Instigator / Pro
David's avatar
16
David
1503
rating
83
debates
47.59%
won
Topic

Does God Exist?

Status
Finished

All stages have been completed. The voting points distribution and the result are presented below.

Arguments points
6
9
Sources points
6
6
Spelling and grammar points
4
4
Conduct points
0
4

With 4 votes and 7 points ahead, the winner is ...

MagicAintReal
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Philosophy
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Three days
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MagicAintReal's avatar
23
MagicAintReal
1576
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12
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75.0%
won
Description
~ 1,256 / 5,000

Thank you for agreeing to debate this topic with me.

TERMS

Resolved: It is probable that God exists.

Rounds:

1. Opening Arguments
2. Rebuttals
3. Rebuttals
4. Closing arguments/Rebuttals

For the purposes of this debate, the term "God" will be defined broadly as to include the general attributes (ie: omnipotence, omniscience) commonly associated with Judeo-Christian monotheism. That is to say, I am not referring to any specific deity. Hence religious-specific doctrines such as the incarnation, Sinaic revelation, and the trinity are irrelvant to this debate. "Probable" will be defined as being more likely than not.

The time limit between replies is 72 hours. If special circumstances arise, one side may ask the other to wait out his or her remaining time. If one side explicitly concedes or violates any of these terms, then all seven points will be awarded to the other. By accepting this challenge, you agree to these terms.

The burden of proof is shared. It is incumbent on me to show that God's existence is probable, and it is incumbent on my opponent to show that God's existence is not probable. It is thus not enough to simply refute my arguments. My opponent must also erect his own case against the probability of God's existence.

Round 1
David's avatar
David
Pro
Thank you for agreeing to debate this with me. As per the comment section, my opponent and I agreed on this definition of God: the omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent creator and ruler of the universe and source of all moral authority.

----

1. The Kalaam Cosmological Argument

P1: Whatever begins to exist has a cause
P2: The universe began to exist
C: Therefore, the universe has a cause

The first premise is axiomatic. From nothing comes nothing. This is a metaphysical truth and it would be absurd to deny it. William Lane Craig notes (1):

Something cannot come from nothing. To claim that something can come into being from nothing is worse than magic. When a magician pulls a rabbit out of a hat, at least you’ve got the magician, not to mention the hat! But if you deny premise (1'), you’ve got to think that the whole universe just appeared at some point in the past for no reason whatsoever. But nobody sincerely believes that things, say, a horse or an Eskimo village, can just pop into being without a cause.

 something can come into being from nothing, then it becomes inexplicable why just anything or everything doesn’t come into being from nothing. Think about it: why don’t bicycles and Beethoven and root beer just pop into being from nothing? Why is it only universes that can come into being from nothing? What makes nothingness so discriminatory? There can’t be anything about nothingness that favors universes, for nothingness doesn’t have any properties. Nor can anything constrain nothingness, for there isn’t anything to be constrained!

Common experience and scientific evidence confirm the truth of premise 1'. The science of cosmogeny is based on the assumption that there are causal conditions for the origin of the unuiverse. So it’s hard to understand how anyone committed to modern science could deny that (1') is more plausibly true than false.

P2: The universe began to exist

Prior to the 1950s most scientists and philosophers believed that matter and the universe existed eternally. We now know that the universe, including time, began to exist round 14 billion years ago. Thus there was a time when nothing existed including time itself! Professor Stephen Hawkins notes (2):

All the evidence seems to indicate, that the universe has not existed forever, but that it had a beginning, about 15 billion years ago. This is probably the most remarkable discovery of modern cosmology. 
In the case of the universe, the fact that the microwave background has such an exactly thermal spectrum indicates that it must have been scattered many times. The universe must therefore contain enough matter, to make it opaque in every direction we look, because the microwave background is the same, in every direction we look. Moreover, this opacity must occur a long way away from us, because we can see galaxies and quasars, at great distances. Thus there must be a lot of matter at a great distance from us. The greatest opacity over a broad wave band, for a given density, comes from ionised hydrogen. It then follows that if there is enough matter to make the universe opaque, there is also enough matter to focus our past light cone. One can then apply the theorem of Penrose and myself, to show that time must have a beginning.
The conclusion of this lecture is that the universe has not existed forever. Rather, the universe, and time itself, had a beginning in the Big Bang, about 15 billion years ago. The beginning of real time, would have been a singularity, at which the laws of physics would have broken down. Nevertheless, the way the universe began would have been determined by the laws of physics, if the universe satisfied the no boundary condition. This says that in the imaginary time direction, space-time is finite in extent, but doesn't have any boundary or edge. The predictions of the no boundary proposal seem to agree with observation. The no boundary hypothesis also predicts that the universe will eventually collapse again. However, the contracting phase, will not have the opposite arrow of time, to the expanding phase. So we will keep on getting older, and we won't return to our youth. 
We can also prove this from the laws of thermodynamics. If the universe was infinite in age and duration, we would have ran out of usable energy. Because we are not in this state, we know that the universe is not infinitely old (4). 

C: Therefore, the Universe has a cause

The conclusion is proven and is solid from 1 and 2. 

Why is God the cause?

Because the universe began to exist, this cause must be transcendent, it must be powerful enough to create a universe that eventually gives rise to life, it must be non-physical, and it must exist necessarily. This is exactly what we call God. 

