Instigator / Pro
4
1650
rating
44
debates
77.27%
won
Topic
#1298

God does not exist

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
1
1
Better conduct
1
1

After 1 vote and with 3 points ahead, the winner is...

semperfortis
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
3
Time for argument
Two days
Max argument characters
10,000
Voting period
One week
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Open
Contender / Con
7
1684
rating
15
debates
100.0%
won
Description

I am going to waive the first round and Pro would have to wave the final round.

Pro: God does not exist
Con: Yeah he does and I can prove it

Burden of proof is on Con.

I don't really want to add rules since I know they ain't going to be enforced and think if the previous rules are going to be broken I still think I can win if I do post arguments as well.

Thanks for reading and participating in whatever way you see fit.

Hopefully this is worthwhile.

This is interesting. Semperfortis looks like my kind of debater. Its a shame he's no longer active. I would of loved to debate this with someone who has such a good grasp of philosophy.

There is no god.

Things beyond human reasoning have always been drafted into a greater thing than us in order to understand ourselves and control others, most of all.

yeah sempor won

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@TheRealNihilist
@semperfortis

This was a pretty close one. I believe the debate largely moved in goalpost to definition of God, and under that I found con's chosen definitions more reasonable, especially since he had BoP and it was a two round debate to which he would not have the last word (I think I explained in my RFD that forcing him to restart with another would reduce it to a single round debate, which would be extremely unfair). That some definitions are more commonly used, doesn't mean they are better; and con did include a whole contention linking his definition to being an agent of volition rather than just chance (which was challenged under pro's definition, not cons).

Comparing the strength of the contentions for and against, and then the refutations for each, that God exists (at least within the stated definition) seems true. I was not left in question of the validity nor soundness of con's case (https://www.iep.utm.edu/val-snd/), and his pre-refutations took the major sting out of the offense (things like mentioning the infinite regression problem).

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@Barney

Can you tell me how semperfortis won?
It wasn't clear in your vote.

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@Ramshutu

No worries.

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@Barney

Thanks for taking the time to vote!

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@TheRealNihilist
@semperfortis

I won’t be voting here; as a comment I made to TRN made it into his debate argument - I wasn’t intending it as coaching or an argument suggestion, nor offered any further advice; but Given that the comment was made, I won’t be voting and I’m going to avoid any impression of impropriety; and recuse myself from vote moderation on this debate too.

Looking at SFs definition, my first thought was that we know the universe is caused, and an atheistic explanation would qualify as God under SFs definition, so I inherently agree with TRNs objection, and I made a comment along those lines - and my comment to him seemed to have spurred this round. I won’t comment further on whether he made a good defense.

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@Barney
@Ramshutu

Hi, if any of you have time to spare over the next two days could you please vote on this debate?

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@semperfortis

Good luck as well.

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@TheRealNihilist

No, I now must prey to my very specific, uncommon, incorrect, unfair definition of God -- thanks for the debate and good luck.

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@semperfortis

Guess you deleted your blatant vote influencing.

Do you want to carry on speaking or is this it for you influencing voter decision?

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@semperfortis

Why are you telling me this now?

Are you trying to influence voters?

I didn't start this in the comment section you did.

Are there other things you would like to tell voters to influence their decision?

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@semperfortis

Not going anywhere and don't want to talk about it.

Please make another debate which puts an unfair burden on your opponent if they don't decide to challenge your assumptions.

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@TheRealNihilist

Again, purely pedantic. Theism differs -- so slightly -- from Deism insofar that they believe that the creator intervenes in the universe. Craig might believe that the amalgamation of "uncaused, timeless, supreme etc. being" represents a theistic interpreation, even though the properties don't directly imply that -- this part is purely up to personal opinion.

How does there exist a 'most' common definition? Christianity represents a mere 30% of the religious population -- Hinduism has a multiplicity of Gods which wouldn't match your definition. Allah and the Christian God might prima facie have the same definition yet posit different things about our universe which would render them as different interpretations -- if one were to choose one interpretation over the other they are burdened with the scripture that comes with it.

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@semperfortis

>>I literally stated the KCA as William Lane Craig would argue it

How about the definition of God?
Oh wait they are different meaning both of you actually meant different things when referring to God. Okay.

>>remarking upon the theological implications of this union of properties."

Oh so Craig meant it with the theist perspective but you meant it with the deist perspective as in 49,000 people vs a lot more.

>>Would you personally, not consider a conscious cause of our universe to be God?

Why does what I personally think matter? You changed the definition to make the KCA pretty much align with it even though it doesn't. God is defined one way and you changed that majority definition which made the KCA different given the change in meanings.

