"God" does not exist

admin (PRO)
WINNER!
8 points

nzlockie (CON)
4 points

Debate
Comments (20)
Rules
Judging (3)

admin (PRO)
I thank my opponent for setting up this challenge. As per the rules we'll be discussing if the Christian God exists or not. For its historical accuracy and timeless relevancy, I'll be using the LOLcat bible translation but probably won't have to refer to it much. As you might guess I have BOP, and so intend to show said God is unlikely to exist. Nobody can definitively prove either way, but let's take this debate on the balance of probabilities.

So I'm going to start with my favorite argument ever to be shown on the Simpsons -

can God microwave a burrito so hot that he himself cannot eat it?

No really, the omnipotence paradox is a legit point.

Infinity in maths is not a number but a direction, like North or East. You can never actually "be" North except relative to something else. You can say that you are north of the south pole, or more north than Argentina, but to say you are "North" absolutely makes no sense. Likewise to say I have infinite cans of coke in my fridge makes no sense, because (for example) if you add a can of coke to the fridge there would still be infinite cokes, and yet the one infinity would be smaller than the other infinity. Even defining the concept of infinity, such as calling it the largest possible number, makes no sense because that puts a finite limit on possible numbers.

"Mary wuz liek "O rly, i iz a virgn remembr?" Gabriowl wuz all "Ya rly, Ceiling Cat wil take caer of it. Srsly." Elizabeth iz goin to hav a kittn n evribodi seded it wuz imposubl." Nothin iz imposubl for Ceiling Cat."" (Luke 1:34-37)

As you can see from the holy scripture above, God thinks he can do anything, ergo his power is infinite. So I'd like to see him microwave a burrito that he can't eat. Now let's walk through all the possibilities.

Assuming God cannot eat infinitely hot burritos, he's a bit of a troll and a liar in the bible. Assuming Christians take the bible to be accurate, such a God is beyond the scope of the resolution.

Assuming God can eat infinitely hot burritos, he cannot cook a burrito he cannot eat. Even if he tried to cook a burrito hotter than infinity, it would still only be an infinitely hot burrito as my example with the coke cans proves (although to be fair, it also proves God won't be left with an unquenchable thirst after eating said burrito). This is because the concept of an infinitely hot burrito is scientifically and philosophically nonsense anyway.

Did Jesus ever exist?

The Christian narrative depends on Jesus to have been really human. That seems unlikely, at least as the Bible describes him. And not just because Luke got the location of Nazareth dead wrong in Luke 4:29.

As far as I'm concerned there's four really good historical sources for Jesus: all of the gospels except for John, and the Acts of the Apostles. I actually welcome my opponent to try to claim otherwise, I'm very well prepped for it.

The problem is that 3 of them rely primarily on Mark and the mysterious Q source, which is about the passion of the Christ. And neither of them mention the most important part of the story: Jesus' resurrection.

If not for the resurrection, which was according to every scholar added to Mark much later, the story of Jesus is even more amazing from a literary perspective. Mark creates a compelling likeable character, who says wise things, has a tragic flaw (his religious convictions), and ends up persecuted in the most unjust way. I cried when I read Mark for the first time because it's the most brilliant tragedy of its age. It fits with all the ancient Jewish conventions for midrashic tragedies too. The resurrection ending hackneyed on is a total buzzkill that ruins the whole point of the story. For example, every single verse Mark quotes from Jewish literature refers to the destruction of Israel. This makes no sense if he was writing a story about the redemption of Israel (and the rest of humanity for that matter).

I think that, like Shakespeare usually did with his tragedies, it's quite likely (although there's no clear evidence either way) Mark's Jesus was based on a historical figure, who at the time would have been just within living memory (this was ~30 years after Jesus' death, although life expectancy was far, far lower).

All the additional elements to the story introduced by hearsay writers Luke, Matthew et al very closely mirror other ancient stories. The miraculous birth, the resurrection after death - none of that stuff is particularly inventive in the context of other ancient religions. In this context, it seems more plausible that Jesus' actual divinity was not originally part of the story as it was written. Luke probably borrowed heavily from Paul, a man who had never met Jesus yet told all his actual followers they were wrong about him. Matthew borrowed from other stories particularly liberally, being primarily concerned with showing how Jesus fulfilled all sorts of prophecies, but then Jewish prophecy literature has always to some degree mirrored other contemporary stories (Epic of Gilgamesh anyone?) and Matthew is no exception. Resurrection narratives were quite common in Greek and Egyptian myth.

This is a totally reliable and trustworthy source for most of this

Evil

No anti-God argument would be complete without the problem of evil. I'll assume my opponent is expecting this and probably has his response already worked out, but I'll explain this anyway.

Assuming God is a nice chap, capable of stopping evil, and knowing that evil exists, wouldn't he stop it? I mean, that would be nice, right? Like, if God tossed some free pills down from heaven that cured AIDs, or went in after a hurricane to bring food to those displaced from their homes, or smote down evil people like Richard Dawkins.

If he wouldn't he's not really that nice, if he couldn't he's not really that powerful, and if he was ignorant then ... well ... he's ignorant.

So there's 3 good reasons to doubt the Christian God's existence. I look forward to reading my opponent's case!

Return To Top | Posted:

2013-12-15 13:01:24

| Speak Round

nzlockie (CON)

I’d also like to thank my opponent for graciously participating in what must be a very mundane and familiar debate topic for someone of his impressive online debate experience.

I’d also like to thank him for accepting Burden of Proof and acknowledge his comment that, “Nobody can definitively prove either way” – as I see this as an immediate capitulation on his part I’ll definitely be bringing that comment back up at the end, but in the spirit of things let’s kick around a few of the old faithful arguments for either side anyway.

Pro’s role in this debate is to prove that God does not exist. Con’s role in this debate is to show reasonable doubt to that assumption. I just want to be clear that it is not my role to prove God’s existence, as Pro opened with, “Nobody can definitively prove either way”.

I’m very happy to proceed with my opponent’s choice of scripture translation, although as it is a paraphrase translation, I’ll reserve the right to draw on a more literal translation if required.

So let’s kick right in with the impossible Burrito.

The argument centres on the claim that God is All-Powerful, and then creates an illogical scenario that creates a paradox. If God was able to perform the task, then in doing so he disproves his omnipotence. If he fails to perform it then, again, he has disproved his omnipotence.
It’s one of many fun little logic plays that people like to pull out, but as with most of them, is ultimately wrong.

