Lightning Debate Alpha Test. (Topic will be No Gods exist)
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
After 2 votes and with 3 points ahead, the winner is...
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Standard
- Number of rounds
- 3
- Time for argument
- Three days
- Max argument characters
- 5,000
- Voting period
- One week
- Point system
- Multiple criterions
- Voting system
- Open
Alright 5000 words and format will be as quick as possible. My goal is to produce nice mini debates that are easy to vote on.
Round 1A: Opening
Round 1B: Rebuttal of R1A
Round 2A: Rebuttal of R1B
Round 2B: Interrogation (5 Questions only for sake of testing until I know better)
Round 3A: Answering R2B Questions and then interrogation.
Round 3B: Answering R3A Closing.
Premise 1 == God is extremely unlikely to begin with.In order to accept the God Proposition, one must take many things on faith. We must assume The bible is true at least to some degree. Some more then others. We must also accept that magic exist. We must accept that heaven exist. We must accept that God is all powerful to the point being able to defy human logic. At some point, this becomes a steep bet.
Premise 2 == God is not coherent with our model of the universe.By coherent I mean that the properties of God do not match what we would expect to see in physics. This further pushes The God Proposition into obscurity and makes it difficult to even imagine what God could even consist of or how we could know anything about God at all.God is suppose to be the necessary pieces of creation, but we have no good model for this in physics. The best thing we have is the fine tuning argument which is probably the best attempt to date, but still does not get us close enough to posit a God with any type of justification for doing so.
Premise 3 == God has too many definitions.God is Love, God is Wrath, God is sin, God is all, God is nothing, God is something, God is mysterious, God is direct, God is candid, etc etc.There's simply too many properties to god for it to be a real thing. God seems about as likely as a square circle that is White Black.
"Logically speaking, Any God that even has a heaven for you is probably going to let you in even if you don't believe in it because God would probably be that nice of a guy. So I think Atheism is a fine bet. "
Premise 5 == God wouldn't make lightning debates.He just wouldn't. Any true god would make these logically impossible because he simply doesn't like them for some reason ;)
NegationIn order to accept any proposition when dealing with questions of origins and cosmology in particular, a vast majority of conclusions must be taken on faith. In fact, the entire scientific method rests upon the concept of uniformity of nature, which is a faith based phenomenon. I have no concrete evidence the sun will come up tomorrow or water will boil at the same temperature as yesterday aside from that fact that these things happened in the past, which is circular reasoning, but its what scientists take on faith daily. Also, my opponent has used the word magic, however, God's miracles are not magic, it is His ability to control the laws of nature and manipulate the time space matter continuum.
NegationOur model of the universe unequivocally supports theism. It is scientifically sound to state the universe had a beginning. The big bang supports the existence of God strongly, things that have beginnings have causes.
Only if you use the definitions of "god" from just about every world religion at once. That's an unreasonable thing to do. When talking about God, since my opponent is an atheist, I will be using a more scientific definition. The Intelligent Mind that originated the sum totality of time space and a matter. As a Christian Theist that definition works perfectly for me as well.
I believe the whole point behind Pascal's wager was that hell was a very real threat, so this view of Pascal's wager favoring atheism only works if you undermine the entire point of the wager in the first place.
1. Without presupposing that we were designed by a benevolent and truthful Creator, we could have no certain knowledge on literally anything. For all we know, in an atheistic universe, our senses and reasoning do not actually give us the truth about anything, and the world around us is vastly different than our senses tell us. The physical world we perceive may not be anything more than the delusions brought about by haphazardly organized cells and sensory organs that do not reflect what's true in reality. If our senses were not created with the purpose of yielding us the truth, so I will ask my opponent, on what basis do you trust your sense perceptions enough that you believe we are having this debate?
1. It is logically sound to conclude that everything that has a beginning has a cause, since the science bears out the fact that the universe is not eternal, why do you not agree we need a Cause?
2. Are the laws of logic (non contradiction, identity, etc) human conventions? If so, are they subject to change?
3. What, in your opinion, made Christianity a unique and successful movement? What differentiated it from the other Messiah movements like Bar Kochba or Sevi?
4. How do you know your senses are not deceiving you?
5. The universe bears evidence of fine tuning suitable for human life. What do you make of this?
1.) god is unlikely.
Pro argues god is unlikely. He does this by pointing out all the assumptions required to believe God. I don’t think this is likelihood as much as believability - but I won’t penalize in semantics.
Cons responses are that not believing in God requires faith too. Cons examples intuitively fail in my opinion - con is arguing that I must accept that believing in heaven is the same as believing the sun will rise. That fails to be convincing to me.
Pros counter here is good - pointing out that it is not taken on faith, but on track record of predictive success.
Cons argument that God is not magic, appears mainly semantic. In my view, miracles and magic require the suspension of the physical laws of the universe to achieve some aim that would otherwise be impossible - and as such while pejorative, both pro and cons description appear to require the same amount of faith.
2.) God not coherent with physics.
Pro argues that God is out of line with what is expected in physics, it’s impossible to postulate how God could work. This Appears to be mostly an extension of point 1
Cons rebuttal is that beginnings have causes, and the universe has a beginning. Pro points out that while God could explain the beginning, it is not necessary (there are other explanations)
3.) God is defined too many ways.
Pro points out the innumerable properties of God. Con points out that these are taken from multiple disparate Gods.