2. The Moral Argument

P1: If objective moral facts exist, then God exists.
P2: Objective moral facts exist
C: Therefore, God exists

Objective morality means that moral facts are always true whether you believe them to be true or not. These objective moral facts are true wherever you go and whatever culture you may be in. These facts are not tangible and are independent of evolution. Evolutionary biology cannot explain these objective moral facts. It is always immoral to torture babies for fun, kill innocent human beings, commit genocide. it is always wrong to deny African Americans their fundamental rights, and lynching blacks or homosexuals is immoral. I'm sure my opponent will agree with these statements. 

If atheism and naturalism is true, then all things are morally permissible. If relativism is true, then these statements cannot be proven. These facts are rooted in the nature of God and can be reasonably deduced without the need of special revelation or the Bible. Consider the seven Noahide laws that are incumbent on all humanity (5): 

1. To believe in God and not worship idols
2. Not to curse God
3. Not to commit murder
4. Not to commit adultery
5. Not to steal
6. Not to eat flesh torn from a living animal
7. Establish courts of justice. 

If God exists, then 1 and 2 are obviously true. One must believe in that One God and not commit idolatry. Murdering an innocent human being is wrong because we are created in God's image and thus killing is destroying the image of God. In the words of Richard Taylor:

"A duty is something that is owed... But something can be owed only to some person or persons. There can be no such thing as a duty in isolation.... the concept of moral obligation [is] unintelligible apart from the idea of God. The words remain but their meaning is gone." (6)

If the atheist says that evolution can account for morality, then the atheist needs to answer the question when did these moral facts exist. If we could go back in time before this evolution, would it be morally permissible to commit genocide or torture babies for fun? I'm sure my opponent would agree that that's wrong. 

3. The Thomastic Argument from Design

P1: We see that natural bodies work toward some goal, and do not do so by chance
P2: Most natural things lack knowledge. 
P3: But as an arrow reaches its target because it is directed by an archer, what lacks intelligence achieves goals by being directed by something intelligent
C: Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God.

This is connected to the KCA in argument 1. Nature is governed by laws such as the laws of physics, the laws of chemistry, the laws of planetary motion, the laws of gravity, the laws of mathematics, and laws of thermodynamics. These laws are finely tuned for life. Should any one of these laws not be completely perfect, then the universe as we know it cannot exist and life as we know it cannot exist. 

Life itself is extremely complex. The bacteria E. Coli has 4.1 million bass pairs (7). Just as we know that a watch cannot form itself, the complexity of life disprove abiogenesis. 

Summary

In the words of the atheists, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The atheists need to account for why something exists instead of nothing, why objective moral facts exists, and for the complexity of life. The chances of a universe popping into existence by itself, having uniform laws that exist through the universe, and eventually forming complex life and bringing forth complex consciousness. It is far more likely that it is the work of God. 

With that I turn it over to con. 

Sources
6. Richard Taylor, Ethics, Faith, and Reason (Englewood Cliffs, N.J. Pentice-Hall, 1985) 83 
MagicAintReal's avatar
MagicAintReal
Con
Intro

Thanks for the debate Pro. I accept.
I'd also like to supply auxiliary definitions for the terms mentioned, in the agreed to definition of god, so that this debate doesn't get weighed down by semantics.


Definitions

omnipotent - having power not limited or restricted in terms of number, quantity, or extent; able to do anything.

omniscient - knowing everything.

omnibenevolent - possessing perfect or unlimited goodness.

creation - the process of bringing something into existence.

creator - one that uses creation by bringing something into existence.
 
ruler - one exercising dominion.

universe - all existing matter, energy, and spacetime considered as a whole; the cosmos.

source - a thing from which something comes or can be obtained.

morality - principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad ways in which one acts or conducts oneself, especially towards others.


Resolution

Pro has to show quite a bit here, namely because all of those characteristics in the agreed-to definition of god have "and" between them, so Pro has to show:
1. an entity not limited in power, in terms of number, quantity, or extent i.e. has all powers
2. an entity not limited in knowledge i.e. has all knowledge
3. an entity not limited in goodness, in terms of extent
4. an entity that used the process of creation to bring about the origin of the universe and therefore spacetime
5. an entity that exercises dominion over said originated universe
6. an entity that serves as a source of the principles concerning right and wrong with respect to the ways in which one acts towards others.

Therefore Pro has to show all 6 properties in order to meet their BoP and show that god exists.
As Con, I'm here to mess all of that up, but first...my opening arguments...whew!


Opening Arguments

*Omnipotence Problem #1*

The set of ALL POWERS, not limited in number, quantity, or extent, which omnipotence necessarily entails, must include powers that exist in opposition to each other.

This is just one example, but an omnipotent entity MUST have the power to move anything.
This entity also MUST have the power to resist (be immovable to) anything.

But I'm not going to leave the omnipotence paradox right there, like most critics of omnipotence do.
Instead, I'm going to point out that the set of ALL POWERS must also include the power to infinitely remain able to move anything and the power to infinitely remain immovable to anything.

So, omnipotence necessarily includes:
1. The power to move anything.
2. The power to resist (not be moved by) anything.
3. The power to infinitely remain able to move anything.
4. The power to infinitely remain able to resist anything.
5. The power to infinitely remain all powerful.

If god has the power to move anything, #1, he therefore can move himself.
This would violate #2, because he can resist anything, including himself.

If god has the power to resist anything, #2, he therefore can resist himself.
This would violate #1, because he can move anything, including himself.

So many theists say, "well he can temporarily relinquish his ability to move anything and allow himself to be resisted."
This however, would then violate #3, because he supposedly has the power to infinitely remain able to move anything and being resisted precisely negates that; this temporary dip in power also negates the power to infinitely remain all powerful, #5.