There are two possible explanations for this scenario. Either one is enough to demonstrate that his scenario is flawed.
The first explanation is that God IS Omnipotent – but only within the laws of logic. I don’t believe this discounts his omnipotence, and I certainly don’t see how it proves he doesn’t exist. Imagine I am an amazing sculptor. I can fashion anything conceivable out of clay. I can do things with clay that nobody ever thought was possible. One thing I will never be able to do is to make the clay turn invisible. I can’t do that because I can’t alter the nature of the clay.

Translate this to your Burrito conundrum.
God created Burritos. He knows everything there is to know about them and is capable of breaking them down to a molecular level and rebuilding them into anything he desires. He can absolutely heat them up to impossible temperatures. He can change the nature of the Burrito because he created it. BUT for him to create something that contradicts who he is – is impossible. He is God and his nature says that he can eat a Burrito of any temperature. He can’t change his own nature.
There is absolutely zero evidence in the Lolcat bible that God ever goes against his nature. To the contrary, Psalm 102:27* says, “u wil last furevr but u iz alwyz same”

This is the nice answer to your Burrito Paradox. The other (lazy) explanation which I can use says that YES, God CAN create a Burrito too hot for him to eat, and then YES he CAN eat it. It is impossible to do this and remain Omnipotent, and yet he can do it because, " Nothin iz imposubl for Ceiling Cat."(Luke 1:37)

We simply can’t conceptualise how this illogical impossibility can happen or what it would look like, but the fact that he can do it PROVES he is God.
Don’t think he can do it? Prove it! You say he can’t and I say he can. Until we know which one of us is right, you haven’t disproved God’s existence.

Did Jesus Exist?
I have to confess my opponent actually lost me here. I had several issues with his information. I’d like to genuinely list them here so that he can elaborate me before we discuss this point further:

1. The actual “daily grind” of Jesus’ life is described in all 4 gospels as well as Acts. Not sure why John didn’t make the cut?

2. When you say that they build on Mark – is that because Mark was alleged to have been written first?

3. When you say “Every Scholar” accepts that the resurrection part was added to Mark, are you referring to the fact that there was an empty space left after vs 8 of chapter 16 in two of the earliest dated copies of this book?

4. What is the "Q Source"?

Also, while we’re at it, would my opponent be able to tell me exactly how many references ARE required to prove that a specific man existed 2000 years ago? Especially since that specific man was not a monarch or even a lowly government official?

Also bear in mind that although there are many verses in the Lolcat Bible to say that Jesus Christ the man and God the creator are one and the same, there are many alternate interpretations on this that would state that they are separate entities. Personally I don’t think that proving Jesus didn’t exist refutes God’s existence unless you can prove Jesus was God. If my opponent would like to do so, I welcome it, I certainly don’t have any immediate plans to do it for him.

What about Evil?

There wasn’t really much of an argument here to actually rebut.
My Opponent paints a rather cartoony image of God as being a 2 dimensional “fairly nice chap” and postulates that if it were possible for him to remove Evil, then why wouldn’t he?
The fact is that as the Lolcat Bible states, God’s character is actually quite complex. “Hu Ceiling Cat pwns 2 knows am comprenz stuf lak judgmt An knowz And comprens An stuf?“ – Isaiah 40:13*

To reduce anyone – let alone God, to a single characteristic is a little lazy and insulting. I know my opponent is neither of these things, so I'd invite him to restate this case a little clearer if he likes to.

Without further clarification I can only assume that my opponent’s point is that if we can’t understand why someone does or does not do something, then that means that that person, (or God) can not exist.
This is clearly wrong but I guess I could use Syfy’s decision to cancel “Alphas” as a rebuttal. The fact I don’t understand WHY they didn’t renew something they had the power to renew doesn’t prove that they don’t exist. (only that they had no appreciation for Ryan Cartwright's acting)

I honestly don’t think this IS what my opponent is getting at here, but it’s not really up to me to make his case for him. The fact is that Evil is in the world, so if my opponent thinks that that fact somehow means that God doesn’t exist than I’d be interested to hear how.

The Lolcat Bible is full of references to God interacting with Evil in its various forms, so the fact that it exists doesn’t really prove anything one way or the other.

I’d like to thank my opponent again for bringing a case forward for this resolution. I’d like to again remind the judges that my role here is not to prove God’s existence, merely to refute his “proof” that God doesn’t exist.

I feel like I’ve done that for the two points I was able to follow him on, and I’m very keen to see if he has anything else to add.

*I’ve discovered that the Lolcat Bible actually has some pretty terrible omissions and errors in the way it numbers the verses. For the record, the references I have listed here reflect the actual verse, despite the fact that the Lolcat Bible may have that quote assigned to a different number.

Return To Top | Posted:

2013-12-15 15:54:41

| Speak Round

admin (PRO)

I thank my opponent for opening their case.

Standard of Proof

There is a basic presumption in debating that the topic must be interpreted in such a way that it is debatable. Con concedes that nobody can definitively prove either way, therefore if the standard of proof in this debate is definitive, the inverse of the topic becomes a tautology (ie "You cannot definitively prove this statement (which cannot be definitively proven)"). As such a lesser standard of proof is required for this topic to be debatable. I argued in the first round that this should be on the balance of probabilities, because the rules don't specify otherwise, and because that's pretty normal for debates like this, and besides I'm used to styles of debating where the affirmative has a semi divine right of definition.

Con took that as a concession, so I'm going to interpret that as a challenge to my parameters. If con wishes to challenge my parameters for the debate he should actually challenge them. By not doing so and focusing on rebutting my arguments, that's tacit acceptance of the parameters of the debate.

Microwaved Burritos

To start off with the idea that God can only do logical stuff. This idea has never been taken seriously by anybody except CS Lewis, but then again nobody takes CS Lewis seriously because he took the LOLcat bible too over the top and replaced Jesus with a huge, scary lion. I invite my opponent to attempt to back this view up with any actual scripture. God never says his power is limited by the rules of logic, or goes against his nature, but the bible does say stuff like this:

"wif Ceiling Cat evrytingz lolcodable" - Matthew 19:26

"Happy Cat stared at dem and sed, "Kittehs no can do dis, but Ceiling Cat can do it. He can dooz evryting." - Mark 10:27

"Ai can be doin any tingzes wif Ceiling Cat dat be givin me dem strengthez" - Philippians 4:13

Con argues that Psalm 102:27 proves God will last forever. OK, so let's assume God won't ever change. Now you have to prove why this eternal God can only do things that make any logical sense.