Pro points out that these are just from the Bible.
4.) Pascal’s wager
Even if I accept this argument on its face - either neither supports nor negated the resolution so will not be considered.
5.) as per 4.
Note: I would politely suggest that Q&A are not used, I have yet to see one that has any usefulness with regards to affirming or negating the resolution.
As a result of the above, pro upholds the first two main points, in my opinion. The third point is relating only to the Christian God, so works towards the resolution - but does not inherently affirm it.
As a result, on balance I feel that pro did a better job with the opening two points, and as they are fairly generic I feel he establishes his point on balance.
Arguments to pro - all other points tied.
I’m basing this off of each premise set forth by Pro and who I think argued for/against it better. I love how short and concise this was.
Arguments
Premise 1:
Pro claims that we must assume a lot of things in order for a God to exist (he argues specifically against the Christian God it seek some here). Con rebuts by saying that we must assume everything, because we have no firm foundation to believe anything if atheism is true. Pro responds by showing how each of the assumptions in an atheistic worldview are likely based on the past and their lack of failure so far. This was sufficient, so premise 1 goes to Pro.
Premise 2:
Pro says that God doesn’t adhere to our model of the universe. Con responds by saying that God is the only cause that could cause our universe. Pro rebuts by saying that other models have more science behind them and that’s the God model hasn’t sufficiently prove do itself. The difficulty with this isn’t that neither responses actually address the original contention: whether or not God adheres to our model of the universe. Because both parties swayed, I’m tying this point.
Premise 3:
Pro says that God is contradictory because of all of the definitions that he has. Con says that it’s unreasonable to use all of the definitions of God from all religions at once, and instead offers a different one. Pro claims that all of the definitions came from the Bible, but he doesn’t actually show where. It shouldn’t be the voter’s job to look that up. He also agrees to Con’s definition. Because of that, Con gets this point.
Premise 4:
Pro offers the modern version of Pascal’s wager and says that atheists are more likely to go to heaven because God is probably nice enough to send them there without them believing. However, he offers no backup evidence of this, so I’m not sure where he got that evaluation from. Con responds by incorrectly rebutting the original Pascal’s wager, and Pro points that out. Because Pro offered no real reasons as to his contentions here, I’m tying this point as well.
Premise 5:
This one is irrelevant.
Each debater got one point, so arguments is tied.
*Tied In All Other Categories*
Congratulations on winning. I think it was a fair outcome.
there is tons of material on pascal's wager if you're ever curious, but it's not really a logical argument. It's actually a technique that a specific person invented as a reason to convert to Christianity.
You could say it's logical to an extent, but ultimately making any decision off of it is merely a gamble. So you don't get knowledge out of it, but rather a chance of practicality if you happen to make the right choice.
So you're saying that the god topic is too short for R3 debates? I may be inclined to agree with that.
One thing I do want to avoid is circular rebuttals. I feel like they don't add anything to the argument. That's why I like the question round because it's my way of getting people to rebuttal me without just making the same assertion. So if I say thing X in R1 and you say thing Y in R2 and then I say thing X again in R3, then we've made a circle now (hopefully the R3 would be a counter, rather than a circle, but that's not usually the case). So at this point, the R4 can break the circle by forcing them to rebuttal in the form of a question. This forces both of them to put aside the assertions and answer tough questions honestly. I also think it chills the tension in the debate as well. Of course, people could still dodge and assert things with questions. But no system is perfect.
Not the structure of rebuttals but the debate its self. The existence of Of God almost always in circular logic or disproof of science or recognition of logical fallcy/Ignorance debate.
I never heard of pascal's wager either. I have a hard time weighing arguements on God's existence based on Logic assumption and insertions of knowledge we know. without considering the facts we do not know. You have debated me before on this, i think you understand what i mean.
Well if it's logically sound, then what's the problem? I do think links are good at times, but I think they can also saturate a debate. I think instead of just having links always ready at the beginning, we should just pop them in when they are called for. Some debate topics don't end up needing links because the opponents don't say anything that call for it.
Duly noted.
I believe you're right on the word limit. It's mostly to prevent filibustering. But I'll probably just go with the normal 10K limit I use which I have almost never seen anybody cap out on.
Is your second critique aimed at the structure of the rebuttals?
That being said, i have hard time to vote on debates when its based mostly on assertion without links to back it up. Even if logically sound.
While indeed more concise and easier to vote on, i feel part of the depth involved in 5k+ arguments is lost. I'm not saying its bad to have small debates, but i believe that in knowing each other and seeing the depth of reasoning and research reveals the character of the pro and con. The soul of the debate is constrained.
Sometimes going through the ringer helps the pro to understand his subject better and likewise for the con to go deeper in reason and resource against/for it.
Thanks for the R5 answer and the good debate as always.
I don't care if you do more than five questions, but just keep in mind that I need space to reply so if you over do it, I'll have to not quote your questions directly to make space.
Little tip. You can use some of your questions as rebuttals for my last rebuttal. It helps in case there's something I brought up you wanted to address.
I had 3 characters left, lol.
Can't wait to see it
Cool I'll mix mine up too
Sorry I don't know why that posted seven times.... Ok cool
I'll just mix up my argument a bit, lol.
Not at all
Am I barred from accepting this since we are debating this currently? If so I completely understand.
Please message before accepting if the format is difficult to understand and I will explain it better.