-Key Questions-
So, Pro, can god move anything and infinitely remain immovable?
Pro, can god resist anything and infinitely remain irresistible?
Can god do both of these things AND infinitely remain all powerful?


*Omnipotence Problem #2*

Here is a list of things that the god of the bible cannot do, and certainly Pro will agree.

1. God cannot infinitely gain power.
Because god supposedly has all of the power, he therefore cannot gain power or create more power to gain.
This obviously cannot be done infinitely, because god can't even gain any power, let alone an infinite amount.

2. God cannot physically demonstrate his existence without negating his existence.
Being incomprehensible, due to infinite complexity, is yet another power in the set of ALL POWERS.
For god to demonstrate his existence physically would mean for him to be comprehended in some fashion and this would negate his infinite complexity and his power to infinitely remain incomprehensible.

3. God cannot act against his original intentions and choose freely.
Being that god has the power to infinitely be correct, his intentions and subsequent actions are always correct.
He therefore cannot go against his original intentions and act freely, instead he's LIMITED by his original intentions.

4. God cannot fly.
Being that god is superior to both gravity and air resistance, god cannot be susceptible to either force.
Well, that's what the power to fly is.
To admit that god could fly, would be to admit his utter submission to the laws of gravity and aerodynamics and that he needs to maneuver around them to travel distance in the air.

5. God cannot encounter or solve difficult problems.
Nothing is difficult for god, so god cannot solve difficult problems, in fact, god cannot solve problems, because he would never be able to encounter a problem.
Encountering a problem would admit a lack of knowing how to solve something.
God cannot encounter or solve problems because of this.


*Creation is Temporal*

Creation is a process, a series of time-based (temporal) actions, of a related kind, coming one after another, taken in order to bring something into existence.
Therefore, creation is necessarily a temporal process that uses events, one after another, to bring something into existence.
The process of creator existing-->creating-->created product is unavoidably time-based or temporal.
If there is no time, there is no creation.


*Precedence Is Temporal*

Creators not only use a temporal process consisting of one event after another, they also necessarily precede their creations.
The process of creator existing-->creating-->created product can only be described if and only if the creator comes before, or precedes, its creation. 

Well, before (precedence) is another temporal or time-based concept.
How could a creator precede its creation without time?

-Key Question-
Pro, how does one distinguish between a creator and its created product without using time or temporal concepts?

I argue that without time, one cannot tell the difference between a creator and its created product; one wouldn't be able to tell if creation has occurred because there would be no precedence.


*Spacetime*

While you may get some differing physicists' opinions on whether or not space and time are exactly the same thing, there is no dispute that they are interdependent.
In fact, that's why they put space and time on a continuum, spacetime.

"In the first place it is clear that the equations must be linear on account of the properties of homogeneity which we attribute to space and time."

Space is also currently expanding at a fixed rate proportional to the distance between the galaxies, called the Hubble Constant.

What's great is that we can go back in time by using the inverse of the Hubble Constant and see how long the universe has been expanding.
Doing this indicates that space, and therefore time, were at one point very, very small, and as recent anisotropy probes have detected, there was a point when there was no space, therefore no time.

This necessarily means that our universe's origin is also the origin of spacetime.
When there was no universe, there was no space, therefore no time.

Spacetime and the passage thereof originated at the big bang, the origin of our universe.
Therefore, creation, which necessarily is based on spacetime, cannot occur without the universe existing first.
It'd be like saying that a creator used time to in order to originate time...the temporal inadequacies should be obvious.

Therefore, there is no creator of a universe that wasn't created.

-Key Questions-
Pro, how can creation have been accomplished without the origin of spacetime to pass and allow for a series of related events to occur one after the other?
How was time used to bring about the universe PRIOR to time's origin?


*Judeo-Christian Immorality*

From what I can gather, the Judeo-Christian god of the bible is the ultimate author of it, so what we find in the bible is morally approved and authorized by him.

According to the proposed source of all morality:
"Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be punished if the slave dies as a direct result, but they are not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property." Exodus 21:20 + Exodus 21:21
If we're to believe that the author of these ideas is the source of all morality, then is it moral to own other humans as property?

-Key Questions-
Pro, do you believe that it is moral for humans to own other humans as property?
Shouldn't god's morality be timeless, not subject to cultural shifts?


Also Pro should address this clear immorality from old goddy god:
"no proof of the young woman"s virginity can be found, she shall be brought to the door of her father's house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death. She has done an outrageous thing...by being promiscuous while still in her father's house. You must purge the evil from among you." Deuteronomy 22:13 - 22:21
-Key Questions-
Pro, if one's daughter were to lie about being a virgin, do you think it moral to stone her to death?
Is stoning someone to death moral?

On to Pro's rebuttal...

Round 2
David's avatar
David
Pro
Forfeited
MagicAintReal's avatar
MagicAintReal
Con
Rebuttals

No worries about the forfeit Pro, we all have other more pressing priorities than debating some rando by text over the internet, so I take no offense for the forfeit, and I also think Pro can manage to fit all of his rebuttals into the next round anyway.


*K to the C to the A*

1. It's laughably invalid.

Now, my favorite argument for god is in fact this one, the Kalam Cosmological Argument, because it was an attempt to take the infinite regress problem of "whatever exists has a cause," which leads to an infinite regress of causes negating god, and change it so that god is arbitrarily exempt from the "whatever exists must have a cause" rule, and this to me highlights how strongly people want to argue something into existence despite recognizing its obvious absurdity.
Special pleading god's arbitrary exemption to an accepted rule of causality is fallacious.

