Does God Exist?

4. Omnipotence

You write: "Con is right, that he refuted the idea of omnipotence as he defines it, but as pro presents a philosophical definition (diet omnipotence - now with less paradox), I view pros argument on the meaning of omnipotence as better."

But Pro's new definition was NEW IN THE LAST SPEECH AND IS THUS UNFAIR. Remember what I said in my last speech: "These new arguments in the last round should be entirely disregarded. New arguments are unfair because they should have been made earlier (but were dropped) and because they deny their opponent any chance to fulsomely respond." New arguments are--as a rule--always unfair in debates. Pro had literally no right to offer that new definition, and so it should be entirely disregarded.

5. The K

You write: "The inherent nature argument, I feel is moot - as this debate is inherently focused on specific referencable definitions, and thus I feel doesn’t merit awarding of arguments on the basis of the Kritik." This would have been a great argument IF PRO HAD MADE IT. By you as the voter making it, you're inserting your own arguments into the debate and skewing the outcome.

What happened in the debate was that Pro DROPPED that God was unreferenceable and DROPPED that if God was unreferenceable, Con should win. Since drops are considered truth within the debate, it is established truth that Con should win.

2. The KCA

You wrote: " I did not find this compelling due to the issue of infinite regress pointed out by pro - it doesn’t seem logical that there can somehow be no stop of causes - which is where the strength of the KCA is rooted." But you ignore that Pro DROPPED my argument that an infinite regress was possible. Because it is DROPPED, you must treat it as true within the debate; Virt would agree with that dropped points must be treated as true because they are dropped. Because it was dropped, it is true within the debate that infinite regresses are possible, overriding your objection.

3. Omniniscience

You wrote: "Con mentions the free will/omniscient issue. To me as a start this was not convincing as I don’t think any terms or definitions in the debate were contingent on free will existing. So in this vein the only thing being refuted is the moral argument - not God."

Again, you fail to take into account that Pro CONCEDED that free will was necessary in order for God to exist. In fact, Pro HAD to maintain that in order to have his objective morals argument. That he CONCEDED free will as necessary meant that by disproving it, I could negate Pro's case.

1. Continued

On the Force, you say you buy Pro's argument, but Pro never made an argument about the Force. As I pointed out: "On my fourth argument, Pro says his parody reply defeats it, but never explains why (again, Pro's argument was overbroad, and he never explains how it is responsive to my argument." In other words, Pro ONLY uses his parody argument against the Force, but NEVER explains how that argument actually addresses the force argument specifically.

You also did not seem to understand the force argument. You write in your RFD: "The omnipotence of God is intuitive, whereas the force isn’t quite so." But, first, I was talking about the force as OMNIPRESENT not omnipotent, and, second, the force is defined as omnipresent, and, third, this argument was NEVER made by Pro during the debate, and so you seem to be injecting your own arguments into the round.

You also don't appear to factor in the dropped arguments.

I do want to raise a few objections, since you're offering us the opportunity for us to do so. I think you are inserting your own views into the RFD in a way which is impacting your result

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1. Ontological Argument

You write: "Pros support for 1 and 3 is fairly minimal - in my view he doesn’t fully define the MGB, nor provides an cohesive set of reasons why I should presume such a being could exist." Then you also say: "I don’t believe cons second point that this begs the question is strong in its own right."

But this doesn't seem to make sense. If Pro offers no reasons why it is possible that a MGB exists, then Pro is begging the question that it is possible a MGB exists, which was the entire point of my argument. On the one hand, you are agreeing with the crux of my point while denying the only logical conclusion flowing from that point. Recall what I said in the round: "Pro is begging the question because he doesn't do any work to demonstrate that God is possible. He just assumes God is possible and then uses that assumption as proof of God's existence, which is a baseless assertion and begs the question."

You then write: "As with shared burden of proof - it feels like the mere possibility must be granted at least until shown otherwise." This is not an argument which came up in the debate, and so should not factor into your RFD. But, more than that, s shared burden of proof would require Pro to offer evidence of the assumption because just granting it gives Pro a leg up on Con, making the burdens unequal because then Con has to do far more work than Pro. So, the shared BOP would actually result in the exact opposite of what you say it would--the mere possibility would NOT be granted.

Your feedback was great!! Thanks so much for taking the time for this debate. I know it was long and theee was a lot to pack in.