The other argument con raises is that God can do logically impossible stuff. OK, let's explore that. Assume God turns his microwave all the way up to infinity (already having broken the bounds of what is logically possible in so doing). Having microwaved the burrito, God now might take it out and have a taste. "Pretty good" he might declare in a deep, profound voice "But although this is hot enough for me not to be able to eat it, I am able to eat it."

The problem with this scenario is that when you can do the impossible, an impossible to eat burrito becomes edible. Therefore although he has succeeded in microwaving a burrito so hot it is impossible to eat, he has not succeeded in microwaving a burrito so hot he cannot eat it, because he can eat it. After all, God can eat anything, so the concept of God being unable to eat something makes no sense either. The answer to this claim, then, is simply that unless God yelps "Ouch!" while attempting to eat the burrito, he's unable to make something he's unable to do.

Con says perhaps we can't conceptualize the answer. That's always possible. But the existence of a fundamental problem with a theory does make it a lot less likely. I mean, if you ignore the fundamental problem of thousands of scientific observations, the notion that the Earth is at the center of the universe seems pretty legit.

Did Jesus Resurrect?

It wasn't as if the four gospel writers followed Jesus around and wrote down the events as they happened. The synoptic gospels are historical accounts. Jesus died in about AD 30. Mark was written in about AD 70, Luke was probably next but had to be after Mark, and Matthew was about AD 90. Although John may have been written slightly earlier than Matthew (nobody really knows), John's gospel follows none of the literary conventions for a historical account, explaining theology rather than history. That's why John opens with things that he could not possibly have witnessed ("In teh beginz is teh meow, and teh meow sez "Oh hai Ceiling Cat" and teh meow iz teh Ceiling Cat.") unlike, say, Luke who tries to give a more historical account ("Lotz of pplz tried to tel dis stori, its turnded into sort of an urbn lejnd LOL. So I investigaetd evrithin for mai frend Theophilus, so u will know teh truef.").

Building on Mark is partly based on the best scholarship placing Mark first (though that is undoubtedly important), but more importantly because of the distribution of shared text, as demonstrated by this diagram.

The important thing about this diagram is that it shows not only is there significant text shared, but that it shows the narrative developed since Mark. The "Double Tradition" is the hypothesized Q source, which you can read about here. The unique elements are mostly the birth and resurrection stories, which are significantly different in Matthew and Luke and appear to be attempts by the two writers to fill in the gaps concerning a tradition that was already independently established.

With the ending of Mark I refer specifically to the fact that Mark 16:9 and beyond does not appear in any of the earlier manuscripts, and that the manuscripts for the next 100 years or so contain contradictory variant endings. Up to that point, there's been nothing but an empty tomb narrative, and some gardener who freaks two women out. It's a brilliant ending because it's balanced and leaves the question open - was Jesus really the messiah after all? Point is that the rest of the verses honestly read like this: "Jesus said "Yes, I was the messiah after all. Kthnksbi"". Mark is clearly a brilliant writer - he writes with action, immediacy, his lines are uniquely memorable. Reading Josephus, perhaps the greatest Jewish writer of his day, you get the impression even he's been influenced by Mark too, since against the prevailing Jewish style (documented in the Talmud) Josephus used Mark's style of vivid, quite present historical drama. Mark must have known better than to end the story like this.

Jesus was not lowly. In the gospels he was a very controversial figure of his day. But even if I accept Jesus was historical, the resurrection narrative has all of the telltale signs of being a later story added to his life, with earlier more reliable accounts being modified to suit. And if that's the case, then this element of the Christ story - the single most important event in history according to Christianity - is simply a myth.

As for Jesus and God being the same, even if they are not, the resurrection is central to the concept of the Christian God, as distinct from say the Jewish God or the Muslim God.

Evil

When I say God is all-powerful, that's reducing God to a single characteristic. So I wonder if my opponent believes the bible is also being lazy and insulting?

The idea of God's omnibenevolence is quite important. Otherwise, God would not be perfect, for a more benevolent being would be more perfect.

Given this, God is fairly nice (as in "nice but fair"). So if decide to disobey all ten commandments tomorrow, and hate my neighbor for good measure, chances are good that God won't even wag his finger at me, despite having the opportunity and, as we can see above, stated desire to stop me. How can an all-knowing, all-powerful, fairly nice God NOT step in when something like that happens? This God let his disciples be martyrs. Did he not realize how many more followers he would gain if he miraculously saved them (as he ironically did with several saints). What of diseases? Are they also God's will, and if not, why not cure them?

The resolution is affirmed.

Return To Top | Posted:

2013-12-15 21:30:12

| Speak Round

nzlockie (CON)
I'd like to thank my opponent for continuing the debate.

Standard of Proof - I absolutely agree with my opponent that it's impossible to "prove" the existence of God one way or the other. I would like to remind the judges that this debate is centred on the probability that God does not exist. My opponent's contention is that, although not definitive, there is sufficent evidence to suggest that the existence of an eternal creator God is unlikely. So far he has attempted to do this by creating a illogical self-defeating hypothetical situation, by attacking the claim that Jesus Christ actually lived at all, and finally by questioning the character of God. I remind the Judges that our role here is not to see God proven to exist but rather to examine Pro's "evidence" to see whether it is strong enough on its own merits to convince us to scrub the notion of God completely.

To be clear, although I am very happy to hear my opponent admit that we can not be 100% certain that God doesn't exist, I fully accept that for the purposes of this debate we are only arguing for the "likelihood" of him not existing. A high percentage of certainty if you will...

"Ouch I burned my tongue but it's cool coz I am."

Leaving aside the low blow to CS Lewis, (which is something I think these guys might have a problem with) I don't really think that the concept of God being limited by his own nature is that absurd. My opponent quotes some verses from the Lolcat Bible to support his belief that God can do anything, and invites me to use the same resource to prove that God's Omnipotence is limited:

Limitations to God's Omnipotence:

God can't lie - "God did dis so dat, by 2 unchangeable things in which it imposible 4 ceilin cat 2 lie, we hoo has fld 2 taek hold ov teh hope offerd 2 us cud be greatly encouragd." Heb 6:18

God can't stop being God - "evenz from wakey timz to sleepzy tiemz, uz arez Cieling Cat." Ps 90:2

God can't deny himself - "ifs weez iz fayfless hims will still b fayfful coz him canot b dissn himzelf. Srsly." 2Tim 2:18

God can't be tempted by Evil - "But leik dont be all jealous of the Ceiling Cat cuz that'd make him look bad and he's cool." James 1:13*

* OK this Lolcat translation doesn't really hammer it home on this one, suggest if you want to check it, you use a different translation. Srsly.

