Instigator / Pro
3
1588
rating
23
debates
67.39%
won
Topic
#1063

It is most likely that God exists.

Status
Finished

The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.

Winner & statistics
Better arguments
0
3
Better sources
2
2
Better legibility
0
1
Better conduct
1
1

After 1 vote and with 4 points ahead, the winner is...

Ramshutu
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
5
Time for argument
Three days
Max argument characters
30,000
Voting period
Two weeks
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Open
Contender / Con
7
1764
rating
43
debates
94.19%
won
Description

I will waive going first. My opponent will put forward the first arguments in round 1

A strong suggestion for arguing God is the cause of the universe, is to never leave God being created by us unchallenged. When that is unchallenged, there's no logical path remaining for God being an uncaused cause. When that's left in place, diet coke makes more sense (at least it can be verified to exist).

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@Ramshutu
@Patmos

---RFD (1 of 9)---
Interpreting the resolution:
For pro to win, God must be implied to exist with some confidence (statistical or otherwise).
For con to win, God’s existence must be left within reasonable doubt.

Gist:
Pro’s whole case could have called for Zeus or Ra having done it (names he brought into this debate), with equal certainty to one of the other thousands of fictional beings did it. Con cast strong doubt on any of them, chiefly by reminding us that none of pro’s models actually calls for any God to be involved, and even if they did there’s no reason it’s God instead of the FSM.

In the final round there’s a list of five major things pro dropped, but he concedes them as not mattering (this includes that God is fictional!).

---RFD (2 of 9)---
Blunder:
I got barely started R2 before I noticed a massive tactical error from pro. Con gave a definition for God that would be wholly encapsulated by the FSM (all hail his noodly appendage); had con embraced that he would have flipped a good chunk of con’s own counter evidence to his favor. Instead by trying to argue against the validity of any being as likely as the FSM, he completely undermined his own case for any being of similar likelihood such as God.

0. Tests
Good start to the debate, two methods for validating evidence (as much as no one has been able to prove the FSM is fictional, nor even that Jesus Christ is not his son...). Pro’s argument against the FSM validity test was suspect, and based on false information which con quickly corrected (the nature of gods is never physical form; no one says ‘you called God HE, and men have penises, which are physical matter, so God cannot exist...’)

---RFD (3 of 9)---
1. Lack of evidence (No direct evidence)
Con counters the KCA via questioning the validity of composition AKA it’s not proven (which pro defends with repeating himself and making a diet coke straw-person), and more importantly that even if his premises were true the conclusions that one particular God did it was not even implied; to which pro left effectively unchallenged. The FSM test pro has a decent defense of “Adding superfluous details in order to make the argument seem stupid is not a real objection.” Granted con was not so much adding superfluous details as pointing them out; and pro decided to reject the FSM instead of using him as God (no evidence exists to say that’s not God’s true form).

---RFD (4 of 9)---
The teleological argument did not lead to any conclusion of God, merely attempted to imply we don’t know as much about our universe or the multiverse as we would like. To quote con on this point: “there is no necessity for that fine tuning to be performed by an omnipotent, omnibenevolent being with an interest in human affairs.” Later this gets into how the universe is mostly hostile to life, which implies that it was not made by any smart creator (both debaters missed that this is proof of the FSM, as he was stupid and outright drunk when he made the universe... again, had pro just embraced the FSM he could have flipped all this evidence against his case to be in favor of it).

---RFD (5 of 9)---
Without proving God is somehow needed in any of his models, he insists “This constitutes direct evidence for a God.” He even doubles down on his lack of evidence being his evidence, insisting we need to just accept his appeal to authority without any (had the authority come with evidence rather than mere assertion, it would have been the non-fallacious form... the equation would not need to be typed into the debate, a quick link to where Penrose got his numbers would do a better job anyway). Note: this was a major place the writing of sources hurt an argument.

2. mundane explanations (no indirect evidence)
Pro does a two-line reply which does not really challenge this. I would call it dropped, but not outright conceded (I should look up the jargon, to ensure I’m using these terms correctly).

---RFD (6 of 9)---
3. God changes (likely made up)
Actually a good start, given thousands of false gods we imagined into being, why would a later one not stem from the same source? Pro majorly drops the ball here, conceding that con is right, but then insisting one random one of them he’s apparently met must have done it anyway (so much talk of probably, so if there’s ten-thousand false idols claiming to be God, what are the odds you’ve found the true one to which you are arguing in this debate? 0.01%). As con puts it “Unicorns may exist, the matrix may exist, the Star Wars universe may exist - but knowing that they are works of fiction makes that idea less likely plausible and inherently unlikely that humans ‘just so happened’ to invent a fictional super being, and turned out to be correct.” Pro tries to bring Zeus and others in, but nothing gets around the core problem of decreased likelihoods.

