A Supernatural Deity Probably Doesn&#39;t Exist

1593

rating

debates

66.67%

won

Description

BOP is shared evenly

Supernatural - attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature
Deity - a god or goddess
Exist - have objective reality or being.

Round 1

07.24.2021 10:11AM

Pro

Thank you for accepting this debate. To meet his burden, my opponent must demonstrate that for one, anything supernatural exists, and for two, that there is a deity that exists that fits that category.

Historically, deities have been proposed as explanations for phenomena. Once, it was believed that Vulcan caused volcanic eruptions[1], and that Zeus caused the rain and thunder[2]. Today, these deities have become obsolete, as natural explanations for the above phenomena have become known[3][4]. As knowledge expands, gods become obsolete and unneeded.

There are an infinite number of imaginary explanations that the mind can dream up. Therefore, one needs a method for distinguishing imagination from reality. The only reliable method for determining true explanations from false ones is investigation a posteriori. Only ever has an investigation into the natural world, with rigorous qualifiers like novel, testable predictions about future data, yielded reliable information about reality.

Any supernatural explanation of a phenomenon has no merit over an equally plausible supernatural or natural alternative. If my opponent was to claim that a supernatural deity created the universe, I could mirror that claim with equal plausibility by stating it was naturalistic pantheism, or some undiscovered law of nature that created the universe. Unless my opponent can clearly show why a supernatural explanation for anything has more merit than a natural explanation then he cannot meet his burden.

Natural explanations have been the only ones that have given any tangible, useful answers. The entire body of science is a testament to the powers of honest investigation over imaginary explanations.

In conclusion, a supernatural deity probably doesn't exist. Over time, deities have fallen away from their roles as plugs for man's ignorance. The employment of science and honest investigation have been the only means of making sense of the world, while meeting the rigorous standard of novel testable predictions about future data. A positive claim that the "supernatural exists" must be substantiated with some methodology, and evidentiary goalpost, that can separate imagination from reality. Without this, we may dismiss my opponents stance as mere conjecture in the face of overwhelming inductive evidence to the contrary.

08.07.2021 07:04AM

Con

Please note: It’s not a problem and no harm done, but I use she/her pronouns.

Rebuttals

“...my opponent must demonstrate that for one, anything supernatural exists, and for two, that there is a deity that exists that fits that category.”

Small nitpick, but this isn’t true. Per the resolution, I only need to prove that the counterfactual is more probable than the resolution. I in no way aim to prove either of these things beyond a doubt.

“Historically, deities have been proposed as explanations for phenomena... As knowledge expands, gods become obsolete and unneeded... Natural explanations have been the only ones that have given any tangible, useful answers… Over time, deities have fallen away from their roles as plugs for man's ignorance.”

This is not so much a claim from pro as much as it is an assumption throughout pro’s speech. They discuss what’s called a ‘deity of the gaps’, or rather the use of a deity as an explanation/answer to something that we likely haven’t found a naturalistic explanation for. Just because we don't yet know the explanation doesn't mean it doesn't exist or that a deity is the only one. The issue arises when pro portrays this as being the only conceivable function of a deity or uses this concept to assume that a deity necessarily requires a function to exist.

It’s irrelevant whether or not deities have become ‘obsolete’ or if the gaps in our knowledge from days gone have been filled by naturalistic explanations; these facts say nothing about the likelihood of the existence or nonexistence of a deity.

“A positive claim that the "supernatural exists" must be substantiated with some methodology, and evidentiary goalpost… we may dismiss my opponent's stance as mere conjecture in the face of overwhelming inductive evidence to the contrary.”

On the contrary, pro has provided no evidence to the resolution throughout their speech that would warrant dismissal of my position. The fact that some people have used deities as a catch-all for things they didn’t understand or that there are plausible, naturalistic explanations for phenomena isn’t evidence a deity doesn’t exist. Most things in life don’t directly require the moon or cheese to function either, but that’s not proof that either probably don’t exist.