See, before the dodgy Kalam argument, was the original failed cosmological argument that asserted:

P1 Whatever exists has a cause.
P2 The universe exists.
C1 The universe has a cause.
C2 The universe's cause is god.

This turns into an infinite regress, because if god exists as the cause, according to the assertion, then god must have a cause (P1), and god's cause must have a cause, and god's cause's causes's cause must have a cause etc...

So, the Kalam takes an infinitive verb phrase "to begin to exist," applies it to P1 "whatever exists has a cause," and changes the assertion to "whatever BEGINS TO EXIST has a cause," which preemptively exempts god from being caused, because, thanks to special pleading, he's always existed and NEVER BEGINS TO exist.

Here's Pro's Kalam Cosmological Argument:

P1 Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
P2 The universe began to exist.
C1 The universe has a cause.
C2 "Because the universe began to exist, this cause...must exist necessarily...this is exactly what we call God." -Pro

This Kalam Cosmological Argument is two-fold fallacious.
A. It uses circular reasoning, or it begs the question.
B. It special pleads god's exemption.


A. By saying that things "begin to exist," you automatically create a distinct set of "things that exist, but do not begin to exist" and a distinct set of "things that exist and do begin to exist." 

The problem is that the distinct set of "things that exist, but don't begin to exist," once we reach the conclusion, ends up only having one thing in it, god, which makes separating "do begin to exist things" and "do not begin to exist things," in the first premise, a way to smuggle in god's presumed exemption, restated in the second conclusion i.e. circular reasoning; god's exempt because he's exempt.

The assertion that a thing, god, did not begin to exist in the premise is simply repeated by saying that god is the only member of the "did not begin to exist" set in the second conclusion, which is begging the question or circular reasoning.


B. By asserting that everything began to exist, except for god, you are special pleading god's exemption to the assumed rule that existence, as we experience it, requires causation. Without an explanation or demonstration of how god should be considered exempt from the rule, exempting him with assertions is special pleading, thus it is flawed logic and we can reject the conclusions from such a lack of reasoning.


-Key Questions-
Pro, other than bare assertions, like "god must be transcendent/timeless/causeless," how is god exempt from the beginning to exist rule that you openly endorse?
Pro, could you explain the mechanism by which god accomplishes this exemption?
If you can't, then how do you know that this exemption has occurred?


2. It's also unsound.

The first premise of the Kalam Cosmological Argument is not true.

As Pro puts it:
"Whatever begins to exist has a cause. From nothing comes nothing. This is a metaphysical truth and it would be absurd to deny it."
My response:
Then call me absurd.
Pro doesn't understand virtual particle pairing.
The quantum fluctuation of sub nuclear particles and their forces, or virtual particle-antiparticle pairing, has no cause.

Quantum fluctuation occurs with no energy, no space, no particles, no radiation, no forces; nothing, a pure vacuum.
But here's the best part.
Quantum fluctuation also occurs WITH energy, space, particles, radiation, and forces; something, the absence of a vacuum.
Quantum fluctuations are fundamental and have NO reason for their popping in and out of existence.

Quantum fluctuations are sub nuclear particles (not actually full particles, which is why some physicists call them "virtual" particles) existing and being annihilated by antiparticles, and the forces between these sub nuclear particles fluctuate along with this existence and annihilation.

Virtual particle-antiparticle pairing negates P1 of the Kalam, because virtual particle pairs both begin to exist and are not caused.
They're also not transcendent and are absolutely physical.


*The Moral Argument*

Pro argues:
"P1: If objective moral facts exist, then God exists.
P2: Objective moral facts exist
C: Therefore, God exists"

My response:
Nope.
Morality can be both objective and void of god, so P1 is wrong.


Pro continues:
"If atheism and naturalism is true, then all things are morally permissible."

My response:
Nope.
Without any god and only natural things existing, there are still objective moral facts that make things morally impermissible.


Pro asserts:
"If the atheist says that evolution can account for morality, then the atheist needs to answer the question when did these moral facts exist. If we could go back in time before this evolution, would it be morally permissible to commit genocide or torture babies for fun?"

My response:
Does committing genocide or torturing babies for fun lead away from the homeostasis of those killed or tortured?
I'm pretty sure homeostasis is accounted for by evolution, no?


*Atheistic Objective Morality*

The principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong ways in which one acts or conducts oneself, especially towards others, can be reduced to principles concerning the distinction between beneficial and detrimental actions with respects to humans' and to some extent other animals' homeostasis.
Any action that one could consider to be moral can be weighed by whether or not that action leads to homeostasis.
Homeostasis is just an organism's internal balance.

Let's take, for example, health.
There may be upwards of a thousand different ways for people to be healthy or commit healthy actions, but the distinction between ingesting poison and ingesting nutrition is about the clearest distinction between healthy and unhealthy we can make; the distinction is objective because of the objective facts of health and the impacts on homeostasis.

Is there something objectively unhealthy about ingesting poison?
Who are we to say that someone who enjoys vomiting all of the time from ingesting poison has something nutritionally wrong with them?
It might be that someone enjoys chronically vomiting corrosive hydrochloric stomach acid from ingesting known poisons.
Is there something objectively unhealthy about that?
Is there something nutritionally wrong with that person?