---RFD (7 of 9)---
4. Occams Razor (unnecessary to solve any specific problems)
On the multiverse, pro fully Leeroy Jenkined the composition fallacy con had already pointed out to him (why even make a pre-refuted argument?). It apparently violates the local laws we know, so can’t exist! *lol*

Neatly pro argues that minds randomly float around in space and before time, and it would be the composition fallacy to say they can’t be there (more credit would go to him here had he named it); but makes a rather obvious false attribution of BoP to the person not claiming the seeming impossible.

5. Mop up and drops
Seriously, I’m going to steal this for future debates, putting it in one round before the end. Pro ends up intentionally dropping (at this point I’d call that a concession) the entire bullet list.

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---RFD (8 of 9)---
Arguments: con
See above review of key points.

Sources: tied
Pro, next time I suggest using the advice at: http://tiny.cc/DebateArt
Due to effort I am leaving this tied... However, either make links in arguments and/or number your sources.
In case it’s not been explained before: Books are not the type of sources judges here care about, we look for what we can easy verify on websites (an example being links to scientific papers, which so long as there’s a summary we can read we trust it without needing to pay to access them).

S&G: con
Pro intentionally wasted the time of the voters by claiming R1 or R2 contained the list of (as he outright quoted) "Objections so horrendously bad I couldn't have made them up"; which it did not, rendering his reply both incoherent and incomprehensible, while self-accusing his own prior arguments of being just that for not containing what he specified they contained.

---RFD (9 of 9)---
Similarly, while his sources themselves were fine, the connections to his arguments were left incoherent by the poor method of their display. Pro, this kind of mistake can cause accidental plagiarism, so please take my advice as seen in the sources section.

Speaking of numbers, even if headings change, maintaining the numbers on them would have made arguments less painful to track down when trying to follow the thread of each through the 30,000 character rounds.

Conduct: tied
Con was better (particularly that final round nicety), but I am putting the major offense here into the S&G category as pro is new, so may have never been told before what quotations mean in written debates.

I'm about a quarter of the way through this monstrosity... I have a social life to get to, so I'll analyze some more arguments tomorrow or the next day.

A lot of misinformation about his divine noodliness. To minimize confusion, I suggest watching this quick primer: https://vimeo.com/31543194

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@Patmos

Thanks for the debate; I genuinely enjoyed that, and appreciate that you stayed all the way to the end!

daaang, I took me like 30 seconds to scroll through that

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@GuitarSlinger

Is it any more or less valid an assumption than the alternative of assuming that it’s possible for something to exist without being measured.

The debate is about likelihood: this specific argument decreases the possible number of Gods that could exist - that inherently decreases probability.

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@Ramshutu
@Patmos

Or put another way, "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."

The absence of evidence for X proves, at best, two things and two things only: (1) you have no evidence for X, or (2) you just don't see the evidence. It doesn't prove that X exists, nor does it prove that X doesn't exist.

Food for thought - what if people are just unable to "see" the evidence that is before them? Maybe the evidence is "there", but folks are unable to see it or recognize it as such?

Here's an analogy. Not a strawman, mind you, but an analogy to illustrate my point. Imagine two guys are out in the forest. One guy, let's call him Natty Bumppo, is a seasoned hunter.....he's been tracking animals all his life. He knows the forest in and out. Another guy, let's call him Duncan Heyward, has never set foot in a forest and doesn't know the first thing about hunting or tracking animals, etc.

Now suppose these guys are walking through the forest. Natty says to Duncan "Someone else has been walking in this forest." Duncan on the other hand says "You're crazy, no one has been here." Natty replies "Dude, the evidence is right there....there! don't you see it?!?" (he is able to see the signs of another human, such as bent twigs, etc). Duncan on the other hand says "Nope. I don't see it. I dont' see it at all."

Humans for whatever reason (inability, immaturity, obstinance) may just not be able to see or recognize the evidence that is presented before us.

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@Ramshutu

1.) Lack of direct evidence to support the existence of God.

DOesn't this assume, though, that the entity (you can call it "God") is subject to the scientific method?

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@GuitarSlinger

No

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@Ramshutu
@Patmos

If I don't believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, does that make me the Anti-Pasta?