It’s the opinion of con that pro will have a great deal of difficulty when it comes to proving our shared BoP (per the description), as there is very little constructive evidence that a deity does not exist.

Con will primarily build their case through the use of deductive arguments that take established facts, draw logical inferences from them, and extrapolate conclusions. For example:

X implies Y,

X is true,

Thus Y is true.

Constructive Arguments/Analyses

Kalam Cosmological Argument

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause of it’s beginning.

2. The universe began to exist.

3. Thus, the universe has a cause of it’s beginning.

The first premise is almost self-evident, relating to the law of cause and effect. To say that something can begin to exist without anything bringing it into existence is hardly anything more than pure madness, and obviously, things do not simply pop into being in our everyday lives. Even if my opponent should so choose to claim that things begin without a cause, they will face a multitude of logical problems in proving that such is likely. The causal principle is not a law of nature that only holds up within the universe or a physical principle, but a metaphysical principle where being can not come from not being. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy provides a more in-depth version of this argument.

The second premise is built upon multiple different factors. Such as:

The 2nd law of thermodynamics shows that the universe is running out of usable energy due to entropy
The Friedmann equations, Hubble’s study of red-shift in light between galaxies, and multiple other facts prove empirically that the universe is not only expanding, but also
The Borde-Guth-Vilenkin Theorem shows that the universe began expanding from a finite point in the past[Cosmology for the Curious, pg#330-331]. The BGV Theorem states:

“Any universe that has, on average, been expanding throughout its history, cannot be infinite in the past but must have a past spacetime boundary.”

Alexander Vilenkin and Audrey Mithani also argue that alternative models to the big bang do not escape the implications of the theorem. To quote Vilenkin:

“With the proof now in place, cosmologists can no longer hide behind a past-eternal universe. There is no escape, they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning.” -Alexander Vilenkin, Many Worlds in One: The Search for Other Universes, pg#176

The conclusion follows so long as the first premises are true, and thus we can conclude the universe had both a cause and a beginning. Because of the nature of the universe and the premises that have already been established, we can deduce that the cause is:

Spaceless and timeless (as space and time came into being when the universe began)
Immaterial (as all matter began to exist when the universe began and/or the cause is, again, spaceless)
Uncaused (A being that has always existed and never began to exist does not require a cause. The only way to avoid an infinite loop of “what caused the cause?” is with an uncaused cause that never ‘began’.)
Incredibly powerful and quite possibly capable of defying the laws of nature (Many would say that this cause created energy and matter ex-nihilo, which would violate the laws of nature. It would also have quite possibly begun the expansion of the universe, begun the existence/flow of spacetime, created the laws of nature in the first place, etc…)
A personal being with free agency (explained below by William Lane Craig here)

““...a personal explanation (divine or otherwise) of some basic result R brought about intentionally by person P where this bringing about of R is a basic action A will cite the intention I of P that R occur and the basic power B that P exercised to bring about R." Notice that it is insufficient for P to have merely the intention and power to bring about R. There must also be a basic action on the part of P, an undertaking or endeavoring or exercise of P's causal powers. Thus, it is insufficient to account for the origin of the universe by citing simply God, His timeless intention to create a world with a beginning, and His power to produce such a result. There must be an exercise of His causal power in order for the universe to be created. That entails, of course, an intrinsic change on God's part which brings Him into time at the moment of creation.” -Must the Beginning of the Universe Have a Personal Cause?: A Rejoinder, William Lane Craig

Those five properties of the cause adequately fulfill what would commonly be considered a deity.

The proof for this cause and the nature of said cause alongside the failure of pro to adequately introduce any constructive evidence that it is probable a deity does not exist or that it’s improbable a deity exists prove the logical soundness of con’s position. So proud to oppose.

Round 2

08.08.2021 02:00PM

Pro

Thank you for your response.

"Per the resolution, I only need to prove that the counterfactual is more probable than the resolution. I in no way aim to prove either of these things beyond a doubt."