I'm saying, yes, of course, and thanks to our understood body of facts about health and the maintenance of homeostasis, we can make this assessment of healthy and unhealthy objectively, nutritionally right and wrong, despite rare exceptions of those who may enjoy vomiting ingested poison chronically.

For example, if your child had been running around for hours, and, as a result, had become dehydrated, it would be a perfectly healthy behavior to administer water (H2O) to them, because this action would lead to their homeostasis. This would be objectively regarded as a healthy, or a nutritionally beneficial/good action.

Now imagine that instead of H2O, you decided to administer H2O2, the only difference between the two being one more little oxygen atom.
Well, since hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) is a known poison, this would objectively NOT be the healthiest/nutritionally good behavior to hydrate your child.

Homeostasis exists in opposition to suffering and maltreatment and is an objective way to measure whether or not something is moral.
We further determine "right" and "wrong" actions towards others with facts about the homeostasis of the others towards whom we are acting.

Therefore, objectively, the distinction between "right" and "wrong" behavior is determined by facts of homeostasis, and these facts inform our values sans personal interpretation.
The actions that objectively lead toward homeostasis are MORE MORAL than those that lead away from homeostasis.


Conclusion

I'll address the Thomastic Argument, the universe popping into existence, and complex life/consciousness next round, since next round is for more rebuttals.
As for this round of rebuttals, the KCA is invalid and unsound because of circular reasoning and virtual particle pairing respectively, and the moral argument ignores atheistic objective measures of morality like homeostasis.
Pro?
Round 3
David's avatar
David
Pro
I apologize for forfeiting the last round. Since my opponent didn't have time to respond to the Thomistic Cosmological Argument, I will simply drop it and focus on the KCA and the moral argument.

1. The KCA

Con first challenges the validity of the argument. The argument is structurally valid as can be seen by the formalized version of the argument:

1. (x) (Bx -> Cx)
2. Bu
3. Cu

Where B = begins to exist; c = cause, u = universe.

Con contends that there are two fallacies presented: special pleading and circular reasoning. Con argues that the argument inherently separates things into the category of things that begins to exist and things that does not begin to exist. This is a gross misunderstanding of the argument! Everything that is finite must have a beginning. Con completely drops the argument that the universe is finite. He fails to respond to the issue of an infinite regress and fails to respond to the issue of thermodynamics. God, however, is infinite (per the definition). Because God is infinite, He did not have to be created (1).

Pro, other than bare assertions, like "god must be transcendent/timeless/causeless," how is god exempt from the beginning to exist rule that you openly endorse?
Pro, could you explain the mechanism by which god accomplishes this exemption?
If you can't, then how do you know that this exemption has occurred?

Easy to answer. Whatever created the Universe bust be, by logical definition, exist outside the realm of creation (transcendent). This cause also had to be infinite and causeless because of the very fact that God is infinite.

Key question to con: Do you agree that an infinite regress is impossible? If so, you must accept that there is a first cause because there cannot be an infinite regress of universes nor an infinite regress of physical causes.

Con challenges the first premise by appealing to quantum fluctuations. The biggest flaw in this argument is , these fluctuations are causally conditioned in that they depend on the existence of a pre-existing quantum vacuum. No vacuum and no universe? No fluctuations. These fluctuations also are dependent on the laws of physics themselves as noted here (2):

"The Big Bang could've occurred as a result of just the laws of physics being there," said astrophysicist Alex Filippenko of the University of California, Berkeley. "With the laws of physics, you can get universes."

"Quantum mechanical fluctuations can produce the cosmos," said panelist Seth Shostak, a senior astronomer at the non-profit Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Institute. "If you would just, in this room, just twist time and space the right way, you might create an entirely new universe. It's not clear you could get into that universe, but you would create it."
So we see here that the laws of physics pre-dates the universe. Where do these laws come from? The uncaused cause which we call God. 

2. Moral Argument

Con concedes several major points: (1) that objective moral facts exist; (2) that these facts can be known through reason and logic; and (3) these laws are rooted in natural law.

Con's appeal to homeostasis does nothing but improve my case. Homeostasis is defined as "any self-regulating process by which biological systems tend to maintain stability while adjusting to conditions that are optimal for survival. If homeostasis is successful, life continues; if unsuccessful, disaster or death ensues. The stability attained is actually a dynamic equilibrium, in which continuous change occurs yet relatively uniform conditions prevail." (3)

So con here is really appealing to what we call natural law. Good and bad is referring to the nature of something. Con brings an interesting case of giving H2O to a dehydrated body. The field of medicine is basically just changing things to the way things ought to be. Karlo Broussard brings an interesting analogy (4):

Consider now an oak tree. Let’s say we have one oak tree that has strong roots and sinks its roots deep into the ground, and the other has weak roots and doesn’t sink its roots deep into the ground. Which one is the good oak tree? Which one is the bad?
Obviously, the former is the good oak tree, since it does what an oak tree is supposed to do given its nature—that is to say, it achieves the ends its nature directs it toward (e.g., sinking deep roots into the ground, taking in nutrition, and growing). Notice once again nature determines what is a good or bad instance of a thing.
The oak tree’s nature also helps us determine what is good and bad for the tree. If we were to spray the tree with poison, would the oak tree achieve its natural ends of sinking roots deep into the ground, taking in nutrition, and growing? Of course not! Therefore, we can say that poison is bad for the tree given its nature. And notice that what is bad for the tree is independent of what you are I think; it is an objective fact.
---
The same reasoning applies to human beings. Human beings have a nature or essence with various capacities and ends the fulfillment of which is good and the frustration of which is bad, as a matter of objective fact.

