Instigator / Pro
8
1435
rating
15
debates
33.33%
won
Topic
#598

God Exists

Status
Finished

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

Winner & statistics
Better arguments
0
6
Better sources
4
4
Better legibility
2
2
Better conduct
2
2

After 2 votes and with 6 points ahead, the winner is...

Type1
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
5
Time for argument
Two days
Max argument characters
30,000
Voting period
One week
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Open
Contender / Con
14
1266
rating
119
debates
15.97%
won
Description

Just a simple debate of God's Existence.

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

All things being equal. Pro simply fell short of the BOP Pro's argument was essentially the Kalam Cosmological Argument with the additional premise that the "uncaused cause" is a god. This assertion is not support by the kalam alone. Pro needed to provide additional evidence to show the correlation. Furthermore, Pro was not able to justify the premise that god was justified to fall into a different category apart form literally all of known reality. Without this proof, Pro's argument essentially landed on a special pleading fallacy and bled to death.

Both debaters were polite and vigorous in their arguments. Fun to read.

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

The primary contention here, by pro, is that everything needs something else to exist - thus God is needed to explain the existence of anything.

Con agrees - and asks pro to justify why everything else needs a cause but God does not.

The justification pro gives is that everything is material and God is not. On its face this smacks of text book special pleading, and as the debate wears on, con hammers home this point in a round about way.

Con basically asks why the immaterial is not subject to cause and effect, what is something that is immaterial anyways, and whether pro can show the immaterial exists.

What wins this for con - is that through his line of questioning regarding the material, he makes pros argument seem an arbitrary assertion: he asks pro to justify the exemptions he assigns to God through the invocation of the immaterial.

Pro didn’t recover, and could only really assert that his exemptions are valid.

There were a few ancillary points con made (God outside reality / how can non physical be conscious), but I have not assessed these as the main argument is enough to win on its own.

Arguments to con.

All other points tied.