Instigator / Con
29
1533
rating
2
debates
100.0%
won
Topic
#309

The Claim That The Christian God Exists

Status
Finished

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

Winner & statistics
Better arguments
9
6
Better sources
10
10
Better legibility
5
4
Better conduct
5
5

After 5 votes and with 4 points ahead, the winner is...

BrutalTruth
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
5
Time for argument
Three days
Max argument characters
30,000
Voting period
One week
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Open
Contender / Pro
25
1508
rating
4
debates
62.5%
won
Description

Pro claims that the Christian god exists. Pro will argue for that claim. Con will argue against that claim.
Mopac is Pro. BrutalTruth is Con.

Pertinent Information: The god in question is a Christian diety. Therefore, the god in question can only be defined by the Christian bible. Any sources used(including, but not limited to, dictionaries) must be definitively consistent with said bible's definition of said god.

Criterion
Con
Tie
Pro
Points
Better arguments
3 point(s)
Better sources
2 point(s)
Better legibility
1 point(s)
Better conduct
1 point(s)
Reason:

After reading this debate several times, I feel baffled. Con elects not to challange the validity of Pros claim that the the truth or ultimate reality is God, and therefore God exists by definition. To deny that as truth would be intellectually suicidal, rendering cons entire argument pointlessly untruthful, so I have to say I am astounded that they made absolutely no counter arguments to how Christianity views God in order to place a more challenging burden of proof onto Pro throughout the entire debate, except for the 4 descriptions of God which don't support cons case that God must be an entity, and therefore evidence should be physical. What I am left with is weighing the unchallenged claim that the Ultimate Reality exists, with the uncited claim that God is an entity of spirit which creates things, therefore requiring Pro to present evidence that one can touch, taste, hear, see, or smell to prove God's existence, like for example, reality.

At the end of the debate Con contends that Pro has committed a fallacy by defining God into existence. This is clearly not the case, as Pro has supported with citation and without refute that Christianity views God as the Truth. Con attempted to define God out of reality by contending that God is not actually held as the Truth, but is the intellectual idea of truth, so Pro had to explain that the Truth actually means what truly is, "I AM That I AM"

"They "prove" this by showing how a dictionary says it, and the Christian bible agrees with the dictionary."
-Con

Con actually concedes Pros demonstration, that the ultimate reality being God is consistent with the Christian Bible. Why Con? You could have argued the interpretation of the Bible, but chose not to. If God is the ultimate reality, and that exists, than God exists. That's what Pro has demonstrated is taught by christianity.

Criterion
Con
Tie
Pro
Points
Better arguments
3 point(s)
Better sources
2 point(s)
Better legibility
1 point(s)
Better conduct
1 point(s)
Reason:

Con explains that God existing would be "a posteriori" proof-requiring as opposed to an a priori given, especially if we are to ascertain it to be the Christian one as opposed to that of other religions.

The fascinating part of this, to me, is that Pro doesn't say God is a priori, he actually amps it up further back the other way by saying God is not even a 'given/assumed truth that must be' but is in actual fact the supreme essence of truth in itself or something along that line.

Con completely decimates Pro in Round 4 but had already been successfully building up this case and chipping away at Pro's case to that point such that I feel it wasn't bad conduct or poorly times new-point-raising time to finish Pro off once and for all. Con wins by the following:

"Truth isn't a thing. It is an intellectual idea. If this world has a creator, that creator can only be a thing, as how could an intellectual idea create anything? Only an entity has the ability to affect the physical world, therefore if this god exists, and it is indeed the creator of all things, or even the creator of just one thing, then it is an entity, and an entity is not an intellectual idea, therefore an entity is not "truth." It really doesn't matter how many books define an entity as "truth," an entity's being is incompatible with the idea of what truth is.

I conclude that unless my opponent can either prove that an intellectual idea can create something/affect the physical world, or prove that an entity can be an intellectual idea, their entire premise is false, and they would have to prove that this god, indeed an entity, exists."

^^ Pro NEVER came close all debate to taking on Con's line of thinking or logical processing nor did Pro defend against this attack in his R4 (Pro goes second in this debate) or R5. Pro keeps explaining how the Bible describes God, the father, as the supreme truth and how the son is the 'word' and the ghost is... The GHOST OF TRUTH?? Did Truth die and become The Holy Ghost? I didn't grasp that one.

