It is probable that God exists
| Voting Style: | Open | Point System: | 7 Point | ||
| Started: | 10/19/2011 | Category: | Religion | ||
| Updated: | 5 years ago | Status: | Post Voting Period | ||
| Viewed: | 987 times | Debate No: | 18883 | ||
 Pro  Con Just to clarify, "God" will be defined with the attributes that are commonly associated with the Judeo-Christian God. (These attributes include, but not limited to: (1) All powerful, (2) All-good, (3) Perfect in every way, (4) Present everywhere, (5) Free will, and (6) Transcendent). Good luck. |
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Pro I do not propose, in this debate, (perhaps in a later one) to existence of a specific god, such as the Judeo-Christian example. I would like this debate to focus only on the idea of an intelligent Creator. Argument: The universe had a beginning. The vast majority of scientists, secular citizenship, and some portion of Christians accept the Big Bang theory as the definitive explanation of the existence of the universe. But, aside from this highly technical scientific theory, common sense will tell us the same idea: the universe had to have begun somewhere. Since the universe did not exist at one point, and did exist at another, it would have to follow that the cause of the beginning of the universe would have to come from something without the universe(that doesn't yet exist) and not from within. Of course one could argue that the universe just happened, that is, it began, but did not have a cause, or that perhaps the universe never began in the first place but just always existed. While these arguments contradict common sense, and it requires a tremendous mental effort to accept them as truths, I will nevertheless explore them. First, the argument that the universe did begin, but didn't have a cause. This argument is refuted simply by looking at your surroundings. Every single action has a its cause. This is universally true, with the (seeming) exception of some actions of quantum particles. But just because we don't know what causes a particle to appear in a quantum vacuum or why a certain substance decays at a different rate than another, does this prove that they don't have causes? Consider a sentient, atheistic life form who had no understanding of the principle of the condensation of water. If this being were standing in a field at dawn and noticed water droplets forming on a blade of grass, what would you think of this being if it said, "I know substantial information in regards to the physical laws of the universe, and I see no cause within these laws for these water droplets to be forming on this blade of grass, therefore, they must be coming into existence without a cause." Pretty idiotic, wouldn't you say? The second argument, that is, the universe never beginning and never ending, aka: the Oscillating Universe theory, not only contradicts the commonsensical argument that everything has a beginning, but is also shown to be extremely unlikely by scientists. The theory which is most accepted by scientists is the Big Freeze theory, which is the idea that the universe will continue to expand, distributing heat evenly, until none is left to be usable. So if common sense, that is, the knowledge and experience of most people, and the scientific community refute this last argument against the universe having been caused to come into existence, then it seems that atheists are left desperately hanging on to their faith in an infinite universe. While this does not necessarily prove that the Judeo-Christian God exists, or even that a God as defined above exists, it does prove that the universe must have had a Creator. Scientific evidence found at: universetoday.com or, more specifically, at: http://www.universetoday.com... Con Thank you for challenging me to this debate. 1) Presupposition of Atheism In my opening argument, I wish to prove that atheism/non-belief is justified. This is through an argument known as the presupposition of atheism. Atheism/Agnosticism is perfectly justified through the fact that the existence of God is an extraordinary claim, hence in the absence of extraordinary evidence the saying that God exists may be regarded as false.