Due to size, complexity and the way I approached this, I wanted to let you both raise any objections (if any) before I post my vote in case I missed anything, or to give me the chance to clarify.

Aaaaannnnnnd scene.

So before I begin, I have read this debate about 4739194819 times and didn’t spot any errors, I couldn’t fault any sources, and conduct was impeccable.

I’m going to treat pro and con as adults here and make the following vote caveats.

I feel like this vote is both a critique and assessment: I have included my own view on the arguments, and a summary of their strength and weaknesses to both be constructive to both sides, and to help provide a rationalization of the weighting I have given arguments - I am not using my view of these arguments to declare who argued it better.

This vote has taken a while to write - and there is much missed and poorly explained I’m sure, I wanted to leave this RfD up for a few days to give pro/con a chance to object if they see anything outright contentious. If both think it’s okay, I will post it.

Also - I am a hardcore Atheist, I have heard most of these arguments before, as a result I have found it a very difficult balancing act to score fairly. I feel that overall that con had to do more to win my vote after scoring this - but overall I feel the position is fair. I flipped back and forth on several points - the OA is specifically one I felt was the most difficult to score.

1.) The Ontological Argument.

Pro presents this well. The weakness of this argument in my view is in the 1st, (and thus 2nd) and 3rd premise: What is a MGB? Why can you assume such a being could exist? And why if it’s possible for it to exist should it actually exist?

Pros support for 1 and 3 is fairly minimal - in my view he doesn’t fully define the MGB, nor provides an cohesive set of reasons why I should presume such a being could exist. I also felt that Pro didn’t defend the 3rd premise at all: specifically for what logical reason should I presume that the possibility of existence could be translated to actual existence.

Con presented multiple rebuttals. This actually harmed his arguments as he was probably best focused on just on good and well explained point. It’s taken me a while to write this RfD because of this.

I’m ignoring the paradox and “I proved it was impossible” portion from con for now, as this will be reflected in my analysis of cons “4 Os” - and I reserve the right to come back here.

I don’t believe cons second point that this begs the question is strong in its own right as a separate point. That it “assumes it’s possible”, seems wishing washy compared to showing “its definitely not possible”. As with shared burden of proof - it feels like the mere possibility must be granted at least until shown otherwise.

I agree with con on principle here: but I feel it’s injecting too much of my own view to rate this part as convincing as I felt he needed to do more.

In terms of the force analogy: I would side with pro on this count, that con did not do quite enough to convince me the force is analogous. The omnipotence of God is intuitive, whereas the force isn’t quite so. In my view con didn’t seem to do quite enough on this count.

Finally, with regards to the different laws of logic, this is what took me a week to settle this particular point in my head. Con has objected to pro as begging the question, then with his argument concerning the logical rules of the universe, essentially does the same thing - if I am to assume it’s invalid to think God was possible without justification I must do the same with cons argument on the grounds of logical rules in different universe.

The best part of this exchange in my opinion was pros response to con in a later round - specifically objecting to pros formulation of God not being possible - I felt this really undermined this portion of pros position.

I’ve gone back and forward on this - but on balance I have to give a slight edge to pro here: with his force rebuttal and this one above - I felt he did a very slightly better job in defending than attacking. (Though note I include multiple parts in the 4 os section).

Pro needed to better defend the first and 3rd premise - and I felt cons argument was harmed by the scattergun approach - it would have been better to mount a single direct attack on one or both premises directly - the argument lost its teeth as a result.

2.) KCA

I felt pro formulated the KCA very well here: the main issue with the KCA is definitional in nature. You can call the first cause “a duck”, but you it’s illogical to claim the first cause quacks. Pros argument here did well to provide a neat rhetorical flourish which made it harder to notice this is what he was doing. While I don’t agree with con on the KCA, he argued the strongest variation of it - one that can only be challenged on definitional terms - in my opinion.

Cons response was two fold: first was a reformulation of the logic to indicate the universes cause has a cause. I did not find this compelling due to the issue of infinite regress pointed out by pro - it doesn’t seem logical that there can somehow be no stop of causes - which is where the strength of the KCA is rooted.

Secondly, was the quantum theory argument, this is good in its own right - but falls short of being compelling for similar reasons: where did those rules come from? Pro pointed out.