So these scriptures tell us that in fact God IS limited. He is limited from doing those things that would be directly against his nature. If he were to do any of these things he would cease to be God. These "limitations" do not disprove God any more than the fact I can't breathe under water disproves my being Human. On the contrary, the fact that he can't do these things prove that he IS God.

On the second, (lazy) explanation that in fact God CAN do these illogical things but we can't understand or conceptualise it - I agree that it is less likely to be true. That being said, we know that it IS a possibility and my opponent doesn't deny that. History has taught us that sometimes once our frame of reference has been extended - (maybe through countless scientific observations) that which we had no concept of suddenly becomes a possibility.

My opponent has tried to disprove God using a more elegant and mexican "Batchelor's wife's name" riddle. The Lolcat Bible and fundemental reasoning both support the idea that God can not do things that are contrary to his very being. This limitation exists in everything and does not deny his potential existence.

Did Jesus Exist? - Ammended to: Did Jesus Ressurect?

I thank my opponent for clarifying his point in this section. I understand his opinion on the validity of the 4 Gospel accounts, in particular Luke and Matthew, however I respectfully disagree on his conclusions. I'm sure he will agree, (and if he doesn't, many scholars will) that textual criticism is not an exact science and there is often a wide range of opinions between reputable experts. In fact the very source that my opponent used to educate us on the "Q Source" contains a compelling case against the theory that Matthew and Luke were using a common resource to build their gospels. The fact that the Gospels were "eye witness" accounts means that it makes sense for so much of it to line up.

As for the fact that many other stories, myths, legends and religions contain similar stories - that fact alone doesn't really prove that a thing DIDN'T happen. Many of those texts could have also been building on the old testament prophesies about the ressurection. Many of these prophesies were made centuries before Jesus actually did rise from the dead.

My opponent can tell a nice story about how a historical account was really just a made up story, but when it boils down to it, he is just a guy giving us an opinion on how it MIGHT have happened. I can counter with a another guy telling us how it might have happened differently, and we can go on like this forever.

The very fact that Christianity exists at all as a religion is powerful circumstantial evidence for Jesus the man existing. People have been persecuted, wars have been launched, major historical events have taken place based on the existance of this man. If he was a figment of someone's imagination, that is a secret that would have come out. Thinking otherwise would put us firmly in the camp of the people who still think Elvis is alive

Ultimately I still maintain that disproving Jesus existence or even his ressurection does not constitute powerful evidence against God's existence. My opponent claims that the Christian God must be one with Jesus, however there are at least nine sub-branches of Christendom that deny Jesus and God were one. It does raise an interesting point though, if my opponent fails to prove that Jesus did not exist, but convinces us that Jesus and God were one - than that would prove a fairly large stumbling block for his contention that God doesn't exist!

Evil - won't someone please think of the children?

In the first round my opponent described God as being "a nice chap". My point to him in rebuttal was that God, (and ALL of us for that matter!) is far more than one characteristic. Does God show favour? Yes! "...if yu iz being nise kitteh he make shoor yu iz having nise hawse wif lots of fluffi pillohs fur sweepsin on." Prov 3:33 But this is only one characteristic! The Lolcat Bible gives us lots of different characteristics of God.

One of the ones which relates to some of the things my opponent has referenced is the fact that God is Just. "ceiling cat iz teh judge, jury, xecushioner 4 a purpiz. itz hiz job - he Judj Dred." Ecc 3:17

Since God created man, he sets the rules and the standards. If God sends us to Hell because we sin, he is not being unfair or mean, he is being Just. Fortunately for us , he is also a God of Mercy and has therefore created a means for sinful man to escape this judgement. But that is not an entitlement, it is a priviledge.
I would be happy to debate the issues of "What is Evil?", "Why do bad things happen to good people?" and even "Does God cause Disease?" but my opponent's contention that evil exists in the world, (a fact I don't deny) really does not prove that God doesn't exist. To think it has any bearing on that fact only serves to highlight my opponent's lack of understanding about God's character.

My opponent asks why these things exist in the world - his version of God wouldn't allow them to. Unfortunately we are not argueing the existence of my opponent's version of God.

Vote Con. All the cool kids are doing it.

Return To Top | Posted:

2013-12-16 21:03:45

| Speak Round

admin (PRO)

Come on kids! Don't give in to conformity! Be a rebel with a cause by voting pro.

Is God omnipotent?

At this point my opponent has all but conceded the lazy approach to the problem of the microwaved burrito. Pro doesn't refute my continued arguments against the contention, though he does press that our frame of reference might be extended. Or maybe not. This is basically an invitation for voters to insert their own awesome arguments, as opposed to my opponent meeting his burden of rejoinder. Therefore, let's focus on the real key area of clash - is God actually omnipotent at all?

I'm a non-smoker, meaning that I never smoke cigarettes. That doesn't necessarily mean that I cannot physically put a cigarette into my mouth and light it - I merely choose not to. Much of my opponent's analysis limiting his God to less-than-perfect status (because a more capable God would be more perfect). In fact, just because God doesn't do certain things does not show he is not omnipotent. You can compare that to my examples of verses, still unrefuted, where the bible clearly states God's power has no limits. As I said in the first round, such a god is a troll, a liar, and beyond the scope of the resolution.