So where does this nature come from? These eternal natural laws must stem from God! These laws are eternal and transcend religion, culture, and time. If we went back to the beginning of the big bang, these laws still apply! My opponent fails to answer the most important question: why should we act morally from an atheistic point of view? As I pointed out in the first round: 

"A duty is something that is owed... But something can be owed only to some person or persons. There can be no such thing as a duty in isolation.... the concept of moral obligation [is] unintelligible apart from the idea of God. The words remain but their meaning is gone."

Further these objective moral facts such as not to torture babies for fun carry with them a degree of incumbency. These commands must come from a competent law giver for these objective commands to be binding on all of humans throughout all of time.

Key questions for con:
1) Why should humans act morally?
2) What should be/are the consequences for acting immorally? 

Now onto con's case...

Omnipotence Paradox

First I want to point out a few definitions that I disagree with. In theology when we say that God is omnipotent, we say that God has all powers that are logical. For example, God cannot create a square triangle because it violates the nature of what a triangle is. If we define God as omnibenevolent, then it logically follows that God cannot sin. Rabbi Gavry Madel sums this up nicely (5):

As we see, there are many things God cannot do, many "limitations" He cannot bring upon Himself. But this is because these "limitations" are not really limitations at all, but rather the necessary result of being unlimited.

In other words, the resolution of the omnipotence paradox is that God's inability to make Himself finite is not a lack or flaw on His part at all. This limitation is not testimony to His imperfection. On the contrary, it is actually the ultimate expression of His perfection."
The greatness of an infinite, unlimited being is that He can never lose His unlimited nature. God can never go against logic and make a round triangle, expend too much energy and become tired, nor compromise His perfect memory and forget things. God can never become bound by finite terms. It is an error to view this inability as a limitation that reflects a weakness on God's part. It is really the exact opposite. What makes God so infinitely powerful is that He cannot do the things we mortals can do.85 It is only because of our finitude – our natural weakness and restrictions – that we experience limitations such as sickness, depression, immortality, or the inability to lift a heavy rock. For the Infinite One, however, His all-powerful nature simply does not allow for such weaknesses.

This answers Con's key questions. 

Pro, how does one distinguish between a creator and its created product without using time or temporal concepts?

Easy. How does one distinguish an inventor and an invention? The answer to this question is that the Creator is an infinite and eternal being and the creation is finite in nature. We know that universe is finite in size and finite in age. 

Is the Torah Immoral?

Con cherry picks a few verses without context. We need to first understand that there is both a written Torah and an oral Torah. We must also understand that there is a distinction between the moral code of God, which is binding for all time; the civil code of Israel, which applies only to the Israelites; and the ceremonial laws that can only be applied when there is a Temple.

The civil code was not given in a vacuum. The civil code understands that we are living in imperfect world and this world is not ideal .As an example polygamy is allowed in the written Torah, but it is not ideal. Today halacha forbids polygamy even though the Torah permits it. Divorce is not ideal, though the Torah understands that divorce is sometimes a necessary evil. So let's look at the issue of slavery. 

The Torah verse that con provides cannot be taken literally. The Torah permits a master to prod the servant, but forbids excessive force. If the servant dies 4 months later from the beating, the owner is still liable. When we look at the whole of Torah we see how the Torah sets this on a projectory to perfect the imperfect. First the slavers are required to rest on the Sabbath, second the servants must be set free after a period of servitude, and finally the owners are required to feed the slaves and animals before themselves. The Rambam writes (6):

I am out of space. I turn it over to con. 

Sources
1. http://www.aish.com/atr/Who_Made_God.html
2. https://www.space.com/16281-big-bang-god-intervention-science.html
3. https://www.britannica.com/science/homeostasis
4. https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/the-natural-law-a-guide-for-how-to-be-human
5. http://www.aish.com/sp/ph/Can-God-Create-a-Rock-He-Cant-Pick-Up.html



MagicAintReal's avatar
MagicAintReal
Con
Intro

Thanks for that Pro.
Pro said he wants to drop the Thomastic Argument, and I'm fine with that, but if anyone cares, the Thomastic Argument's first and third premises are unsound and imply purpose where one could simply indicate gravity and coalescence, though physics itself is somewhat deterministic this need not indicate purpose or a purposer...I dunno, I agree to drop the Thomastic Argument along with Pro.


Rebuttals


Pro recaps:
"Con argues that the argument inherently separates things into the category of things that begins to exist and things that does not begin to exist. This is a gross misunderstanding of the argument!"

My response:
No, it's the reality of the silly argument.
If I were hiring people for a job, and I told you "whoever begins to apply online must have an internet connection" this necessarily separates applicants into those who begin to apply online and those who don't begin to apply online.

P1 Whoever begins to apply online must have an internet connection.
P2 The universe began to apply online.
C1 Therefore the universe has an internet connection.
C2 God must be the internet connection, because, though god never began to apply online, he has applied online and does not have an internet connection.

In C2, I special plead god's exemption to the generally assumed rule that if one has applied online then one must have begun to apply online, and I do so by merely asserting it without any mechanistic explanation as to how god is exempt from this rule.



Pro mentions:
"Con completely drops the argument that the universe is finite."

My response:
No, I didn't, I just agreed, with sourcing, that the universe had an origin.
The universe had an origin and it had nothing to do with god.