By necessity of the resolution, my opponent must demonstrate some fact that indicates the supernatural exists in order to be able to demonstrate that there is a deity that fits into that category; in the same way that I must demonstrate that the natural exists, and that there probably isn't anything that is outside of that category. I of course don't expect proof in the absolute mathematical sense, I'm only asking for some kind of inductive evidence. In my opening, I noted that the role of a deity has historically been to plug gaps in our ignorance. My opponent's constructive is another of these arguments, only instead of invoking a deity to explain volcanoes, she is invoking a deity to explain the initial expansion of the Universe.

“The fact that some people have used deities as a catch-all for things they didn’t understand or that there are plausible, naturalistic explanations for phenomena isn’t evidence a deity doesn’t exist.”

The fact that every explanation for anything ever has always turned out to be a natural one is a strong argument against the probability that the supernatural exists. I specifically added the qualifier of "supernatural," since naturalistic pantheism worships nature as god. People from the past used gods to explain volcanic eruptions, and people today use gods to explain the expansion of the Universe, or the origin of life. They are the same argument, different time period, different gods. There is every reason to believe that, just as the gods of old fell away as plugs for our ignorance, the gods of today will do the same.

Consider the following two statements:

Dogs exist.
Unicorns exist.

In the first claim, we have lots of inductive evidence to suggest that dogs in fact do exist. In the second claim, we have no evidence that Unicorns exist. This is comparable to the claim “x is probably explained naturally,” vs “x is probably explained supernaturally.” We have every inductive reason to believe that natural explanations will be found for things like the initial expansion of the Universe, and no inductive reasons to believe it will be a supernatural explanation, because nothing supernatural has ever been confirmed to exist.

THE KALAM

"1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause of it’s beginning.

2. The universe began to exist.

3. Thus, the universe has a cause of it’s beginning."

As presented, the KCA is only an argument for a caused universe, not a deity. My opponent claims that the initial expansion of the universe was caused by a deity. But since we don't actually know what caused the initial expansion, she is plugging the gap with a deity. My opponent has no evidence that a supernatural deity started the expansion of the universe.

So, we agree that the Universe had a cause. My opponent has not, however, given evidence to suggest that that cause was supernatural. In order to account for this obvious lack, My opponent has ascribed qualities to her proposed explanation:

"Spaceless and timeless (as space and time came into being when the universe began)
Immaterial (as all matter began to exist when the universe began and/or the cause is, again, spaceless)
Uncaused (A being that has always existed and never began to exist does not require a cause. The only way to avoid an infinite loop of “what caused the cause?” is with an uncaused cause that never ‘began’.)
Incredibly powerful and quite possibly capable of defying the laws of nature (Many would say that this cause created energy and matter ex-nihilo, which would violate the laws of nature. It would also have quite possibly begun the expansion of the universe, begun the existence/flow of spacetime, created the laws of nature in the first place, etc…)
A personal being with free agency (explained below by William Lane Craig here"

The "personal being with free agency" quality to whatever began the initial expansion is complete and total conjecture. In Craig's "explanation" he doesn't justify the claim that it was a personal being, he just assumes it and explains how it would have had to act to create the universe. Unless my opponent can provide some evidence, some fact that is personally indicative of, or exclusively concordant with, the claim that the universe's initial expansion was started by a personal being, then this point should be dismissed as a totally unsubstantiated claim

As for the other qualities, we could accept them, But as I said in my opening, we may perfectly mirror my opponent's position with a spaceless, timeless, immaterial, powerful, undiscovered law of nature. There has been no reason presented so far to be able to say that a conjectured natural explanation is any less plausible than a supernatural explanation.

However, inductively, conjecturing a natural explanation is more reasonable than conjecturing a supernatural explanation, because we have every inductive reason to believe that the natural exists, and that natural causes cause events. The entire body of science works against my opponent's conjecture that the "supernatural exists."