The inductive proof for as Con mentions in his third point which falls afowl (heh) of the initial problem I mentioned.

It is very convincing to me, to point out issues with infinite regress and causation - this lends itself very well as a proof of God. And I felt in this, and in the rest of cons replies - I didn’t feel he chipped away at this portion of the validity.

As a result, I felt cons position on this one was very strong, and this argument very much fell on pros side.

3.) The moral argument.

I felt this was the weakest of all three of pros argument. The form was good, but pro neglects to give really justify his reasoning for why Everyone agreeing on right and wrong necessarily requires God. The weakness here, means that all Con has to do is provide a reason justification of why everyone can agree on a moral fact - and this point is refuted.

In the first argument - con confuses the logical with the moral - it is logical to maximize wellbeing for everyone - but morality is as much about feelings. Pro came close to mentioning this issue, with historical rationality - and by talking about a duty (or compulsion).

I felt this whole exchange a bit messy, but on the whole I feel con did much better at throwing mud on this point than pro did. So I would have this fall down on cons side.

I especially felt pro mostly refuted his own position - building up his view of objective morality saying its something everyone could agree with - then specifically giving an example of humans disagreeing on moral matters. That sealed this one for me.

4.) Omnipotence.

Con mentions the free will/omniscient issue. To me as a start this was not convincing as I don’t think any terms or definitions in the debate were contingent on free will existing. So in this vein the only thing being refuted is the moral argument - not God.

Pros rebuttal here was very weak here, and didn’t give me any reason to side with him.

For this reason, I’m think this argument has no additional impact to the contention.

5.) onnipresent/omniscient

I found this argument poor on its face. While it’s possibly my understanding, After reading several times, I don’t feel con really presented what the real paradox was, or justifies it to me as a voter.

To me, I can know all the facts con lists at all times (I know I will write, am writing, and have written my RfD) at all various times - that to me seems self evidently possible.

While this could well be me being dumb, I can’t ask for clarification, and I’m going to be just as dumb reviewing pros arguments too: so will simply skip this point.

6.) omnipotent paradox.

Con points out the true definition of omnipotence is paradoxical - pro agrees but clarifies “what is meant” philosophically by omnipotence.

Con is right, that he refuted the idea of omnipotence as he defines it, but as pro presents a philosophical definition (diet omnipotence - now with less paradox), I view pros argument on the meaning of omnipotence as better.

I may have viewed this differently in other contexts - and I think I have given this in other debates - so while I don’t agree with con that he should be given the debate on this - pro needs to be more careful about losing on a technicality in this way - it’s very lawyery - and as such for me requires a higher burden and better argument to be accepted, but it did come close.

7.) PoE.

Con raises the standard problem of evil. This is a good attack against the existence of a loving God. The immediate issue for me on this argument, is whether con gives me a reason to suspect that the good done by allowing evil to exists is less than if no evil exists. To me, this has to be a detailed proof as evil is contrasting, without evil you will have at most more of neutral system. But that’s just my opinion.

The way con set up the problem of evil, however was weak as he didn’t address the neutrality problem - just argued the weaker “God should stop things” position.

I didn’t feel that Pro defended this well either, he needed to provide me a justification of why bad things happen to good people (a massive summarization), he did point out that good and bad requires free will - this wasn’t massively convincing as it strikes me as just as effective for God to allow humans to murder each other without making torture a thing.

As a result, while I think con didn’t do as well as he could have here, weakening his position (due to the above), I didn’t feel it was really refuted. Do have to let this one fall down on cons side.

8.) Creation.

Con argues that something can come from nothing. The problem here for me comes on the definition of nothing - even if there was nothing, the laws of physics that cause the something from nothing are not nothing. Because this was really mostly covered and argued as part of the KCA, I won’t consider this separately. I feel this has already been covered.

9.) OA revisited.

So after revisiting the 4o argument - which I felt overlapped with with the OA rebuttal points con raised - I wanted to go back, given cons set of supporting arguments. I don’t feel he has really justified the “God is not possible”, on its own and so I feel my initial assessment of the OA still stands.

10.) The kritik.

I left this one till last. I’m going to summarize my understanding of this - and it’s essentially that we have no frame of reference for God, so arguing about his existence or not is largely irrational and a debate on the topic is largely nonsensical

For me, Kritiks need to be slam dunks to be accepted. Pros response is pretty devastating upon first read - atheism and theisms positions are specific and in cases predictive - though pro needed to cite examples- and thus it is possible to draw conclusions about God when the claims are specific.

