Thank you to my opponent for making this debate! I expect to
have a very entertaining exchange. My job is to prove that God exists (I am arguing
specifically for the Christian God), although I should say that making a
reasonable case for that should be sufficient.
I will outline my argument in three premises. I will note
that none of the premises are unique, and all of them have been used in the
past by others.
1. The Kalam Cosmological Argument
2. The Moral Argument
3. The Proof of Jesus’ Divinity
The Kalam Cosmological
Argument The kalam cosmological argument has its own set of
premises:
1. Whatever begins to
exist has a cause;
2. The universe began to
exist;
3. The universe has a
cause.
Through empirical observation, we have never observed something
simply “exist.” Anything and everything has been caused. The first premise is very simple.
It’s when we arrive at the second premise that things get a bit
trickier. Many people will say that the universe has always existed, and therefore
the second premise is invalid. However, we know that infinity has logical
contradictions. For example, if I have an infinite amount of apples, and I give
you all of the odd-numbered apples, infinity-infinity=infinity. However, If I
give you every apple numbered 3 and up, infinity-infinity=2. It’s contradictions
like this that show that infinity doesn’t exist in reality. In fact, Fred
Hoyle, a Cambridge astronomer, said “The big bang theory requires the creation
of the universe from
nothing.”
[1] Through astrophysics, we know that not only the universe, but matter,
space, and time itself was all created about 15 billion years ago. All of this
shows us that the universe did indeed begin to exist.
Finally, this leads us
to know that the universe must have had a
cause.
We know this because nothing just pops into existence; it is caused by
something else. A table doesn’t just appear in your house built; it is made in
a factory in a shop and then shipped there. Likewise, we can reasonably infer
that the universe didn’t just pop into existence, it was caused by something or
someone.
Now, of course, the
Kalam Cosmological Argument doesn’t lead us to the conclusion that the cause is
God. However, it does tell us a few characteristics about the cause. Mainly, it
made materials, so it must be immaterial, it made time, so it must be timeless,
it is the cause, so it must be causeless, it made change, so it must be changeless,
it made the beginning, so it must be beginningless, it made space, so it must
be spaceless, and it obviously must be extremely powerful.
The following parts of
my argument will work with this to show that the cause is the Christian God as
described in the Bible. The Moral Argument The gist of this argument is that God created objective moral
values and it is through those that human beings know what is right and wrong.
If there is no God, literally all we are are atoms going through chemical reactions
with each other. There is no “right” and “wrong,” only electrical charges,
acidic reactions, and other various physical interactions. But because we know certain
things are wrong, such as torturing children for fun, we can infer that
something, or someone, created standards by which we know that those things are
wrong.
Some may say that things like rape are wrong because they harm
another being. However, if one can escape the consequences of such an action,
there is no reason not to do it. However, if God created moral standards,
then we do know that such an action is wrong.
Of course, that doesn’t mean all moral decisions are easy (as evidenced
by the trolley problem or similar dilemmas). However, it does mean that we all know
when we should or shouldn’t do one thing or another (with the exception of
small children).
And before I continue, I am not making the claim that atheists
cannot be moral. I am simply saying that, without a God,
no one can make truly moral decisions.
The Proof of Jesus’
Divinity
Jesus, as we all know, was an essential figure in history and was
very influential; not only did he start the most famous religion in history, with
over 2 billion followers, but our very dates revolve around him.
The Bible claims that Jesus rose from the dead. First, allow me
to establish the reliability of the New Testament, where this claim is made.
To do this, scholars put together the interpretations we have
now to establish what the originals were like. The more copies there are, the easier
it is to reconstruct the originals. Another factor is how much time exists
between the writing of the originals and the copies. Many documents that we’ve
reconstructed with high certainty that they are accurate only have a few
copies and can span over thousands of years. An example would be The Jewish
War, which only has nine surviving manuscripts dating about four centuries
after the originals. As you can see, historians are able to do a good job with
this.
In comparison, the New Testament FAR outweighs any secular
document. The one with the most is Homer’s Iliad with 647 copies. The New
Testament has
5,366 separate Greek
manuscripts. These were all written within a few hundred years of the
originals. As you can see, we can have very high confidence that the New
Testament is reliable. [
2]
Now, having established the reliability of the New Testament, I
will look at the various theories used to try to falsify the resurrection of
Jesus Christ. I would like to say that the existence of Jesus as well as his
crucifixion are facts and are not arguable. Unless my opponent asks me to, it is a waste of time to discuss that. I am focusing on what is debated
over, which is the resurrection.