Anyway, Con wins due to the quoted section undeniably, in a direct and logically brutally-defensive manner lead Pro to fight against an impossible formation to fight against unless Pro were to explain that we are living in a simulated reality (like in the Matrix) whereby the 'real reality' is this God itself and absolutely nothing but God exists but to prove this is so demanding on Pro he'd lose anyway given how well Con was doing so Con won an unloseable debate and I feel bad for Pro but Pro really, really was underperforming even for being on the unwinnable site.

Criterion
Con
Tie
Pro
Points
Better arguments
3 point(s)
Better sources
2 point(s)
Better legibility
1 point(s)
Better conduct
1 point(s)
Reason:

Officially, this was a debate to argue about the existence of [the Christian] God. However, if one looks closely at the majority of arguments offered by Con, as well as the debate description which was written by Con, it becomes obvious that the intended objective of this debate was something else entirely. Con alleges, both in the debate description as well as in his opening arguments, that Christians may ONLY use the Bible to "define" God. Aside from this, Con said nothing actually aimed at meeting his burden of proof to show that God doesn't exist. Con spent the entire debate scolding Pro for using a source other than the Bible as part of his argument.

If Con was a Christian debating a Catholic on the topic of Sola Scriptura, then this approach would have made a lot of sense. But when an Atheist is debating a Christian on the existence of [the Christian] God, it mainly just comes off as bad sportsmanship by attempting to block your opponent from using sources which you know in advance are likely to be called upon. Furthermore, it is also a 'No True Scotsman' fallacy, by inferring that Christians are supposedly limited to using the Bible alone, when entire branches of the Christian faith (notably Catholics and Eastern Orthodox) specifically follow a doctrine which allows them to draw upon non-Biblical sources to construct their theology. As such, this mainly comes off as an attempt to hamstring his opponent without offering any actual argument of his own.

Regardless of the problems with this approach, Con sticks to it rigidly throughout the entire debate. In his opening arguments he even claims that the Bible doesn't provide a definition for God. Although this claim could probably be debated in an of itself, the fact that Con brings it up points out another contradictory way in which his strategy is poor sportsmanship; He is trying to limit his opponent to using a single source which he claims doesn't even define the topic of the debate!

While Con makes it obvious how hard he worked to prevent his opponent from using multiple sources, this expended effort seemed to distract him from remembering (or gave him an excuse to ignore) his own requirement to present an argument for why God doesn't exist. As such, he never presented any argument against the existence of God, even wasting an entire round of the debate citing a dictionary definition of a Leprechaun as part of his attempt to deny his opponent access to sources outside the Bible.

Conversely, Pro stuck to his own guns and cited from both the Bible and a dictionary definition of God, which identifies God as "the ultimate reality." Pro draws a connection between the Biblical scriptures which describe God as truth and the dictionary definition, pointing out that they do not contradict each other, but actually support each other. Pro therefore argues that God is truth itself.

I'll agree with some of the critics that this is not a terribly strong argument when presented alone. If I were participating in this debate, I would only use this as a minor argument used to buttress a series of other stronger arguments, if I used it at all. However, it still remains true that it IS an argument, even if a weak one. And Con never provided an effective rebuttal of this argument, other than to continuously complain that his opponent can't use the dictionary through the aforementioned 'No True Scotsman' fallacy.

In summary, Pro edged out a narrow victory on this one in my eyes. Pro presented one weak argument. Con only attempted to make a rebuttal of this argument by (fallaciously) claiming that his opponent shouldn't be allowed to make it. But Con was so busy railing against Pro's argument, that he failed to present any argument of his own. In a contest between a weak argument and no argument, the weak argument still wins.

Criterion
Con
Tie
Pro
Points
Better arguments
3 point(s)
Better sources
2 point(s)
Better legibility
1 point(s)
Better conduct
1 point(s)
Reason:

con uses the bible to define god in round one as spirit, light love etc.. This is not ever offerred a rebuttal, and explained that proof must come from empirical evidence. pro never refutes this or offers empirical evidence. Pro offers another definition of God "The Truth", but If God is merely the truth than he doesn't exist at all. It would be like me saying God is a shoe and then asking somebody if they are trying to deny my shoe exists. It's dumb and given that con's definition of God is never refuted I can't just accept pro's definition. If I did blindly accept con's definition he would still need to prove ultimate truth has consciousness and that it actually exists. Con pretty much points out these same problems. Honestly much of pro's arguments sounded like the reamblings of somebody with schitzophrenia

Criterion
Con
Tie
Pro
Points
Better arguments
3 point(s)
Better sources
2 point(s)
Better legibility
1 point(s)
Better conduct
1 point(s)
Reason:

Arguments: When reading this, I had the same problem as con, I found it very difficult to really disentangle the specifics of pros actual argument due to pros rambling and at times somewhat incoherent style.