Pro circulates:
"God, however, is infinite (per the definition). Because God is infinite, He did not have to be created (1)."

My response:
1. Nothing in the definition of god in this debate says anything about being infinite and, sans Pro proving omnipotence, the way-too-late definition of god as infinite from aish.com can be dismissed.

2. This is circular reasoning at its finest.
Pro is saying that god did not have to be created because he is infinite, and all of the reasons he provides for god having to be infinite revolve around the idea that god did not have to be created.
Pro's logic should be making you dizzy.



So I asked Pro HOW he can know these assertions to be true...

Pro responds:
"Whatever created the Universe must be, by logical definition, exist outside the realm of creation (transcendent). This cause also had to be infinite and causeless because of the very fact that God is infinite."

My response:
Nope.
Quantum fluctuations are natural, not infinite, demonstrably exist with and without vacuums of empty space and are responsible for the origination of the universe.
So Pro's "god is infinite because he has to be" argument is demonstrably incorrect as the origination of the universe is explained by quantum fluctuations which are not transcendent.



Pro questions:
"Do you agree that an infinite regress is impossible? If so, you must accept that there is a first cause."

My response:
The origination of the universe is a result of unstable quantum fluctuations.
When there was no universe, there were no particles, there was no radiation, there was no spacetime, and there were no forces.
Instead, space and time fluctuated along with the sub nuclear particles and anti particles existing and being annihilated (quantum fluctuation) but could never remain like space does now.
As a particle existed and became annihilated, with it so did space and time.

Once there was an instability in this fluctuating-yet-nothing-remaining pairing, a particle was able to remain and with it space, time, and energy, which caused the universe to inflate.

This is that "first cause" that theists try to argue for god, but science just does a way better job of it and science doesn't need to postulate transcendence. 



Pro tries:
"these fluctuations are causally conditioned in that they depend on the existence of a pre-existing quantum vacuum."
My response:
No.
In order to detect the fluctuations inherent in empty space, we need to create a vacuum, or lowest energy state.
Doing this shows the existence of the fluctuating particles, even though we didn't create a perfect vacuum, because there's all of this expanding space around us.
However, when there was no universe, there was no expanding space or energy and THIS is a perfect vacuum.
Nothing pre-existed because all was annihilated, including space itself.



Pro tries again:
"So we see here that the laws of physics pre-dates the universe."

My response:
Nope.
The laws themselves are arbitrary and it could be that any number of universes could originate from quantum fluctuations, all with completely different physics.
Also, no universe, no time, no precedence, no "pre-dating."



Pro mentions:
"Con concedes several major points: (1) that objective moral facts exist; (2) that these facts can be known through reason and logic; and (3) these laws are rooted in natural law."

My response:
#1 and #2, yes, but #3 should read "rooted in beneficial and detrimental actions with respect to homeostasis."



Pro asks:
"why should we act morally from an atheistic point of view? As I pointed out in the first round:"
My response:
Because you cannot name a moral action that isn't reducible to homeostasis.
Seriously, name a moral action, that your version of god would find moral and explain how it isn't reducible to homeostasis.
I'll wait.



Pro asserts again:
"These commands must come from a competent law giver for these objective commands to be binding on all of humans throughout all of time."
My response:
Or just humans agreeing to act toward each others' homeostasis.
Why MUST all of these things come from god?
Why do theists just think by saying something it makes it so?
Man I hate that crap.



Pro asks:
"Why should humans act morally?"
My response:
Because morality is the behavior TOWARDS OTHERS and one cannot consider the others towards whom we are behaving without considering those others' homeostasis.
Can you refute this Pro?



Pro also asks:
"What should be/are the consequences for acting immorally?"

My response:
This sounds like a law question, but some of the consequences are jail time, fines, law suits, and in some cases capital punishment.
I do know that none of the punishments are stoning promiscuous girls to death at their father's doorstep or or owning humans as property.
That reminds me.

Pro, is god's idea to stone to death girls who lie about their virginity timelessly moral?
Be honest here.
Oh and of course should humans timelessly be defined as PROPERTY of other humans?



Pro quotes  Rabbi Gavry Madel:
"As we see, there are many things God cannot do, many "limitations..."

My response:
Like I read this and I couldn't believe Pro quoted it.
There are many things an omnipotent being CANNOT do?
Omnipotence means having an unlimited amount of powers, check the definitions, and this admits a limit in the amount of powers.



Pro continues:
1. God cannot create a square triangle.
2. God cannot sin.
3. There are things He cannot bring upon Himself.
4. God's inability to make Himself finite.
5. He can never lose His unlimited nature.
6. God can never go against logic.
7. God can never expend too much energy.
8. God can never become tired.
9. God can never forget things.
10. He cannot do the things we mortals can do.

My response:
Well this certainly doesn't reek of omnipotence, especially since Pro admits there are things that I can do that god cannot and that this list seems to continue as you read Pro's post.
Think about it, Pro's defense to the claim, "God's powers are limited," is an extensive list of "God cannot..."

If god were omnipotent, the phrase "god cannot" would never be true.
Yet over and over again, Pro admits this.

God cannot go against logic, so he is inferior to it.
Wow, god really cannot do a lot of things.
The definitions for omnipotent say UNLIMITED in terms of number, quantity, and extent.
I just found 10 things, mentioned by Pro, that god cannot do, which is a limit in the number of powers god has.


Pro then quotes one of the worst quotes ever:
"As we see, there are many "limitations" He cannot bring upon Himself. These "limitations" are not really limitations at all, but rather the necessary result of being unlimited. This limitation is actually the ultimate expression of His perfection."