This argument is often known as “Extraordinary claims means extraordinary evidence.” To clear everything up, I will define an “extraordinary claim” as the following: Extraordinary claim: A claim that contradicts the accepted physical laws or our common sense, everyday experiences in the world. Fact: Extraordinary claims vary in their degree of extraordinariness. For example, allow me to provide three statements:
Statement 1 is the least extraordinary of the three. It would not contradict the laws of common sense, nor would it contradict our physical experiences. Therefore, little evidence is required for a (rational) person to believe the statement. Statement 2 is even more extraordinary because most people do not win the lotto. This claim contradicts our laws of common sense as most people do not win the lotto. It also contradicts our personal experiences as most people have not won the lotto. However, we know that people do win the lotto, so if you see my ticket matches up with the numbers in the newspaper or on the news, then it is perfectly normal to accept it as truth. The third one, on the other hand, is extremely extraordinary and highly unlikely. If you wanted to believe that latter claim, you would have to change your beliefs about:
Therefore, it is most rational to reject the account of the third statement as false, unless quite a bit of evidence was to be presented. The claim that god exists is an extraordinary claim of the highest degree of extraordinariness. The claim is about a being who is not only different from all other creatures on earth, but also what we know about the universe. God is purportedly to be a being that is unfathomable and perfect in every manner—far different than anything on earth! So, is there strong evidence for the existence of God? As of now, I have not seen any strong evidence for God. There have been many Theists, such as Blaise Pascal that did not believe that there was enough evidence to compellingly demonstrate God’s existence. Dr. James Dobson states, “[F]aith ranks at the top of God’s system of priorities…This determination to believe when the proof is not provided and when the questions are not answered is central to our relationship with the Lord. He will never do anything to destroy the need for faith.” (When God Doesn’t Make Sense, pp. 17-18.) Hence, the absence of extraordinary evidence for God’s existence, one is justified in believing that a being does not exist. Throughout my philosophical research and debate, I am left empty handed. Therefore, I believe I am justified for rejecting the belief in an existence of an extraordinary belief. On a final note, this approach justifies me rejecting, not just the God I defined, but also other gods that may be presented to me. While one may see this as an appeal to ignorance, I do not believe that it is. I believe that this appeal proves that it is rational to say that there is (probably) no God. 2) Incoherent Attributes
It is possible that a being with unusual powers or characteristics may exist, but a being with contradictory features cannot exist. When I state that a being’s attributes are “incoherent,” I mean much more than the attributes of that being are strange or mysterious, but that they are contradictory. For example, we know that the Invisible Pink Unicorn (blessed be her holy hooves) cannot exist as it is impossible to be both invisible and pink. There are numerous contradictory properties that are ascribed to traditional theism; however, the tradition is incoherent.
a)Omniscience v. Omnibenevolence: Knowing pleasure in sin
A human terrorist: Can know by direct acquaintance the experience of satisfaction derived from unjustly killing a human being.
God: Cannot know this by experience since he cannot sin and is omnibenevolent. In this case, a human being can know something that god can't know. But god is supposed to be omniscient, so god must know it. But god can't know it. Thus, the syllogism is as followed:
An omnibenevolent God cannot know by personal experience the pleasure felt by a terrorist at killing large numbers of civilians. There are many other examples of cruelty or torture that can also be used to describe this. When I say that God is omnibenevolent, I mean that he is morally perfect. This precludes God from enjoying suffering or torture.
b) Omniscience v. Omniscience: Making a mistake. Humans: Can know the experience of finding out he or she made a mistake. In this case, God cannot know what it is like to make a mistake. Thus the syllogism is as followed:
c) All-knowing v. Omnipotence
Human beings: Know what it is like to learn how to do something. So in this case a human can perform the action of learning, which god cannot, so it would seem that a human can also perform actions that an omnipotent being cannot. In this case, humans can perform the action of learning, which God cannot, so it would seem that humans can also perform actions that an omnipotent being cannot. Thus the syllogism is as followed:
Bibliography in comments. |
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Pro In your opening, you lay out two arguments. In the first, which is the Extraordinary Claim means Extraordinary Evidence argument, I find at least two faults. And the second, which is given in three examples, is the idea that God cannot be omniscient if he has not known some certain experience of human life. I do not disagree with the truth of such an argument, if it were true; but I do think that it in no way supports your side of this debate. Extraordinary Claims etc.. As stated above, I have noticed at least two faults with this argument. The first is with the premise of the argument. That is, that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence to be considered to be true. I would say that to prove either extraordinary or ordinary claims, one would require ordinary evidence. Whether my opponent claims that he rode a unicorn through the forest and encountered the tooth fairy or he claims that he ate a certain type of sandwich for lunch, he would need the same sort of evidence to prove, to a rational person, that each is true. He may need to provide sensory evidence, such as a picture, video, or some other type of recording of the stated event. Or if that were unavailable, he could provide an eye-witness of the event. And if neither of these were available, he could prove the event through logical reasoning. So whether an event is extraordinary or ordinary, the same type evidence would be required to show that such an event is true. So a reasonable person, who is truly open to all possibilities (as any good philosopher or scientist should be), should have no trouble believing one man who says he experienced an extraordinary event, just as much as he would a man who says he experienced an ordinary event, provided that the same amount of evidence is given, be it very