MISC.

"Many would say that this cause created energy and matter ex-nihilo..."

Maybe this is a side, but we do know that all the matter and energy in the universe were compressed into a singularity pre-expansion. That means that the Universe would have been "created" ex-materia, with existing matter and energy. In a point of infinite curvature, the heat would be so great that all the matter would be pure energy, which can be compressed into any amount of space, even all in the same point. Since E=mc^2, matter and energy are interchangeable, you just need a lot of energy to make a little matter. The point is that all the necessary energy was already there pre-expansion.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, a supernatural deity probably doesn't exist. My opponent has failed to show that the supernatural exists, or that there is a deity that fits that category. The entire body of science, of natural explanations for phenomena, is a sea of inductive reasons to reject my opponent's position as unsubstantiated. The initial expansion of the Universe will probably be explained naturally, and this role of god as a plug for our ignorance will fall away again, as it has countless times throughout history.

There are three times of causes:

08.22.2021 02:00PM

Con

I can’t tell if pro is disagreeing with what I said about my BoP. To simultaneously reiterate clearer and prove my point:

The resolution is “A Supernatural Deity Probably Doesn’t Exist”
BoP is shared per the description
The inverse of this is that “A supernatural deity probably exists”
If I prove the counterfactual to be sufficiently more likely than the resolution, I will have come closer to meeting my BoP and will have won. That goal post is all I aim to reach.

“insofar as seems reasonably true, factual, or to be expected : without much doubt” -Definition of Probably, Merriam-Webster

...she is invoking a deity to explain the initial expansion of the Universe.

I am not trying to do this. I am not saying “here is this thing, this is why a deity is how it happened.” I am saying “Here is a thing that has happened, and because of what we can extrapolate from the thing (the effect), here are the traits the cause must have and the things the cause must’ve been capable of.” Pro is presenting a disingenuous portrayal.

My argument functions no different from saying “My toast is hot because it was in the toaster, thus we can conclude the toaster has to have energy and has to be capable of a transfer of thermal energy.”

(My opponent also mentions that the cause of the universe may not be supernatural, to which I do want to say that the creation of the laws of nature would clearly be considered supernatural, as those are overwhelmingly often considered to be immutable and unchangeable.)

“The fact that every explanation for anything ever has always turned out to be a natural one is a strong argument against the probability that the supernatural exists.”

No. No it isn’t. Plain and simple. Even were my opponent’s claim valid, which it isn’t, as there are convincing arguments that date back thousands of years to show that a supernatural deity is the cause of the universe, morality, consciousness, time and space, etc…, it still isn’t logical.

Take quarks as an example. From the perspective of the 1950s-1960s when we didn’t have particle accelerators to observe the behaviour that would result in quarks being proposed as an example for said behaviour, let’s apply my opponent’s logic.

Every explanation for anything ever hasn’t required quarks
Thus this is a strong argument that quarks don’t exist.

Say that someone in the 1800s proposed quarks as an explanation for something unrelated (this is purely a hypothetical) and that person was proven wrong. Does this somehow mean that, because quarks were used to explain something that was explainable without quarks, that it’s likely quarks don’t exist even in face of other evidence? Obviously not.

This at best proves that we don’t yet have the evidence, not that the evidence didn’t exist. It’s the classic “Absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence”, but the fact of the matter is that this isn’t a situation where there is an absence of evidence to begin with.

Take the example of cheese. I don’t need to talk about cheese to prove 99.999999% of the things in the universe, you don’t see cheese in more than a few, if any, scientific papers on the creation of the universe or on particle physics. Am I supposed to take from this that it is highly unlikely that cheese exists? No. This is not to say that this is good evidence that cheese caused the universe, just to show how the arguments from pro don’t prove the probability of anything.