The inherent nature argument, I feel is moot - as this debate is inherently focused on specific referencable definitions, and thus I feel doesn’t merit awarding of arguments on the basis of the Kritik.

For me to have awarded this, con needs to show me that arguing about God in the context of this debate, is like talking about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. While it was an interesting kritik, con didn’t pull me along for that ride.

So: summarizing this all: it boils down to the KCA - I felt pros argument here, the nature of its presentation was stronger in nature than any of cons rebuttals, of the smaller won arguments. So I must award arguments to pro.

This was an EXCEPTIONALLY hard vote to come up with as both sides did a pretty good job; though there were many missed opportunities on both sides.

I felt pro definitely dropped more arguments, but I weighted this against con throwing more smaller issues as pro, neither of which, in my view were ideal.

Hey boys, Hey girls, Superstar Djs. Here we go!

Oooh. A mod vs. mod battle.

Thanks :)

I'll try to throw in a vote in the next couple of days.

Then he would recuse himself and a trusted third party would be assigned to adjudicate the vote. But yeah, that's a head-scratcher. Whether he votes or not, I'd still appreciate his feedback.

Tej can’t vote. What if his vote is reported???

Willing to drop a vote on this debate if you have time?

Thanks, Ram! Appreciate that you're taking a close look at it.

Thanks so much! Bsh is a worthy opponent. One of the best I’ve ever seen

I haven’t forgotten about this one, I’m finding it very time consuming writing an RFD, I’ve been looking at this for a while and I’m barely through the ontological argument part! I will say this is a pretty high quality debate. Thought I’d bump it so that others don’t forget it’s here.

Regarding the "flaws," since Virt conceded to the existence of "raw, purposeless evil," in the context of the debate, he could not make the argument that I was treating myself as omniscient, as any such reply could be turned on him in equal measure. Strategically, my argument was the right move, because Virt has locked himself in to agree that such evil existed. Whether some evil has a reason or not, whether we can know God's intentions or not, Virt made the concession, and so, for the purposes of the debate, it is true that purposeless evil exists.

I mention this only to point out that the debate needs to be examined in isolation of your own opinions of the arguments made. Debaters are making strategic decision in reaction to and in anticipation of their opponents moves. To impose your own views of the arguments on the debate fundamentally misunderstands how the debate plays out--debaters cannot possibly anticipate or reply to every counterargument or every argument out their, including the ones you've made. They can and should only be held to account for how they reacted to their opponent's specific moves, because only those arguments "count" inside the debate. Had your arguments been introduced in the debate, I would have responded differently (perhaps by playing up the K), but I, and any debater, can only be reasonably expected to engage with the arguments before them, not the arguments which are not before them.

That said, I am not going to get into a broader discussion about the merits of my arguments. I am simply not interested in debating my case in the comments. This is not an issue I am particularly passionate about, and one which I think is rather pointless to debate. I did this debate as a personal challenge to myself and to honor a request made of me by my opponent to do this debate.

As Virt notes, career debaters in real-life leagues often make arguments they don't believe in. A debate is a competition, a game, and, within the rules, you make whatever strategic decision best gains you an advantage. I don't conceptualize debates as proselytizing or defending my views, I conceptualize them as competitions.

The flaws with the "God cannot be Omni-Benevolent" argument is multi-fold:

Flaw 1.The person who states this is basically elevating themselves to the level of God and saying "I perceive and interpret things and events as God sees them". They operate on the assumption that how they see events (good, bad, very good, very bad, etc) is exactly how God would see it. I honestly think that's the height of arrogance-- to presume one see things as a potential All-Power being would...They think of the most dastardly, heinous crime they can think of, and then say "How can a benevolent God let this happen". THese sort of arguments insert an element of emotion into it. Rather than do that, it's best to think of things as either "good" or "bad". The argument then is, if a benevolent GOd is really good, why do bad things happen. But again, the person asking the question is assuming God sees things as they would.