I might add that God cheats a lot with all of the things my opponent mentioned. For example, while it is true God doesn't "lie" in the bible, he does quite frequently cause people to believe lies. For example:

"Ceiling Cat yu lyed an i bleevd! Yu pwnd meh an i wuz pwnd hard!" - Jeremiah 20:7 (and he's right - if you go back a bit God did pwn him)

"Fore dis reesun Ceiling Cat sands dem catnip so dat dey wil beleeve teh lies" - 2 Thessalonians 2:11

"Derfur luk! Ur prophets be lying to yu; teh spectral kitteh can has urnd him cheezburger; Ceiling Cat does wants yu ded. Srsly." - 1 Kings 22:23

Likewise God just skips the temptation and unleashes evil:

"all teh bad tings coems frum teh Ceiling Cat, hoo iz liek srsly al teh wayz up on teh ceiling? Srsly!" - Lamentations 3:38

"iz me hoo switch lights on switch lights off, is me dat purr and dat kill mouses. me ceiling cat is masta of house." - Isiah 45:7

"OMG, joo ar stoopid. We accept cookiez from Ceiling Cat but dunt let him takeded teh cookiez away?" - Job 2:10 (actually the whole book of Job is like this - Job is basically a Hebrew version of Ned Flanders, then Satan says to God "Yo God, mind if I torture that guy for a bit?", and God says "Yeah whatever dude, it's cool". Rest of the book is pretty insane descriptions of a guy getting tortured. There, I just saved you a ton of bible classes! Funniest book in the bible.)

Whether God ever stopped being God and became man is debatable at best. And denying himself? Who knows. If you asked, God would probably deny it.

Point is that God can get out of all of these with his divine knowledge of technicalities and semantics. Even if this were not true, God being incapable does not mean being of a certain nature. Just as I am a non-smoker, God might be a non-liar.

Resurrection

I'd like to transcend the debate for a moment to explain my overall strategy. The resolution calls on me to disprove the Christian God. If Christianity is not true, there is no Christian God. That might still mean that a God exactly resembling the Christian God in features may exist (such as the Jewish God). It's not my onus to disprove any other God though. What sets the Christian God apart specifically is the resurrection of Jesus. It is irrelevant whether Jesus was God. The mere belief in the theory of Jesus' resurrection by God - regardless of whether Jesus also was God - is the defining factor I'm providing evidence against here. If God in his unchanging nature did not resurrect Jesus, he is not the Christian God.

Even if I were outright challenging the idea of Jesus existence, the importance of a person to another person does not indicate their existence. I mean, the Romans fought tons of wars on the basis of a prophecy given by the Gods to Aeneas, whom practically everybody today regards as a fictional character (along with, you know, all the Gods and monsters and such that appear in that story). In terms of hard archaeological evidence, we have more for Buddha existing than for Jesus, which is crazy because Jesus was 500 years after Buddha. And yet today, people kill in the names of both men equally.

I agree textual criticism is not a particularly exact science. History in general is not a particularly exact science. But it is pretty good. If we have evidence for and little against, that's convincing evidence with a "high degree of certainty". For example, we can be quite certain there was once such a person as Hitler, because that theory explains an awful lot of what we know, and there isn't much evidence against. On the other hand, was Achilles real? It's certainly possible, but given the fact that his story is apparently mythic, it is relatively unlikely.

Having said that, it's more than just my opinion:

The resurrection shows evidence of literary development - hence why the earliest scripts of the earliest writer do not mention it at all, and evidence of later writers "filling in the gaps" with their own details (being the best explanation for why the details of the resurrection differ in Matthew and Luke).

The resurrection is a mythic device - Resurrections, miraculous births and other things apparently added to Mark by Matthew and Luke are all common tropes for myth. The more a story reads like any other old myth, the more likely it is that it's just another old myth.

This one is kinda my opinion but I haven't exactly heard my opponent give me any counter-narratives here:

The basic narrative of Jesus makes no sense with a resurrection - The ending absolutely ruins Mark's otherwise amazing story.

Importantly, there is no external evidence that supports the resurrection ever occurring.

Evil

My opponent again continues to assert that a perfect God is not perfectly benevolent. He says that any truly perfect God is just my personal conception of what God should be, rather than what God is. On the other hand, he does not refute my analysis that if God is not perfectly benevolent, I can conceive of a better (as in closer to perfect, if that made any sense) God. And if I can conceive of a better God, it follows that God is not perfect.

Here's what the bible actually says about being perfect:

"b k00l liek teh Ceiling Cat" - Matthew 5:48 (note: k00l=perfect in lolspeak)

"Him teh rawk, him gud at evryttin. Ya ya, it trooz. Srsly." - Deuteronomy 32:4

"an Happy Cat is laik "wy u sed me cheezy? only Ceiling Cat cheezykitteh" - Mark 10:18

Let's just conveniently ignore the bible though (who needs it anyway?) and analyse my opponent's view of the Christian God. First of all, being the judge, jury and executioner does not preclude benevolence. Not even close. Now let me concede, for the sake of argument, that if God created everything then God has the rights to impose on anything everything he wants (parents must be so jealous). However, this principle comes from the notion of natural justice that my opponent apparently supports. Therefore, it follows that for my opponent's case to follow, he must demonstrate God is actually just.

So far he's quoted a proverb that says if you do good, God shall be good to you. That's it. That's 100% of his evidence, as he refuses to engage directly about any of my analysis as regards the existence of disease, poverty, even protecting his own most loyal followers. I don't believe that any of these actions are/were fair even by God's standard of good. Disease is often used by God as a punishment (think Moses and Egypt). I just don't see a compelling case that young babies have committed such grave sins that warrants their destruction, often in horrible torturous ways like AIDS. Likewise I don't believe everybody who ever died was necessarily executed for sin in Christian theology. After all, did not St Paul write in his letters that some in the church are perfect?

The resolution is affirmed.

Return To Top | Posted:

2013-12-17 20:14:11

| Speak Round

nzlockie (CON)
Well as we head into the final round I’d like to thank my opponent for the enjoyable debate.

My opponent has sought to provide evidence against the existence of God by two methods. I’d like to address those two methods directly.

God’s Character

My opponent says that because he can’t reconcile his personal view of who the Christian God purports to be with the injustice and evil he sees around him and observes in the Lolcat Bible –God must not exist. He also questions how anything can be “All Powerful” and yet limited by the laws of logic.

It’s clear I need to address these issues to establish the fact that the God of the Bible is not an impossible concept that can be denied purely because of his character and nature.

Explaining the true character of God takes a lot more time and space than I have available here so I’m going to use the afore mentioned story of Job to illustrate the parts that my opponent is questioning. It’s clever because he used Job against me and now I’m using it to prove my point of view. Lols.