1. The Swoon Theory
2. The Hallucination
Theory
3. The Conspiracy Theory
The Swoon Theory The swoon theory states that Jesus never died on the cross. Let’s
first examine the facts of the situation. We know that Jesus was severely
beaten, stabbed, pierced with spikes and nails, was bleeding, and he even had a
spear thrust into his side. The possibility that he could have survived this is
ludicrous. However, besides that, he would’ve had to wake up, roll the GIANT STONE
DOOR over the tomb not a little bit, but
all
the way out, and he would have had to do all of that without alerting the
guards who were posted outside.
Some people say that the guards fell asleep and that the
disciples came and stole the body. However, in those times, a guard could lose
their life if they did that, so that is simply not true. And even if they did,
they would’ve been awoken by all of the noise.
The Hallucination Theory This theory states that the people only hallucinated Jesus appearing
to them after he had died. Hallucinations are individual events and cannot
spread beyond just one person. Here is a list of all of Jesus’ appearances:
Luke 24:39 Jesus’ Own Testimony
Revelation 1:18 Jesus’ Own Testimony
John 20:14-16 Mary Magdalene
Matthew 28:9 The Virgin Mary
Luke 24:34 Peter
Luke 24:13-16 Two Disciples On a Road
John 20:19,20,24 The Disciples (except Thomas)
John 26-28 All of the Disciples
John 21:1,2 Seven Disciples
Matthew 28:16,17 Eleven Disciples
1 Corinthians 15:6 Over
500 people
1 Corinthians 15:7 James
Acts 9:3-5 Saul
Acts 1:3 Saul
That is over 10 appearances to
over 500 people. Quite obviously, it is impossible for 500
people to hallucinate the same thing. The hallucination theory is false.
The Conspiracy Theory This one states that the disciples stole the body themselves and
fabricated the entire story. First of all, there are absolutely no records of
this ever happening. Second, the accounts of Jesus appearing to over 500 people
disprove this. Third, they had Jesus appear to women. Women were not considered
reliable in Jewish culture, so if they were to fabricate it, they wouldn’t have
included women. Fourth, a lot of the Bible is made up of personal letters that
are clearly not meant for the public eye. If this theory were true, the
personal letters would indicate the exchange between the people trying to determine
the logistics of the whole ordeal, but this is not the case.
So, as shown, none of the theories about the resurrection of
Jesus holds up; except, of course, the fact that
he did rise from the dead and appear to people afterwards. [
3]
This has all led up to show that Jesus himself rose from the
dead and therefore is the Son of God as he claims. This proves that there is a
God, and we can reasonably infer that this is the same God that created the
universe as well as an objective moral standard. This is proof that God
exists.
Thank you to voters and my opponent for reading this. Over to you! :)
Sources
[1] Fred
Hoyle,
Astronomy and Cosmology(San
Francisco: W.H. Freeman, 1975), p. 658.
[2]
https://www.str.org/articles/is-the-new-testament-text-reliable#.XPAzZIhKi00[3]
https://www.josh.org/resurrection-theories-debunked/
Thanks lol
Good job on this one, schooled him easy.
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>Reported Vote: Caleb // Mod action: [Removed]
>Points Awarded: 1 point to con
>Reason for Decision: Pro did not make a convincing argument and all the "facts" he stated he did not back up with references. He made accusations about biblical truths such as Cain marrying a dinosaur obviously without looking into the bible. Pro then forfeited his last round securing victory for Con. Con was collected and professional and nicely laid out his arguments. He clearly deserves the victory.
>Reason for Mod Action: This vote is not eligible to vote. In order to vote, an account must: (1) Read the site’s COC AND have completed 2 non-troll/non-FF debate OR have 100 forum posts.
Finally, "To cast a sufficient vote in the choose winner system, a voter must explicitly, and in the text of their RFD, perform the following tasks: (a) survey the main arguments and counterarguments presented in the debate, (b) weigh those arguments against each other (or explain why certain arguments need not be weighed based on what transpired within the debate itself), and (c) explain how, through the process of weighing, they arrived at their voting decision with regard to assigning argument points. Weighing entails analyzing how the relative strength of one argument or set of arguments outweighed (that is, out-impacted) and/or precluded another argument or set of arguments. Weighing requires analyzing and situating arguments and counterarguments within the context of the debate as a whole.
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I'll go ahead and challenge you to the abortion one, don't challenge me to the pets in heaven one because I'm not sure what my opinion is on it yet because I haven't studied anything on it
Bare in mind, my vote here was very tryhard (as said, it was an experiment), so don't model your future votes on it...