My response:
You know you have a solid quote when it tries to convince you that limitations aren't limitations and that they ultimately express perfection.
God is limited and that refutes his existence.



I had asked Pro, how does one distinguish between a creator and its created product without using time or temporal concepts?

Pro responds:
"Easy. How does one distinguish an inventor and an invention?"

My response:
By using temporal concepts like "before" to establish that the creator necessarily preceded its creation?


Pro continues:
"The answer to this question is that the Creator is an infinite and eternal being and the creation is finite in nature."

My response:
Wait, this is how you distinguish an inventor and its invention.
The difference between the light bulb and Thomas Edison is that Edison is infinite?
I'm confused.

Pro, I'm going to end this round with a question that you must answer.

Without time existing first, how do you know that the universe didn't create your god?



Round 4
David's avatar
David
Pro
Thank you, RationalMadman, on debating me on this important social issue.

----

P1. The unborn entity, from the moment of concept, is a full-fledged member of the human community
P2. It is prima facie morally wrong to kill any member of that community
P3. Every successful abortion kills an unborn entity, a full-fleded member of the human community
P4. Therefore, every successful abortion is prima facie morally wrong

P1 is an undisputed fact that even those who are in favor of abortion cannot deny. Gregg Henriques, Ph.D., writes(1)

'In my survey of the abortion debate, the question of whether a zygote, embryo or fetus is alive is one of the most crucial. Frequently those who are pro-life argue, as Rubio did, that science is clear on this issue. Human life begins at conception. The pro-choice folks then question this and say there is debate about it. Although I am pro-choice, there should be no debate about this issue. The facts are clear and with the appropriate definition of terms we can unequivocally conclude that human life begins at conception."
Furthermore, an unborn entity exhibits every single characteristics of life including growth, metabolism, response to stimuli, the potential to reproduce, built of cells, have complex chemistry, and maintain homeostasis (2). 

Peter Signer writes (3): 

It is possible to give ‘human being’ a precise meaning. We can use it as equivalent to ‘member of the species Homo sapiens’. Whether a being is a member of a given species is something that can be determined scientifically, by an examination of the nature of the chromosomes in the cells of living organisms. In this sense there is no doubt that from the first moments of its existence an embryo conceived from human sperm and eggs is a human being; and the same is true of the most profoundly and irreparably intellectually disabled human being, even of an infant who is born anencephalic - literally, without a brain.

The unborn entity is clearly alive and distinct from the mother. Size, level of development, environment, or the degree of dependency does not disqualify one as a human being. 

P2 I believe is pretty obviously true. Unless con challenges this in his argument, I will not spend time defending this premise. Premise 3 is also obviously true. An abortion kills the unborn. The conclusion is therefore inescapable: the unborn are clearly human and thus abortion is prima facie immoral. 


Sources
3. Peter Singer, Practical Ethics, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 85-86. 
MagicAintReal's avatar
MagicAintReal
Con
Outro

Thanks for the debate Pro; it's been real.
While I consider myself, in general, to be quite a cogent though somewhat insane adult male, I am not RationalMadMan.
I also don't really do abortion debates, but I do understand that Pro most certainly posted the wrong argument last round, and both Pro and Con have discussed this privately, and all is well.


Rebuttals/Conclusion

This round was scheduled for rebuttals and conclusion, but since Pro kinda crapped the bed last round, I'm just going to extend my last round's rebuttals and do a very brief recap for high-integrity, honest, considerate-of-resolution-impacting-points-and-definitions, thorough voters to place a proper vote for this debate.


*Review*

Pro had to show:

1. an entity not limited in power, in terms of number, quantity, or extent i.e. has all powers.
Pro conceded that "there are many things god cannot do" including "god cannot go against logic" which is god's power being limited in terms of extent and number.
God is not as powerful as logic.


2. an entity not limited in knowledge i.e. has all knowledge.
Pro never even mentioned god's knowledge, and I pointed out that if god does in fact have all knowledge, he cannot encounter or solve problems, which negates #1.


3. an entity not limited in goodness, in terms of extent.
I pointed out that the god that Pro is affirming openly authorizes and endorses the stoning of young girls on their fathers' doorstep, which doesn't seem like unlimited goodness, and all Pro said on the matter is that I cherry picked out of context.
Pro did nothing to show that this command from god is unlimited in terms of the extent of goodness.


4. an entity that used the process of creation to bring about the origin of the universe and therefore spacetime.
Pro had to address how he could determine the difference between the creator and its created product without time, as my whole case was that creation itself is temporal and, sans universe, there was no time for temporal processes like creation, especially the origin of spacetime itself, to occur.
Pro only responded that the inventor is infinite and the invention is finite.
Basically dropped by Pro.


5. an entity that exercises dominion over said originated universe.
I don't think Pro ever gets into this point, let alone explain why or how we should buy that proposition.
Dropped by Pro.


6. an entity that serves as a source of the principles concerning right and wrong with respect to the ways in which one acts towards others.
Pro's argument is that if there are objective morals, then they must come from god, but I pointed out a godless morality based on homeostasis and it was left unchallenged.


Conclusion

Pro was to show ALL 6 of those components of the god in this debate, and, for voters, if Pro didn't show all of those, Pro did not meet their BoP and one has to vote Con.
Given the forfeit, the mistake post from another debate, and arguments from Pro all thoroughly refuted, vote Con.
Thanks again Pro.
Vote Con.