At its core, pro appears to be arguing that God is defined as the ultimate truth, as the ultimate truth is defined as existence (or defined in terms of existence), and so God must exist. This appears on its face to be an incredibly poor argument, akin to “defining God unto existence”. The majority of his argument in all rounds is either this contention, or trying to use Biblical quotes to support this contention.

I don’t think either pro or con contest these definitions inherently, but as con points out in round 3, 4 and 5, just because Christianity and pro and humans have decided to define God in this way doesn’t mean he necessarily exists. It simply proves that Pro is capable of defining God in such a way that the definition implies he exists.

In other words, rephrasing Cons rebuttal in rounds 3/4/5, it is possible to define ANYTHING in a way that the definition implies it exists, but that doesn’t itself show that the thing exists. Cons patient explanation of that in his final three rounds pretty succinctly summarized this. I don’t really think pro got a decent handle on what con was actually arguing: as his rebuttal mainly consisted of reiterating his initial claim.Cons leprechaun argument was a good example of what pro was doing in general, but I felt it much weaker than it could have been - as it doesn’t directly compare the definition as truth.

Despite pro saying several that he has “demonstrated” that God is “The Ultimate Reality” the major central premise of pros argument - what he has mainly done, is gone to great lengths to show people
Define God in a particular way - that he exists is comprehensively unproven and unsupported by anything Pro said - and indeed it appeared in pros rebuttal in round 4, that he didn’t fully grasp the distinction between defining something as existing, and it existing as con was pointing out.

Cons rebuttal, while short, was devastatingly effective, because he shines a bright light on the underlying fallacy that Pro is making throughout.

As a result, con exposes that pros position is vacuous and unsupported very effectively.

Conduct: tied - but we warned with statements like this: “if Instigator continues to use a straw man, false god, or lying vanity in the place of The God of Christianity, which is THE TRUTH, he will be guilty of the fallacy of INVINCIBLE IGNORANCE(2) and there is no argument I could possibly make that would be sufficient enough for instigator to accept his argument as being invalid.” Flowery insults are still insults don’t call your opponent a liar, or ignorant out of no-where. If this was any worse, or I found another example elsewhere in your argument, I would have awarded conduct to con.

Spelling and grammar. Pro was rambling and incoherent throughout this entire debate. It was a challenge to read through everything he said, and an even greater challenge to understand it. Pros style, grammar and structure was at times nonsensical with Statements such as:

“In fact, nothing about Christianity will even make sense without this understanding. Of what profit is it to strive for dispassion and the conquering of the lusts of mind in flesh? Why not just live a life of bestial hedonism? Because if you love THE TRUTH, living for the sake of vain indulgence is in opposition to this as it makes you blind to reality.”

“So if The Most Perfect Image of God is Truth, and with The Spirit of Truth we know God through this Image, what does that mean? It means that God is THE TRUTH AS IT TRULY IS, and this is expressed through the doctrine of The Trinity.”

These make next to no sense in the context of the debate, they are cluttered and unclear and were not isolated cases: with the majority of statements made by pro adding up to make it feel like most of pros content is indecipherable word salad.

Pro’s continual and zealous over capitalization of literally every phrase he decides to attribute to God (see the second quotes comment), combined with his frequent and repeated use of different terms to apply to God that he decides to capitalize were so egregious that it almost made his entire argument unreadable.

Sources: tied. This debate was more logical than factual. Scriptural sources would count if a matter of scripture was in contention, or had supported a specific factual claim (such as x happened), but as the definitions themselves were mostly undisputed in this way, the sources presented had little
Material value to the debate.

Con could have won with the same argument on sources, if he had reinforced his main arguments, with paraphrased quotes or sources (such as a critique of this ontological argument), but as he didn’t, neither sides argument was implicitly bolstered by sources.

Cue Angry PMs...