Just because someone argued an effect was the result of a cause and was wrong isn’t evidence that the cause doesn’t exist. Pro hammers this home despite the fact it is blatantly wrong. In a hypothetical scenario where a caveman commits the first murder ever seen to the people in that cave, pro’s logic leads to the conclusion of watching the murder occur and arguing that “this has never been how anyone has ever died before, thus he probably died from malaria.”

Pro’s entire constructive case falls apart if you acknowledge that absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence. Pro has not given any constructive evidence across their 2 speeches. Pro has unilaterally failed to meet their burden of proof by failing to provide any evidence beyond the existence of the natural, something that I do not aim to disagree with. I have, thus far, been the only one to introduce a logically-sound constructive argument, meaning I have met my BoP significantly more so than pro.

But since we don't actually know what caused the initial expansion, she is plugging the gap with a deity. My opponent has no evidence that a supernatural deity started the expansion of the universe.

Again, this is a disingenuous representation of my case. A hyper-summarized version of my argument is:

The universe had a cause
The cause must be timeless and spaceless as time and space began at the moment of creation, it must be personal because the impersonal does not give rise to the personal, etc…
A personal, timeless, spaceless, incredibly powerful cause adequately describes what would be considered a deity.

This is not plugging the gap of not knowing the exact cause of the big bang with a deity, this is extrapolating information by using what we do know. Unless pro would like to argue that the universe is eternal or that things can begin without a cause, both positions which I provided very compelling arguments to preemptively refute and which are against the consensus of science, he cannot claim that my evidence is faulty, only that my extrapolations are.

Pro makes the following concessions in their speech:

All that begins must have a cause of its beginning
The universe began and thus has a cause
The cause is timeless and spaceless
The cause is immensely powerful
The cause is immaterial

The only substantial rebuttal from pro is with regards to my claim that the nature of the cause of the universe must be a personal being with free agency. I will admit, I failed to properly explain this part of my argument due to a combination of tiredness, difficulty in finding adequate sources, and character count. Those, however, are not excuses, and I apologize for that much. I will clarify what I meant now.

State causation
Event causation
Agent causation

State causation is an effect that occurs due to the nature of the state/the conditions of the state, event causation is an effect that occurs as a result of an event (such as a moment in time or a rock striking a window), and agent causation is an effect that occurs as a result of a person with free agency (i.e. the effect can occur as a result of a choice by the free agent without any change to the situation).

We can rule out event causation as the cause of the big bang because an event implies that it occurs at a moment in time (which is impossible sans time). Furthermore, we can rule out state causation as it also does not work sans time, because it does not make any sense for a timeless, state cause that is sufficient for its effect to then create a temporal effect with a beginning. If all conditions that are necessary for the effect to occur are present and the cause exists in a timeless, permanent/eternal state, then thus the effect should also be eternal, but the beginning of the universe makes it not eternal. It does not make any sense to say that there could be a point where, despite the conditions for the cause to bring about the effect being sufficient and eternal, that the effect would not be brought about, but yet that point is what we see occur in the big bang: a point where time does not exist despite it’s eternal cause and a point where time does exist in a temporal being.

We avoid this problem thanks to agent causation. Agent causation is the situation where someone with free agency makes a choice and thus can bring about an effect without changing the cause of said effect. For example, a timeless being could sit down and decide to stand up or the being could also choose not to stand up. In both of these cases, the conditions that allow the being to stand, make the being stand, allow the being to sit, make the being continue to sit, etc… all have remained unchanged, yet the effect is entirely dependent on the decision of the free agent. Were it a timeless, state causation, it would not make sense that the conditions are sufficient for the cause and yet its effect does not occur. Agent causation is how we can know that the cause of the universe must be personal and with free agency.

Argument 2:

(making this quickly as I’m in a rush)

A ‘possible world’ in philosophy is effectively any world that could theoretically exist in our universe. Now, conceive of the greatest possible being that could exist in any one of these possible worlds, and consider that to be the ‘deity’.

Things in possible worlds can have the quality that they are in more than one possible world, our own world, or all possible worlds and our own world. As it is the greatest being imaginable, obviously it should have this quality.