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@semperfortis

>>There is no socially agreed upon definition of "God" as there exists hundreds of different "God's" pertaining to different religions.

I don't know what you are doing here but you are not convincing me of there isn't a consensus of the word God.

>>Many argue that they, themselves are God in a framework of solipsism -- the fact that they are not omnipotent or omnibenevolent wouldn't refute that.

How many people?

>> If our universe were simulated by a greater intellgence, we would ascribe them as being God. If we were to simulate a universe identical to ours and create life -- we would consider ourselves the "God" of that universe, yet we don't match the definition of God you provided.

What if it isn't? I would like concrete examples how the Abrahamic version of God is not the consensus. Even Hindus also call God the supreme being which if we total all of them up would mean a majority of the population have the same definition of God. Even excluding Hinduism just Christianity and Islam is more than 50% of the population. Hinduism agreeing just makes my case even better.

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@TheRealNihilist

I literally stated the KCA as William Lane Craig would argue it; appending his additional premise of a personal cause. Please observe:

"Craig concludes that the cause of the existence of the universe is an "uncaused, personal Creator ... who sans the universe is beginningless, changeless, immaterial, timeless, spaceless and enormously powerful"; remarking upon the theological implications of this union of properties." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalam_cosmological_argument)

I am still very unsure why you find a personal cause of our universe to be an unsubstantial view of God. Would you personally, not consider a conscious cause of our universe to be God?

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@semperfortis

>>But my argument wasn't just the KCA

That was the main argument. The other argument required the first because of how the ideas link. Cause and effect was again used in the second argument but was more important in the first given the KCA was the one that actually fulfilled the burden of proof if I followed your definition. You even mention it here as an addition "Now that it has been established that the universe is contingent upon an efficient cause, I assert that the only a personal cause (i.e an agent of volition) could be the only rational explanation."

>> If that were a truism we would be faced with the fact that our universe was caused by a conscious being.

It is a truism because you defined God differently to fit in the KCA argument basically removing the most important gripes when using the KCA as an argument for God. I called you out in the debate for using different definitions of God when I am guessing you know the commonly agreed definition of God.

>>That's why I stated that Atheism wouldn't be very plausible if it were a truism.

This was about whether or not God exists. Not about atheism.

>>Moreover, the idea of a caused universe is certainly not a truism, the KCA is heavily criticized.

Yeah because it is link to God as in the perfect being not the efficient cause to our universe. Please see my arguments again for a run down on why I challenged the assumptions and how I went about it.

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@TheRealNihilist

There is no socially agreed upon definition of "God" as there exists hundreds of different "God's" pertaining to different religions. Many argue that they, themselves are God in a framework of solipsism -- the fact that they are not omnipotent or omnibenevolent wouldn't refute that. If our universe were simulated by a greater intellgence, we would ascribe them as being God. If we were to simulate a universe identical to ours and create life -- we would consider ourselves the "God" of that universe, yet we don't match the definition of God you provided.

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@TheRealNihilist

But my argument wasn't just the KCA, i also provided that the cause was an agent of volition (i.e consciousness). If that were a truism we would be faced with the fact that our universe was caused by a conscious being. That's why I stated that Atheism wouldn't be very plausible if it were a truism.

Moreover, the idea of a caused universe is certainly not a truism, the KCA is heavily criticized.

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@semperfortis

That isn't my position.

The resolution was God does not exist.

KCA is an argument for a cause of its existence.

You decided to call God the cause of its existence.

I called it a truism because of that.

You used a very different definition to God essentially make the KCA be an argument for God when it never was if we care about using the socially agreed upon definition of God.

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@TheRealNihilist

By the way, I forgot to ask why you think that Deism is a truism?

:1

There is a small typo in my second round, it should read "A2. The Incoherence of Impersonal Causes"

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@semperfortis

Thanks. Good luck to you as well.

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@TheRealNihilist

Thanks for instigating the debate. I enjoyed how the resolution was left ambiguous and required justification throughout. Good luck in the final round.

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@semperfortis

semper
Has a temper
His opponents whimper
When he posts his arguments

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@semperfortis

Okay.

I'm defining God as like an efficient cause of the universe -- I will formally define it in my round.

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@TheRealNihilist

I think that in this debate, the burden of proof should be shared and not only on Con, since you're making a claim as well. It's the job of the person making a claim to prove that claim, not the job of the opponent of the claim to prove that claim wrong. It would be wrong for your claim that God does not exist to win simply because Con could not provide sufficient evidence. As I'm sure you know, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, and just because we cannot prove the existence of God does not mean that God does not exist.