The big flaw to your vote is not naming any key argument lines (you would not even need to name them all, but just make it easy for mods to verify you read the debate).
How about you start the Abortion debate and I'll challenge and I'll start the Pets in Heaven debate and you challenge? Or we can at least try. :-D
From your vote, you mentioned, "Pro offered no real case of his own, and made slightly amusing remarks instead of countering con's case." This was my main reason for my vote against Pro, so I'm wondering why it was not considered a weighted vote? At any rate I will try to do better.
Thanks dude, hopefully you'll get to grade an actual good one sometime lol
I'm actually pro-choice and I've been trying to do a debate with a Christian over whether the Bible permits abortion or not, would you want to do that?
About the pets, I don't think they will, but I've done absolutely no research on that subject, that's really interesting! And I'm not familiar with the Annihilationist view
I have numerous religious topics I am doing in self-study that could result in some interesting debate topics. For instance, one study is heaven and the question is will our pets be with us in Paradise? Another is Hell. I no longer believe in the Traditionalist view of Eternal Conscious Torment. I am leaning toward an Annihilationist view. On the political realm, I am a string advocate for Pro-Life on Abortion, which is tied to when does life begin. I just need to nail one down and think through - come up with my arguments and support.
Have you seen anything you want to debate?
Thank you. I am looking forward to being more involved.
Hi Sigmaphil,
We don’t have a list of “example votes”, it’s possible that would be a good idea.
One of the best voters on this site is Ragnar, one of his recent votes is here: https://www.debateart.com/debates/975?open_tab=votes&votes_page=1&vote_number=1
We also have a thread dedicated to resources and links especially for new members - one of them is a general voting
Guide which is fairly current.
https://www.debateart.com/forum/topics/346
Is there somewhere I can get an example of accepted (valid) vote...I mean if I did meet the criteria of 2 completes non-troll and non-forfeit debates, or 100 forum comments. I ask this because I read the arguments and used points 1, 2, and 3 to formulate my vote. Am I supposed to elaborate in the comments of the vote signified by point 1 through 3? Please explain. Thanks.
*******************************************************************
>Reported Vote: Sigmaphil // Mod action: Removed
>Points Awarded: win to con.
>Reason for Decision: My reason for my vote is clear. Con's position was thoroughly researched and defended with facts and theories supported by logic. Pro's arguments were defended with innuendo and pompous opinionated rhetoric devoid of facts.
>Reason for Mod Action: The voter is not eligable to vote. A voter must have 2 completes non troll and non forfeit debates, or 100 forum comments in order to vote.
That being said. The vote would also have been removed were it not the case.
To award a win, the voter must (1) survey the main arguments and counterarguments in the debate, (2) weigh those arguments and counterarguments against each other, and (3) explain, based on the weighing process, how they reached their decision.
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Thanks!
Thanks, and yeah I might have to do this with someone else
I liked your cumulative case for God, your opponent's response, on the other hand, was somewhat disappointing and shows that he may not have read through your arguments but merely glanced over them.
It wasn't a diss... OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHH!!!
Was that supposed to be a diss? If so, I debate in real life too. OOOOOOOHHHH
They weren't on this website. They were in real life. OOOOOOOHHHHHH!
Can you link the debates you did?
Challenge accepted! :)
Interesting enough? :D
Patience, grasshopper
So, are we gonna debate, or...?
lol
YES I WILL BECOME A GOD! IT WILL BE AWESOME! And then I'm gonna prove that god doesn't exist!......................................................................................................Oh wait... Crap.
Alrighty dude, I gotchu
You're gonna turn into god to prove he doesn't exist? XD
I might vote on this one, seems interesting and I feel like you've got a good shot at winning it, make it interesting ;)
Inductive arguments that show that it's unlikely that the Christian God exists would be sufficient. The debate title could be translated to mean "It is more likely than not that the Christian God does not exist (i.e. is fake)" as both debaters share the BoP (although you could even argue that the BoP is entirely on Con due to the wording of the resolution). There is no need for Pro to prove that God is logically impossible.
Dude. Haha! I don't need to be god to prove that god isn't real. Keep watching the debate, and you'll realize that god isn't real! There is a ton of evidence, so don't go telling me that I need to be god. Because If I have to I will.
I would like to see you prove yourself right, because you would have to be all knowing to know this. You would have to be God to know He doesn't exist.
lol this is a hardcore dare