The very first thing I am going to tell you is that my purpose here first of all is to have a dialectic, Socratic and constructive disputation.
Today, we are talking of one of the most influential and common issues: belief in god. Everyone is familiar with it, let it be a highly educated person,a professor, a watchman, a child, a teacher, a kindergarden pupil etc. On the other hand, we are going to dispute Naturalism as well, it is an ontology which states that the existence is consisted of nature: Nature is all there is and in my opinion very few people are aware of what ontology is or what Naturalism is. I have defined my version of Naturalism in the debate description. Naturalism is generally contrasted with theism, which states that there are more than nature, which also states that nature has been created by god and is being controlled by god. Thus, even though the actual opposite of Naturalism is Super-naturalism, the philosophical discussions almost always focus on two ontologies we call Naturalism and Theism. If one of them is true, the other one is necessarily wrong ( at least in the definitions we have agreed upon to debate). In some terms I use, I will attach Wikipedia as link, note that, I am not offering Wikipedia as a legitimate source - I am attaching it so that those unfamiliar can have an insight about the topic.
Without further ado, let me skip into my 1st argument.
TRUSTING OUR COGNITIVE FACULTIES, NECESSITATES NATURALISM
All of us, at least those who are participating, reading and voting at this debate, trust our cognitive faculties.
Unlike famous theist philosopher Alvin Plantinga, and like theist philosophers Al-Ghazzali and Rene Descartes, I will be arguing that trusting your cognitive faculties necessitates naturalism and thus believing in god is self-refuting as thus.
What is meant by "trusting our cognitive faculties"? It means, you accept what you see as real, independant of your mind. You see a lion charging at you and you take precautions, you flee: it is to assume that the lion is real, even if you have not analyzed the situation to check whether the lion you see is a hologram or a real lion. If you fled there, then you have assumed that the lion is real, you have assumed that your cognitive faculties are working right, even if you are not aware of that process .These trusts, these assumptions are independent from us and that is how our brain works. Explaining me something is equal to assuming me as real, not your imagination and means you trust your cognitive faculties that served you to conceive me. This is the way human brains work.
So, given that we have that trust or confidance, these trust is possible only if we say that ontology is naturalistic. Why? There are multiple reasons, one of them being the laws of nature. According to naturalism, the nature is governed by the unbreakable patterns, what we call "Laws of nature". If we believe that the nature is under control of a super-natural being, which is usually believed to be god, then we can no longer trust what we see and what we hear. To begin with,
if we believe god exists, we can no longer trust what we see , because the way we see is part of natural laws. We see through light, light that enters our cornea and retina[1]. But if god exists, god might just send us lights of things that do not exist, and maybe manipulating us. Famous Muslim Philosophher ande Theologian Al Ghazzali put it in this way n the 17th discussion of his famous book "
The Incoherence of the Philosophers":
This leads to the commission of repugnant contradictions. For if one denies that the effects follow necessarily from their causes and relatesthem to the will of their Creator, the will having no specific designatedcourse but [a course that] can vary and change in kind, then let each of usallow the possibility of there being in front of him ferocious beasts, ragingfires, high mountains, or enemies ready with their weapons [to kill him], but [also the possibility] that he does not see them because God does notcreate for him [vision of them]. And if someone leaves a book in thehouse, let him allow as possible its change on his returning home into abeardless slave boy—intelligent, busy with his tasks—or into an animal or if he leaves a boy in his house, let him allow the possibility of hischanging into a dog; or [again] if he leaves ashes, [let him allow] the possibility of its change into musk; and let him allow the possibility of stonechanging into gold and gold into stone. If asked about any of this, heought to say: "I do not know what is at the house at present. All I know is that I have left a book in the house, which is perhaps now a horse thathas defiled the library with its urine and its dung, and that I have leftin the house aja r of water, which may well have turned into an appletree. For God is capable of everything, and it is not necessary for thehorse to be created from the sperm nor the tree to be created from the seed—indeed, it is not necessary for either of the two to be created fromanything. Perhaps [God] has created things that did not exist previously."
Like Ghazzali, another famous theist philosopher Rene Descartes has developed an argument in which we can not trust our cognitive faculties. In his "
evil demon" argument, which is now known by its modern version called "
Brain in a vat", Descartes argues that our brain maybe being controlled by a demon which is manipulating us. If god exists, there is always probability and possibility of god similarly manipulating our brains.
God being omnipotent and omniscient, is always capable of making you see things that do not exist, capable of making you hear voices that do actually not exist. Thus, if you are trusting your cognitive faculties, you have to give zero chance for the existence of god - otherwise, you should not be trusting your faculties. But you DO trust your faculties, making your belief in god self-refuting. There are theological rebutalls to this, which I will deal with in the next rounds in case CON brings them up
DOCTRINE OF UNIFORMITY or TRUSTING LAWS OF NATURE NECESSITATES NATURALISM:
In philosophy, Ghazzali's concept of causality (quoted above) is named "
Occasionalism"[2]. A theist may say "
but it is not necessary for me to choose Occasionalistic concept of causality, the universe maybe being run through physical causality or Concurrentistic causality in which I do not need to think the way Ghazzali argued". But the problem is not solved: First of all, theist will have to give us reasons to conclude that the universe is not Occasionalistic. Then, even if theist manages to persuade us to think that the universe is not occasionalistic, there still remains a problem: There is no way we can say God will not change the laws of nature.