Job’s Bad day

Better not cash in those Bible lesson vouchers just yet kids. My opponent has missed a few rather important aspects to this tale.Let me boil it down for you…

Job was a righteous man. This is more than just good or religious, this means he did the “right” thing in the eyes of God. As a result God blessed him with lots of land, wealth, kids and a hottie wife. This blessing was not because he earned it. God doesn’t work that way. God blesses whom he chooses to bless. Anyway, God asks Satan if he’s noticed how righteous Job is being. Satan sulkily replies that that is only because God has blessed him so much. If God removed all the good things from Job’s life, then he would surely curse God. This next part is crucial. God commands Satan to go and test Job. He sets a boundary that Satan can’t kill Job, but everything else is fair game. Now Satan was an angel. He knew the true character of God. He probably knows at this point that he was going to be losing this one. This is me saying to Bobby Fischer, “I’m going to move my Queen there! You’ll be done in 5 moves!” and him smiling and saying, “Go ahead.” If I were Satan, I would have probably backed down. He doesn’t get a choice though because God commands him.

Satan goes out and proceeds to tear down everything that Job has been given. It’s pretty much the worst day ever for this guy. Job has no idea what’s happening and doesn’t know why he’s being punished. All of this takes part in the first couple of chapters. During the next 36 (long) chapters. Job is counselled by some of his mates. They all have slightly different angles on it, but it basically boils down to, Job is being punished for something he did. Finally, another mate comes along and tells Job to stop being a baby, he’s not being punished, this stuff is just coincidence. Through all of this Job stops short of denouncing God, although he sure would like an answer. Satan has been defeated.

In chapter 38 God himself makes an appearance. In one short speech he basically tells Job to sit down and shut up. He is God and has no need to explain his actions or decisions to Job. Job sits down and shuts up. God shows mercy and doubles everything that Job had before. Except the Hottie wife.

It’s an awesome book and although laugh-out-loud funny in parts, has an awesome lesson in the last few chapters.

What does this say about Evil?

Firstly it backs up the claims made in other parts of scripture, (my opponent has already referenced a few) that “bad” things do come from God. This belief is crucial to the Christian faith because if God is not the first cause of everything, then he's not God.
Secondly, it illustrates the fact that what Man perceives as “Evil” is not always “evil”. By definition, “Evil” is not a positive, it's a negative. Evil is Sin. Sin is a lack of God. God doesn’t cause sin because sin is just a by-product automatically created when we go against God’s rules. WE create sin through our own bad decisions.

Look at Job’s story through the lens of hindsight; the bad stuff that happened to him has strengthened the faith of millions of Christians throughout the ages. Same goes for the various martyrs my opponent has referenced. As a Christian, Job’s experience teaches me that:

a) Life is not going to be rainbows and unicorns just because God loves me.

b) When bad stuff happens, it comes from God. That makes it good stuff. I might not understand it, but I can believe it.

c) I don’t need to ask, “Why”. I know why. God wants it to happen that way for his purpose. Not even God likes a backseat driver I guess.

It turns out that God DID know what he was doing after all. He is playing the long game, and if you believe the Lolcat Bible, so are we.

Not understanding WHY God causes bad things to happen is not evidence that he doesn’t exist.

That whole Burrito business

I’ve offered two possible explanations for my opponent’s scenario. My opponent suggests that with offering the lazy one, I’m not meeting my burden of rejoinder. That’s not the case, it’s just that the explanation can’t be developed any further! It goes like this…

PRO: If God is Omnipotent, can he heat a Burrito so hot nobody can eat it, and then eat it?
CON: Yes.

PRO: What! How?

CON: I don’t know. He’s God I guess. He can do stuff that’s impossible.

PRO: But that means he’s not truly omnipotent.

CON: No, not being able to reconcile God’s abilities with our understanding of logic makes us not as smart as we think we are.

I’m conscious that this explanation requires faith, so I’ve added the second explanation as well.

I’ve already explained that contrary to what some people think, the Bible teaches us that God IS restricted in only being able to do things that don’t run contrary to his being. The major new point my opponent introduced in his last round was that God IS capable of things like causing deceit.

I don’t have space to address each of his examples individually, but it’s ok because Job’s story demonstrates how God can retain his holiness despite causing events that result in sin. If my opponent cares to read the context surrounding each of his examples, he’ll see that in each, it wasn’t God that was sinning, it was man. Yes, it’s a detail. Suck it up. God is in the details.

This might be best illustrated by the card game, 500. A Perfect round could be described as winning every trick with the highest hand. But a Perfect round could also mean losing every trick with the lowest hand. This completes a Misère call. It is impossible for one person to perfectly win and perfectly lose the same round. That doesn’t mean the player was not perfect in that round.

The inability to do things against his nature does not refute the fact he has the power to do all things.

Resurrection

My opponent refused to acknowledge that there are many branches of Christianity that deny Jesus’ deity. Many of these also deny the bodily resurrection. Even the Catholic church is shaky on this one. I don’t think that placeing doubt on the truth of the resurrection completes his burden of proof that God doesn’t exist.

He's right that physical evidence for this event is scant. We have a few eye witness accounts and not much else. This could be because it happened almost 2000 years ago and the main evidence literally got up and disappeared. And other than eye witnesses, what possible hard evidence could he leave anyway?

Faith is strongest when people believe without seeing. If God were to divinely reveal himself to you today in a show of lights a loud booming voice – how many would believe, and how many would be looking for a scientific explanation of what they experienced?

My Opponent can no more disprove the resurrection than he can the idea that God doesn't exist.

Return To Top | Posted:

2013-12-18 15:17:47

| Speak Round

nzlockie (CON)

I'd like to conclude this debate by sincerely thanking Admin for the effort he's put into organising his defence of the motion.

There are two possibilities. Neither one can be proven. Whatever you decide when it comes to the question of whether God exists or not will require science's old enemy, Faith. The problem is that your potential eternal life is on the line.

The evidence Pro has presented to you to convince you that should trust him that God doesn't exist is:

1) God's omnipotence is impossible because he can't heat a Burrito to point that he can't eat it. I've explained that this is a illogical paradox. This creates an issue where God would have to go against his own being. The fact is that God can manipulate everything, and nothing can manipulate God. That makes him all powerful. I've used the Bible to demonstrate that there are actual several limitations to God's omnipotence, all pointing to fact the fact that he can't do something that would deny his own nature.
There is also the less-tasteful-but-just-as-valid idea that God CAN have it both ways. We can't even begin to understand how that would be possible or what it would look like, but if anyone could pull it off, it'd be God. This answer, while seemingly absurd, is just as absurd as the hypothetical initial scenario.

