I'm having an online written debate with a Christian. I'd appreciate it if you would register and, when the debate is done, vote a winner. Don't vote for me unless you honestly feel like I presented the better arguments and defended my arguments better than my opponent. Here it is:
http://www.debate.org/debates/The-Existence-of-God-is-unlikely/1/
Until next time...
Enjoying the debate. Here are some suggestions.
ReplyDeleteCon made the claim "Modern science strongly confirms the fact that the universe had an absolute beginning." This is untrue. science only says that the current state of the universe has a beginning, it says nothing about what state the universe was in before this or whether it existed or not.
Even if you agree to the idea that there must be an uncaused cause why should this be an all powerful God? Something like a particle that has the singular ability to create sigularities is far more possible and requires less explaination than any kind of God.
All that said I doubt you can win this one. His argument seems to boil down to "God exists because he must exist." He is presenting no evidence to support his argument, he is simply asserting that God exists and that there is an explaination for anything that doesn't fit with this idea.
One more thing...it's a slow day...Con keeps making the argument that unrational things can not produce rational things. However he has not provided any argument to support the idea that nature is itself norational.
ReplyDeleteTrue it may not be rational in the sense that it makes concious choices etc, however it does follow a set of rules, be they physical, chemical or biological. It works within these rules which themselves are governed by the laws of logic. It could well be argued that nature, while not rational in the same sense that humans are, operates entirely in a rational way.
"The traditional theistic response to this argument is that God has morally sufficient reasons for allowing evil"
ReplyDeleterofl
He deftly undermines all Christian morality in one fell swoop.
Whoosh.
Wow. Con's responses are all of the form,
ReplyDelete"If we suppose for absolutely no reason whatsoever that God's doing this because he feels like it, then we can rationalize anything."
And his arguments are all of the form, "Argument from ignorance + blatant ignoring of parsimony."
I'd say you have this one in the bag if not for the fact that so many people see nothing wrong with such fallacies.