If you believe god exists and controls the universe, then you are contradicting the way your brain works: Your brain assumes that laws of nature will not change, but if you believe god exists you will have to go against your brain and say "laws of nature may change at anytime." We build ships and sail through ocean with them. The trust we have in our ship sailing relies on the assumption/presupposition that
buoyant force of water will remain same. It is a law of physics, named "
Archimedes' principle." But if we believe god exists, we have to grant that the buoyant force of water may completely disappear at any moment, it may become emitting force of water, which may result in our ships sinking into ocean. This omnipotent and omniscient attributes of god makes it impossible to trust the laws of nature. If you trust the laws of nature, you should reject that god exists, even if god exists. At best, you can believe in a god that does not have control over the universe and nature, or at least not omnipotent and omniscient. But, they are not in the scope of this debate.
If god exists, the solid land we are walking on may turn into liquid-like marsh, which means we can not trust the solid soild below us but we do trust it, meaning consciously or unconsciously, we reject that nature is under-control of any power.
TRUSTING OBJECTS NECESSITATES NATURALISM:
Alvin Plantinga argues[3] that god is necessary for science to be successful, to argue it, he states that the world must display some level of regularity and predictability. Plantinga says the following in the same section of his book:
intentional action requires the same thing: we couldn’tbuild a house if hammers unpredictably turned into eels, ornails into caterpillars; we couldn’t drive downtown ifautomobiles unexpectedly turned into tea pots orrosebushes. Intentional action requires a high degree ofstability, predictability, and regularity.
But I oppose Plantinga on this one and state that it is against god's existence. If god exists, we must grant that there is possibility of our hammer may turn into an eel any moment if nature is being governed by super-natural powers:Super-natural power known as god can at any moment turn hammer into an eel.
If our nature is under control of god, we are no different than GTA 5: In GTA 5, you can turn car into a teapot at any moment. Like that, god can turn your car into a teapot at any moment. Ghazzali confessed it, look above excerpt.
But we reject such probabilities and possibilities as "non-sense". If tomorrow you see a teapot at your garage, would not you think someone stole it or took it for a ride? But what if others told your car turned into teapot? Would you believe it is possible? If you believe god exists, you must believe it is possible. If you do not believe that, then the belief in god is self-defeating.
REFERENCES:
[3] Plantinga, A. (2011). Where The Conflict Really Lies: Science, Naturalism and Religion. New York: Oxford University Press. 9th chapter, second subchapter.
Your debate title can be misleading. You say belief in god is self-defeating but you agreed with me in the comments that pantheism isn't, which is a form of god. Maybe you don't have to change the title (preferably you should, but it seems hard to do so). Just add more specifications to the description. But what you said seems good enough.
So, what do you suggest the title should be?
My case for naturalism makes the belief in god self-defeating, I will try to demonsrate that.
But yes, now your proposal sparked a new idea in me. The debate title and its content may well be updated to "either naturalism or absolute skepticism"
You should probably fix your debate title, as you said belief in god is self defeating. Which isn't always the case.
Paul Tillich could be described as a pantheist, although he himself would hate to be lumped in with pantheism, as he believed God was beyond even being. "Pantheism" is extremely common among famous philosophers. I personally disagree with him on many points, but I agree with him on others. I generally agree more with Hegel and Spinoza on God. I find his argument for God not being "being" nonsensical and contradictory. It assumes God cannot be the origin of being while being it, which he very easily could be if he's timeless (as energy we know already is), meaning no before him is necessary, meaning no need for a source of being outside of his existence, but I digress.
Like yours, naming something natural as god. Oxygen for example. Your case would just be re-naming things.
But Joseph Smith had a material god that was in no way super-natural but yet somehow god: mind, power etc.
Pantheistic god for example can be called naturalistic god. God, yet not "super"-natural but the nature itself.
Paul Tillich's case is interesting and maybe worth considering. For him, it is wrong to say god exists - rather, existense itself is god.
"Your concept of god (god being energy, energy being god) has nothing against naturalistic ontology and ontological naturalism.
You may become a pantheist for example, saying the universe itself is god. That too is not violating naturalism. But nor pantheistic neither your proposal is super-naturalistic god."
I'm unsure what the distinction criteria between a "naturalistic god" and a "super naturalistic god" are.
Your concept of god (god being energy, energy being god) has nothing against naturalistic ontology and ontological naturalism.
You may become a pantheist for example, saying the universe itself is god. That too is not violating naturalism. But nor pantheistic neither your proposal is super-naturalistic god.
It's very easy to say deism/God can exist even within a naturalistic framework. The spectrums of energy our physical senses can interact with are exceptionally slim compared to what we know is out there....... That's not even considering what we don't know, which will almost certainly be much more.
In theory, God could exist as a form of energy like me and you. After all, we know energy can create consciousness, we're evidence of it. He could simply just exist as energy in a completely different vibrational spectrum, hence why he's invisible and undetectable.
Here for example, in this debate, I set it in a way that states burden of proof is completely on me. My adversary does not have any burden of proof.