little or very much. The second fault I find in this argument is the statement that the existence of God, that is an intelligent creator, is an extraordinary claim as defined above. In fact, I would argue that the statement that no God exists is a rather extraordinary claim with very little, if any evidence to support it. While I would argue that the physical laws of the universe are a great argument for the existence of God, I will digress, and say rather that the physical laws of the universe are in no way contradicted by the existence of an Intelligent Creator. How can something which exists outside of the physical universe, contradict the laws of said physical universe? And even if such a being did exist within the universe, what physical law would this being be braking by existing? Would you say that the Law of Gravitational Force disproves God? Or perhaps, the laws of conservation? I would like to know which of these laws God would be breaking by existing, Mr.Infidel. As for common sense, I think that my opening argument proves that common sense is most definitely in favor of a creator, and not against. The overwhelming majority of humanity have been religious, believing in some form of God. It is only a very tiny minority of people who are atheists. Are you saying, Mr.Infidel, that common sense is some mystical gift that is withheld from the masses and is only granted to a very precious few? If so, common sense would not be very "common" at all, now would it? The last pretense of a claim being extraordinary was that it would contradict everyday experience. How does the existence of God contradict everyday experience? Is it because we do not see God everyday? (though some have claimed to) But what about the fact that we see the effects of God everyday? People heading to their place of worship, praying to their gods, and people dying for their gods are examples of these effects. How could we humans who are incapable of creating anything, and who are only able to imitate that which already exist, make up the idea of the existence of God without a God to imitate? It seems to me that the claim that God exists is not an extraordinary claim at all, but a quite ordinary one. The next argument which you proposed was that God cannot know everything if he does not know what some human experiences, which are impossible for him to experience, by his very nature, are like. This three-exampled argument is very easily refuted in the fact that and all powerful God would have no problem knowing all of our thoughts and emotions. If the human terrorist takes pleasure in killing someone unjustly (though he thinks it is in the name of justice) thethat terrorist would know what that feeling is like, and by extension, so would God, since He knows all of our thoughts and feelings. (being omniscient that is) So God would know what it is like to take pleasure in sin (if that is indeed possible for a human to do), to make a mistake, and to learn something new, without ever having done these things himself. And as for your personal god, the holy Invisible Pink Unicorn, I would have to disagree with your saying that she can't exist, oh yea of little faith.. Say there were two beings aside from your god. One, like a human with ordinary visual sense, and another with a visual sense greater than ours and could perceive a greater range of wavelengths on the electromagnetic spectrum. This deity of yours might appear as pink to the big eyed being, but might remain invisible to we lowly humans. So this Invisible Pink Unicorn could exist. It's all a matter of relativity. It is invisible relative to one, but pink relative another. So a being with contradictory properties can exist. See there? Now you can give up Atheism and go back to your worship of your Unicorn!!! 8D Con I want to thank you for a quick reply. Unfortunately, I did not realize that the debate was only 1 day to argue, so please forgive me if this is not the best rebuttal. ==REFUTATION OF PRO'S OPENING ARGUMENTS== I want to first apologize if I do not fully understand your arguments. My opponent has argued that the universe had a beginning. If I were to grant this to my opponent, why should I think that God is the only "prime mover" or cause of the universe? My opponent's arguments can be summed up as followed:
Indeed, if the universe has a cause, then my opponent must answer why God is the only cause there could possibly be.
Is the Big Bang the cause of the universe? I want to examine the evidence for the Big Bang Theory, the theory I hold to be true. However, before we do such a thing, we need to know what the BBT actually says. The BBT says, "In the distant past, the universe was very dense and hot; since then it has expanded, becoming less dense and cooler." [1] 1) Large-scale homogeneity  One of the key assumptions made in the BBT is that the universe is, at some scale, homogenous. On a large scale, this is true as can be seen from the plot above [2]. This is exactly what the BBT predicts. how can the universe be infinitely old? This is the key objection that my opponent is arguing. The Universe was not concentrated into a point at the time of the Big Bang. However, the observable Universe was concentrated into a point. The distinction between the whole Universe and the part we can see is important. Take a look at the image below. On the left for 1 Gyr after the BB, and on the right is the current Universe 13 Gyr after the BBT [3].  The size of the box in each view represents 78 billion light years. The green circle, on the other hand, is the part of the Universe that we can currently see. On the left, the same part of the Universe is shown by the green circle, but the green circle is just a tiny fraction of the 78 byl box. The 78 billion light year box is always full, and it is always an infinitesimal fraction of the infinite universe [4]. Something Cannot Come From NothingThis is another key point that I shall elaborate on. First, when scientists say the word "nothing" when discribing the Big Bang, they do not mean the word as we know it. In fact, a vaccum is not empty. Take a look at this chart.  What we see is that 73% of the matter in the Universe is dark energy (i.e., energy that cannot be seen) [5]. This refutes the idea that the universe came out of nowhere. Morover, we know that something can, in fact, come from nothing. In quantum field theory, we call these things "vacuum fluctuations." [6] | CONCLUSION | I have given support for the Big Bang Theory, and shown why my opponent's resolution that the Universe had to come from God is false. Thanks! Reference [1] http://www.talkorigins.org...; [2] http://www.talkorigins.org...; [3] http://www.astro.ucla.edu...; [4] Ibid. [5] http://www.talkorigins.org...; [6] http://www.talkorigins.org...; |
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Pro Simplify-Simplify forfeited this round.