Flaw 2. The person stating this argument is skipping a question that is not often asked. Might there be a reason to allow something bad to happen? As was mentioned, it's been said God allows bad things to happen to bring about a greater good. A young toddler might perceive the hypodermic needle about to pierce his skin as the worst thing imaginable. He might be screaming and yelling at his mom and the doctor because he feels it's terribly painful. What he doesn't understand (perceive) is the greater good (prevention of disease) that will come from such an act.

One can ask "Well what good could possibly come from allow ____________ to happen?" It's a great question. But just because you don't know or understand or even have the ability to perceive a greater good, doesn't mean there is no greater good that could come from it.

When you debate professionally, you’re often given a resolution and then are forced to do either pro or con regardless if you believe it or not. Debating is a sport, not a missionary activity. We aren’t out to concert anyone to our viewpoint.

So you are proposing arguments something you don't necessarily believe in? Wow. Not quite sure I have ever heard that in a debate. If you don't believe in something, why are you posing it as justification for a certain position? Anyway...

When people say that Free Will can not exist with an Omniscient God (something that sees/knows everything), there are some flaws in that.

First, the proponent of that argument is making the assumption that God is "bound by time", in other words, God experiences (sees) things as we humans would. One could be really critical and say the proponent is elevating himself to God's status by saying he/she sees/experiences time the same way as God. If this being, God, is not bound by time (which most Theists believe), then God doesn't experience the past, present or future they way we do. Ever walk into a sports bar? The typical sports bar has 10+ TVs in them, all playing different games/events. A simple analogy would be imagine a sports bar with 3 TVs, and on TV 1 is the past, on TV 2 is the present, and on TV 3 is the future. God is able to watch simultaneously all 3 events in what has been described as the "Eternal Now." God's not predicting or forcing Joe to wear a red shirt next Thursday. God knows he will wear a red shirt, because from God's perspective, it's already happened and God saw it.

Granted it's an imperfect analogy, but when trying to relate to God, we are limited by our human capabilities. Now the atheist might say "Well, PROVE God is not bound by time!". That's a debate we can have....

The arguments I make in debates should not be construed to be ones I believe in. I respond to the arguments in the round as I see best, and the debate can only be judged by what was said within the debate itself, not by analysis, thoughts, or facts external to it.

Interesting debate. I appreciate doing it, so thanks. I think this will be the first and the last time I do this topic, however; at least for quite some time.

If I know Joe is going to wear a red shirt tomorrow, that doesn't effect Joe's ability to change his mind and wear a blue shirt, does it?

**Yet, omniscience is necessarily in conflict with human free will. If God is all-knowing, he'd know I was about to write "fart gun" before I wrote it. However, what if at the last second I chose to write "bumblebee larvae" instead? **

Um, wouldn't omniscience also mean he would know you'd change your mind at the last second to write bumblebee larvae? Or are you asserting that you would have the ability to outwit an omniscient being? Imagine if you will God watching you, nudging his buddies and saying "Watch this....bsh1 is about to write "fart gun" but at the last minute he's going to change his mind and write "bumblebee larvae" instead.....it's hilarious!". I jest (God, wouldn't have buddies to nudge lol). But you get my point. Why do you assume that simply because you change your mind at the last minute, God would not know that?

** Similarly, we recognize that the moral agency of someone with a gun to their head is reduced because their freedom of choice is impinged. For morality to matter at all, therefore, we must have free will. To the extent that Pro hypes objective morals, he ought to agree with this conclusion.**

True, but even the guy with the gun to his head still has the free will to choose to either do or not do something. We here stories every day of folks who summon the internal courage and fortitude to be strong despite being faced with death.

I'm almost finished. Probably 330

If you don't think you'll be able to post by 3:15 EST, then no rush. I'll just get to it later today.

I’ll try

Any possibility it could be within the next hour?

Within the next 3 hrs

When are you planning to post?

Cool beans.

I'm almost finished my arguments.

8 hours to post...

Thank you. Will have them up probably late tonight or tomorrow afternoon

You've got a day left to post.

Lol thanks.

FWIW: I haven’t yelled at my phone screen like I do on other religious debates.

I feel quite out of my depth on this topic, tbh. Theology is a subject I find infinitely fascinating, but I have never had enough instruction or learning in it to feel comfortable discussing it in depth. I took this debate because I figured I'd challenge myself and because I figured I should do a theology debate at some point in my DDO/DART career. Granted it's interesting, but I'll be happy to get back to more familiar philosophical ground.

God is omniscient and omnipresent.