2) Jesus. My opponent tried to create doubt around Jesus. First the fact that he existed at all. When that was looking shaky, he shifted and focussed on whether Jesus rose from the dead. He claimed that by disproving Jesus' resurrection, he would prove that the Christian God couldn't exist. He completely ignored the fact that many branches reject the idea of a bodily resurrection, including, most recently, the Catholic church. Ultimately the case against Jesus comes down to one expert vs another. Nobody knows where Jesus' body is. Does that mean he rose or was lost? Yes we have eye witness accounts, but do you believe them? Again, one expert says they are credible, another says they are not. Reasonable doubt, more information required.
When this point is boiled down, I don't see that there is any evidence against Jesus or the resurrection significant enough to stake my life on.

3) Evil. My opponent tried to convince us that God could not possibly exist because his character runs contrary to the evil we see in the world today. Unfortunately the incorrect idea that God is some super nice guy who rewards the good and punishes the bad like some sort of cosmic referee is an opinion held by many people today. Even some Christians push this view and then struggle to explain why they find themselves being subjected to the same trials and tribulations as the non-believers.
The FACT is that the Bible is very clear on the character of God. It reveals a God who is real and three dimensional. Not some made up character in a mildly diverting story. I explained some of the more obvious things referenced, Bad things happening to Good people, why God allows his elect to suffer... it is beyond the scope of this debate to describe and explain every attribute of God.
But it's ok because, IF God exists, it is entirely reasonable that we mere humans would not be able to fathom the reasoning behind his actions. The Bible is VERY clear on all of the issues my opponent has raised and while we might not like some of the answers, we can't say that they are not there.

There is nothing in this point that supports the idea that God doesn't exist - there never was.

------------

Other than explaining away the alleged contradictions and errors my Opponent bought up, I have not presented a case to support God's existence. This has been a deliberate action on my part. My role here was not to convince you that God exists, only that there was no significant obstacle to that belief. People voting CON will not be saying they think God exists, only that I have successfully defused my opponent's evidence to point where, well, it could go either way.

There was more evidence he could have bought up, but he didn't. Many of his points demonstrated a real lack of understanding of what the Bible actually says about God and his character. The way he speaks about the eye witness account of Mark makes it clear that he sees it as a story rather than a historical account. With this preconception it's understandable that he finds the actual content not quite as readable as the Hunger Games.

Ultimately his case for the motion was entertaining and persistent but was it enough to base your eternal life on - or would you want more?

Thank you for following this debate.

The Cool kids, the Nerds, the Jocks, even the Drama Geeks; they're all voting CON. You should too!

Return To Top | Posted:

2013-12-18 17:46:15

| Speak Round

admin (PRO)

I likewise thank my opponent for engaging with me in what's been a fun discussion. I'll zap through why I've won really quickly to conclude.

Burritos

My opponent's lazy case is not an argument at all. It's essentially saying "maybe you're wrong for reasons you can't even fathom" which is not an argument. It's an appeal to uncertainty. My earlier analysis, that this debate has NOTHING TO DO WITH CERTAINTY, was better.

His other case was better but still no good, trying to claim God can't do everything. Ultimately he did not refute my analysis about the difference between desire and capability, nor any of the numerous verses I cited where God is explained to be perfect. His counter-examples held no water, as I refuted them with numerous other examples. The only one he could respond to was Job, but he never explained why his extra analysis on Job proved God was not omnipotent. At best, even if you accept my opponent's entire rebuttal here, it only proves the verses I had proving God is omnipotent are in contradiction to his verses showing they are not (though I don't concede that they do).

Jesus

While I don't believe everything that Suetonius wrote, I believe he was trying to write history - not because I approach it with that preconception, but because the text itself contains little literary development, because it's corroborated by other evidence, it contains very few mythic devices, and because it doesn't conform to the literary genre conventions for fiction, but non-fiction. When Shakespeare wrote histories, he was more interested in telling a story than fact, and you can tell for all the same reasons. Mark was telling a story - and you can tell for all the same reasons. My opponent has done nothing to refute any of this analysis. Nor has he refuted my flow-on impacts of this for the other sources for Jesus' life.

Instead he's tacitly accepted it and denied Jesus' resurrection. He completely ignored my crucial round 3 analysis where I transcended the debate to explain why this point is silly, explaining that belief in the resurrection is what sets the "Christian God" apart from any other God. How exactly it happened is not important. That it happened is a myth. Therefore, so is Christianity. Therefore, so is the Christian God.

Evil

My opponent agrees God is good, but when I pointed out God does bad his response has essentially been that God does not need to justify himself because he's God. Again, this is not an argument, but an appeal to uncertainty, another invitation for voters to insert their own awesome arguments. If con wanted to win this debate, he had to actually make the arguments. As I showed in R3, con has still refused to engage with any of my extensive analysis around the problem of evil.

BOP

I probably wouldn't base my eternal life on this debate either, but I do believe I have established clear EVIDENCE against the existence of God. At no point was it my onus to make that evidence conclusive. In this debate, there is zero evidence for God, and some against. Even if only one of my three points stands, I have won this debate, because each of my points is evidence of the existence of God. Absence of evidence on the con side may not be evidence of absence, but in the debate, the balance of probability swings most strongly in my favor if the only point standing is my own.

So there. The resolution is affirmed.

PS No cats were harmed in the making of this debate.

Return To Top | Posted:

2013-12-19 09:04:31

| Speak Round

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admin
Image buttons have now been removed from debates like this for safety.

Posted 2013-12-17 09:43:31

nzlockie
Bugger. OK hang on I think I can save it.

Posted 2013-12-16 21:12:53

nzlockie
sorry, typing at the same time.
OK, that one looks pretty good. Complete with spelling mistakes and all.
I'd like the record to show that I actually chose Blue for my "Limitations" section because I felt Red was quite a confrontational colour. Don't change it now, I want to have an excuse on the off chance I lose this...

Posted 2013-12-16 21:09:17

nzlockie
Just checked and my new argument is about 100 characters less than your last one, so I don't think that's it.

Posted 2013-12-16 21:06:55

admin
No, I mean, see how it's my turn to debate now? I posted what you had before plus the other stuff that apparently got cut off. I just want to verify I haven't made any mistakes in my transcription.

Posted 2013-12-16 21:06:35

nzlockie
Just checked and my new argument is about 100 characters less than your last one, so I don't think that's it.

Posted 2013-12-16 21:04:48

admin
I'll investigate that now. In the mean time, could you double check that the argument I posted for you is accurate?

