mistaken. There are numerous theories as to the chronology, geography, and even historiography of the Exodus account and none of these theories require the actual Ark of the Covenant to be found. Do we need artifactual evidence of the dagger that stabbed Caesar in order to solidify the story of Caesar’s assassination? Surely not. There are plenty of historical documents and other pieces of evidence that back up these stories, and the lack of artifactual evidence does not necessarily make the entire story false.

Conclusion

I have shown in “Biblical error” how my opponent’s attack on the truth of the Bible is completely incompatible with what is actually written in the text. I have shown in “Lack of Biblical evidence” that artifactual evidence is not the only kind of evidence that is needed to support a work’s authenticity. In conclusion, my opponent has provided no persuasive arguments against the Bible, and thus no persuasive arguments against God.

I now turn it over to my opponent for refutations.

I extend all arguments and hope Con can join me for the final round.

Pro is right, and I would like to thank Pro for responding.

There is no evidence of any god existing, the Greeks had a big imagination that allowed them to make up stories about the worlds origins along with any other religion out there, they all based their beliefs on some hope to an explanation to the creation of everything. Today,even though there is no realistic evidence of any kind of religion, people still hope there is an explanation they can understand as to what made them. Hope is all people have, hope makes want people to believe that there is a place you go to after death, that there is life after death, but all we base that off of is feelings. We all know that when we have had a "feeling" about something and have been wrong. We also have been right, too. We all know that on a big thing like this we should just trust the facts, and not some feeling that could be wrong or right. All that I'm trying to get across is that we just don't know. I'll probably lose this debate because I am new and in the fifth grade, it wouldn't matter to me because I know I didn't have much of a chance anyway. Just in case there is a god I make sure I keep in check, because no one knows, Pro is probably going to point out my errors again so I wish Pro good luck!

I would like to thank my opponent for her response and I am very happy to see her return for the last round. I will first begin my noting that my opponent has dropped her Genesis inconsistency argument and has introduced a new one.

Introduction

My opponent’s argument is completely based on the reasoning behind the advent of religion rather than the beliefs of religion itself. She gives the motivation for religion as “[…] people still hope there is an explanation they can understand as to what made them. Hope is all people have, hope makes want people to believe that there is a place you go to after death, that there is life after death, but all we base that off of is feelings.” I will show in my rebuttals there is more evidence behind God than “hope,” and thus there is good reasoning behind devotion to religion.

Motivation behind religion

My opponent asserts that the only incentive behind mankind’s adherence to religion is “hope.” Although hope is certainly a part of it, as Pascal’s Wager somewhat implies, there is far more reason to believe in the Judeo-Christian God than simple “hope.”

Usually, I do not introduce new arguments in the final round as my opponent does not have the ability to respond to them; however, because my opponent stressed her claim that there are no persuasive motives behind religion, I must introduce an argument for God’s existence as a solid refutation to this claim. I hope voters understand my reasoning here. I will introduce an argument for the Judeo-Christian God as a refutation to my opponent’s assertion that belief in religion is reduced as a whole to “hope.”

Kalām Cosmological Argument

This is perhaps one of the most famous arguments for an omnipotent deity’s existence. In syllogistic format, it is as follows:

1. Everything with a beginning has a cause
2. The Universe has a beginning
3. Therefore the Universe has a cause

Because of the incoherency of the concept of infinite regression in cause, this first cause must be uncaused in nature. This is a characteristic that most Monotheists (especially those of Abrahamic religions such as Christianity and Islam) apply to their deity. The Universe’s beginning is almost universally agreed upon my modern astrophysicists and cosmologists; radiation data collected by astronomical instruments also supports this premise. Since the first two premises are true, the conclusion logically follows and can be identified as God.

Conclusion

My opponent stated many times that the only reason followers adhere to a specified religion is “hope.” By illustrating a sound argument for God’s existence, I have proven her assertion wrong and shown that there are reasonable arguments for the existence of a deity.

In this debate, my opponent made two claims; (1) the Genesis account of Cain’s murder is inconsistent, and (2) religion is based only on hope and not reason. I have successfully refuted each of these claims by showing that (1) the alleged conversation between Eve and Cain never took place, and if it had, it would still be consistent with the Genesis narrative, and (2) there are rational arguments for the existence of God.

Finally, I would like to thank my opponent for an engaging debate.