It seems almost painfully simple and yet it makes sense nonetheless. The greatest possible being that could exist, does exist, as the quality of existence is superior to nonexistence. Now, as for if that greatest being would meet the description of a supernatural deity? That is what is established by the KCA.

To conclude, my opponent has failed to prop up any constructive arguments and their rebuttals fail to adequately show why my case does not logically follow. They have made numerous concessions in their speech that have allowed me to show why the case for theism’s probability is greater than the case for atheism’s probability. My opponent will need to give better arguments than those that lead to agnosticism to meet his BoP in the face of con meeting their own.

Round 3

09.05.2021 01:58PM

Pro

Thank you for your response.

Cosmological argument...uses a general pattern of argumentation (logos) that makes an inference from particular alleged facts about the universe (cosmos) to the existence of a unique being, generally identified with or referred to as God [8].

I am not trying to do this. I am not saying “here is this thing, this is why a deity is how it happened.” I am saying “Here is a thing that has happened, and because of what we can extrapolate from the thing (the effect), here are the traits the cause must have and the things the cause must’ve been capable of.” Pro is presenting a disingenuous portrayal.

My argument functions no different from saying “My toast is hot because it was in the toaster, thus we can conclude the toaster has to have energy and has to be capable of a transfer of thermal energy.”

I never claimed we weren't dealing in probabilities, and I am not trying to be disingenuous, I am trying to steel man your position. Of course we are dealing in which is more probable, that's why I'm asking for some kind of inductive evidence that could establish a non-zero probability that anything supernatural exists.

My opponent has committed a category fallacy[1]. His argument is not the same as the toaster one, because the toaster explanation never posits a non-natural explanation. A supernatural explanation for a phenomenon is not analogous to a natural explanation.

(My opponent also mentions that the cause of the universe may not be supernatural, to which I do want to say that the creation of the laws of nature would clearly be considered supernatural, as those are overwhelmingly often considered to be immutable and unchangeable.)

The laws of physics at the macro scale often break down at the quantum scale [2]. This is a far cry from immutable and unchangeable. The laws of physics are equations that describe properties of matter and are consistently true. These equations get updated and improved.

Additionally, the laws of physics are natural, and my opponent is just arbitrarily plastering the label of "supernatural" onto whatever the event that created the laws of nature was. However, the explanation will probably be a natural one, since the only seriously considered models are natural ones (superstring theory[3], supergravity[4], etc.), and laws of physics necessarily describe properties of matter.

Take quarks as an example. From the perspective of the 1950s-1960s when we didn’t have particle accelerators to observe the behaviour that would result in quarks being proposed as an example for said behaviour, let’s apply my opponent’s logic.

Every explanation for anything ever hasn’t required quarks
Thus this is a strong argument that quarks don’t exist.

My opponent has again made a category fallacy. Atoms are natural and made of protons. Protons are natural and people thought they might be made of something. Quarks were a natural possible explanation. Quarks and gluons make up protons. The explanation never shifted to a metaphysically different category of "supernatural."

This at best proves that we don’t yet have the evidence, not that the evidence didn’t exist. It’s the classic “Absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence”, but the fact of the matter is that this isn’t a situation where there is an absence of evidence to begin with.

Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence, but absence of evidence for a metaphysically distinct category of explanations from natural ones, against the tsunami of proven natural explanations, shifts the probability of the supernatural even existing to near zero, if not zero. My opponent hasn't even demonstrated that the first category he claims exists, the supernatural, even warrants serious consideration.

No. No it isn’t. Plain and simple. Even were my opponent’s claim valid, which it isn’t, as there are convincing arguments that date back thousands of years to show that a supernatural deity is the cause of the universe, morality, consciousness, time and space, etc…, it still isn’t logical.

I invite my opponent to provide one of those arguments. Merely claiming it is illogical isn't an argument, one has to show how it's illogical, which my opponent failed to do.