Con |
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Pro So what you're saying is, that we don't really know what happened at the true beginning of the universe(if there was one) but that the universe that we can see was once concentrated into one point, just not the whole. Brilliant. And also that the beginning of the universe(if there was one) can be explained by energy that we haven't yet identified, which exists WITHIN the universe. Again, you're creativity astounds me. What happened to the day when intellectuals trusted in logic? Seems if something hasn't been theorized, tested twenty times by five different independent teams of scientific experts, proved, disproved, and proved again, published in four different b.s. scientific journals, and finally had three different mindless books written about it, it can't possibly be true. The "intelligent" rung of humanity has truly gone to the dogs. This will be my last debate. Say what you will. Perhaps I'll be back someday when people finally learn to use that thing between their ears, and realize the difference between knowledge and wisdom. Thank you, and good night. Con My arguments for the big bang still stand. My opponent has given no evidence for the probability of God's existence, which was his Burden of Proof. Thanks for a fun debate! |
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| Simplify-Simplify | Mr.Infidel | Tied | ||
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| Agreed with before the debate: | - |  | - | 0 points |
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| Who had better conduct: | - | | - | 1 point |
| Had better spelling and grammar: | - | - | | 1 point |
| Made more convincing arguments: | - | | - | 3 points |
| Used the most reliable sources: | - | - | | 2 points |
| Total points awarded: | 0 | 4 |
| Simplify-Simplify | Mr.Infidel | Tied | ||
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| Agreed with before the debate: | - | - | | 0 points |
| Agreed with after the debate: | - | - | | 0 points |
| Who had better conduct: | - | | - | 1 point |
| Had better spelling and grammar: | | - | - | 1 point |
| Made more convincing arguments: | - | | - | 3 points |
| Used the most reliable sources: | - | | - | 2 points |
| Total points awarded: | 1 | 6 |
Simplify-Simplify. You argue that god lies outside the universe, but if I said, "this fossil was from the Paleozoic" and you said, "you can't show me anything else from the Paleozoic so I have know reason to believe in the Paleozoic" then I showed you thousands of other fossils from the Paleozoic, then you'd be incline to agree that the Paleozoic happened. So if god lies outside the universe, then show me something else that lies outside the universe. My point of course is that saying something lies outside the universe with know precedent is saying nothing, as far as we know, nothing can lay outside a universe. You might as well say that fairies live outside the universe and you can't touch that so fairies exist. The fact is that we do no of laws of the universe and to say something lies outside it is clearly and simply a cop-out. It's an attempt to end an argument with a proof that's supposedly irrefutable or untouchable but should be left to the realm off fantasy.
Also, if he's all powerful and a perfect creator, why is the eye upside down and backwards? Did god have an off day?
"If he is all powerful can he travel before he was created?
If he is all powerful can he create a God better than himself?
Is he is all powerful can he destroy himself?"
He is God. He wasn't created. If He is all powerful than there could never be anything better than Himself. Why would He destroy Himself??
If he is all powerful can he travel before he was created?
If he is all powerful can he create a God better than himself?
Is he is all powerful can he destroy himself?
Krueger, Doug. "The Krueger-McHugh Debate: Theism or Atheism." Secular Web: Atheism, Agnosticism, Naturalism, Skepticism and Secularism. The Secular Web, 2003. Web. 10 Oct. 2011. <http://www.infidels.org......;.
Drange, Theodore M. "Incompatible-Properties Arguments: A Survey." Secular Web: Atheism, Agnosticism, Naturalism, Skepticism and Secularism. The Secular Web. Web. 10 Oct. 2011. <http://www.infidels.org......;.
Martin, Michael. ""A Disproof of God's Existence" by Michael Martin." Secular Web: Atheism, Agnosticism, Naturalism, Skepticism and Secularism. Internet Infidels. Web. 12 Oct. 2011. <http://www.infidels.org......;.