THE SYLLOGISM

The universe had a cause

The universe only had a cause according to my opponents argument if it began to exist. If the universe did not begin to exist, then the universe doesn't have to have a cause. The universe did not begin to exist in the big bang, since all the matter and energy was already existent, but compressed into a singularity, pre-expansion.

The idea that all that begins to exist has a cause is not a truism either. The Hartle–Hawking model [5] is a model of the universe that doesn't require the universe to have a beginning. It probably isn't right, but it is a legitimate model that doesn't require a cause to begin the universe. The eternal universe model [6], is another model where the universe doesn't begin to exist.

These models are mathematically coherent and internally contained, with no reference to external influence.

This kind of time-language such as "begin" may not even be appropriate to describe the universe pre-expansion because time didn't exist in the classical way we experience it, as derived from the second law of thermodynamics [9].

The cause must be timeless and spaceless as time and space began at the moment of creation, it must be personal because the impersonal does not give rise to the personal, etc…

This is just an assertion. If the universe had a beginning, and if that beginning had a cause, that cause could be something internal, like a quantum fluctuation [7].

A personal, timeless, spaceless, incredibly powerful cause adequately describes what would be considered a deity.

Sure, if it can be shown that anything like that exists or can exist. That doesn't fulfill the quality of supernatural, and the term deity is just arbitrarily applied. I could call a rock a deity, but that doesn't make it supernatural.

CAUSATION

Furthermore, we can rule out state causation as it also does not work sans time

This is false. A state of affairs can exist and have effects in the quantum realm without reference to classical time. Quantum laws would govern the pre-expanded universe at those sizes and temperatures.

POSSIBLE WORLDS

Things in possible worlds can have the quality that they are in more than one possible world, our own world, or all possible worlds and our own world. As it is the greatest being imaginable, obviously it should have this quality.

It seems almost painfully simple and yet it makes sense nonetheless. The greatest possible being that could exist, does exist, as the quality of existence is superior to nonexistence.

My opponent is trying to define a deity into existence. The qualifier "greatness" is totally arbitrary to my opponent's subjective criterion of greatness. Furthermore, this argument could replace the word "being" with any noun, and it would be equally worthless as an argument for that thing existing.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, a supernatural deity probably doesn't exist. As I stated in my first round, gods are attempts at explanations. My opponent proposed a supernatural deity as an explanation, but failed to provide any true arguments that for one, the supernatural exists, or two, that there is a deity that fits that category. The fact that every explanation ever for anything has been a natural one, while the supernatural has served to explain nothing, is strong inductive evidence that future explanations will be natural ones. My position does not have to posit a metaphysically new category in order to explain phenomena.

09.19.2021 01:58PM

Con

Forfeited

Round 4

10.01.2021 09:06AM

Pro

Extend. It's a shame if you quit the site Nyx.

10.15.2021 09:06AM

Con

Forfeited

10.16.2021 12:57PM

Vote bump

08.23.2021 04:17PM

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@Sum1hugme

Hey, you're not debating me. But remember you are saying it is specific to general knowledge, so, just how detailed are generalities? Don't bother answering; like I said, this isn't about or by me; I'm a bystander blowing smoke in the wind.

08.23.2021 03:19PM

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@949havoc

What? Induction totally relies on past data to make predictions about the future and acquire knowledge.

08.23.2021 03:00PM

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@Sum1hugme

But if induction "doesn't need certainty to have knowledge," how is it "based on past evidence?" You've just argued a circular; logic doesn't hold in that condition.

08.23.2021 02:57PM

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@949havoc

I know, I didn't claim certainty. Induction deals in probabilities based on past evidence.

08.23.2021 02:54PM

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@Sum1hugme

But your proposition does not speak to certainty; it speaks to probability; an entirely different concept. I take your proposition at its word; every one of them.

08.23.2021 09:44AM

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@949havoc

Because induction doesn't need certainty to have knowledge or to say something will probably be the case in the future.