Posted 2013-12-16 21:04:39

nzlockie
OK, I'm having some issues here. I have my argument in a word doc now so that's no issue. I'm copying and pasting it into the submission field and then reformatting it to get rid of line breaks and add cool colours etc.
When I'm done it tells me I have just under 500 characters left including spaces. When I click submit or save it cuts my argument off approximately 3/4 of the way down.

Is my argument too long? The limit is definitely 8000 and the online counter tells me I'm good?

Posted 2013-12-16 21:00:31

admin
I did save your argument but foolishly saved all the formatting as HTML, which I now have to convert to text. Just a pain, and totally my fault.

Posted 2013-12-16 20:40:41

nzlockie
Bugger. OK hang on I think I can save it.

Posted 2013-12-16 20:37:58

admin
Unless you can beat me to it, which you probably can.

Posted 2013-12-16 20:36:11

admin
It's not just you. I have to type up your argument anew to post it again without the image.

Posted 2013-12-16 20:35:54

nzlockie
Is it just me or has the last round been raptured to heaven?

Posted 2013-12-16 20:03:37

nzlockie
oh stink. I didn't notice that. I was having fun with colours and saw the mink to add a pic so thought I'd do that as well. My bad.

Posted 2013-12-16 16:06:41

admin
Could possibly be connected to the fact that the rules state no images.

Posted 2013-12-16 16:05:23

nzlockie
no probs. I'll have to retype it though, as I didn't save it anywhere. If it helps in the bug finding, I had a picture in that last missing section. Maybe that was worth 1000 words!

Posted 2013-12-16 16:04:08

admin
Could you send your argument to me as a message? I'll investigate and post it up properly ASAP.

Posted 2013-12-16 16:02:41

nzlockie
hey what happened to the bottom section of my reply? I still had heaps of characters remaining!

Posted 2013-12-16 15:57:32

JV-Stalin
"I'll be using the LOLcat bible translation"

My love for lars went up 10,000 points when I read that.

Posted 2013-12-16 12:48:47

nzlockie
Thought it might be time to get my Religious on!

Posted 2013-12-15 09:55:28

The judging period on this debate is over

Previous Judgments

2013-12-24 11:36:15

Judge: JV-Stalin
Win awarded to: admin
Reasoning:
Omnipotence paradox

Pro gives us the ole omnipotence paradox. Ceiling Cat cannot microwave a burrito so hot he can’t eat it and thus not omnipotent and thus non-existent. Con responded to this by saying Ceiling Cat is limited by his nature. He gave quotes from the bible to support this. He also claimed that Ceiling Cat can do these things, but not in a way we understand. Pro responded to Con’s first contention by showing how inconsistent the bible is on the subject and explaining the epistemology of the debate to respond to the second. It seems to me like Con has a gross misunderstanding of epistemology. It is possible that Ceiling Cat has someway of getting around this, but atheism offers a better explanation of the world today (thus more likely) if we can’t answer this question. Con never really understood this throughout the debate. Con tried to respond to the idea that Ceiling Cat wronged Job, however there was many more he didn’t respond to. Ultimately, Pro wins here. Con misunderstood the epistemology of the debate and didn’t respond to all of Pro’s claims of inconsistent descriptions.

Resurrection

Here Pro argues that Jesus (Happy Cat) did not exist. Con said the q source doesn’t affect his position, said that christianity is evidence of Jesus’ existence, and claimed that denying Jesus-God monism poses no problem for Christianity. Pro says it’s irrelevant if Jesus was God because since Jesus is described in the bible, he must exist. Pro refuted Con’s second idea by pointing out importance from person to person says nothing about the existence of said person. He gave examples from Roman religions and then concluded there is no external evidence of a resurrection. Con changed his argument stating that a resurrection doesn’t need to be in place for Christianity to be true. However, Pro’s argument is against Jesus’ existence, so it would still be a problem. Con dropped his argument for the existence of Jesus and argued that the evidence is scant. This again shows Con’s misunderstanding of the epistemology. Conceding that the evidence is scant is conceding that Pro’s argument is more likely true and thus concluding that Pro’s position is more likely true. But this is a debate, you’re supposed to contest his arguments, not agree with them. Pro wins on this one due to Con’s concession.

Evil

Con’s response to the problem of evil boils down to, we just don’t know. Pro argued that God is defined as perfect, so God must be morally perfect and cannot allow evil to take place. Con did not do a good job taking this argument on. He cites bible passages that don’t preclude benevolence. However, if ChristianGod is perfect, this means we cannot conceive of a more perfect being. If we can conceive of GenericGod bringing about a greater good without the need of evil, then the ChristianGod is not the God that is perfect and by the bible’s admission does not exist. Con completely ignores this argument and goes onto state we don’t know why God does what he does. This again makes Pro’s position more likely. If Con’s position can’t provide an answer, while Pro can, then Pro’s position is more likely. Pro definitely wins on this one.

Feedback:
Pro wins all arguments. It would have been better if Con understood the epistemology of the debate. This would have prevented Con from losing some arguments. Instead of quibbling over certainty. Everything inductive is based on probability. Quantum Mechanics says there is a small probability of you waking up on mars tomorrow. However, we can state that it wont happen because the probability is so small. Focus on probability, not certainty.

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2013-12-29 18:44:16

Judge: BigAl95
Win awarded to: admin
Reasoning:
I chose the admin as the winner for this debate because he had better argumentative skills. I don't feel he made the best arguments, (better than Con), but he posed them in the best way. I also dis-liked how Con totally abused the burden of proof. I get what the resolution says, but seriously? You're not even going to try and back the position arguing for his existence? Very weak indeed.

Feedback:
As for advice I will mainly say that I didn't necessarily like the points presented; while great to think about, weren't applicable in the debate with this specific, (yet terrible), burden of proof. With the paradox presented, I felt it was really unnecessary. Don't try and use logic to argue with a person who doesn't use logic to begin with, (that was more towards theists than Con specifically), similar to how atheists don't recognize the validity of the Bible, theists don't recognize logic as much as people would hope. I would have loved to have seen a consciousness debate come into play, turning on the existence of God of course, (if you wish to hear more about this just message me). On your second point I would have probably discussed the validity of the Bible in the first place, (assuming there was an equal burden of proof on both sides), then discussion on things like the changing nature of God, (he kills bad people in the Bible, (flood), but doesn't in real life, it's weird how he stopped performing as many miracles once cameras were invented...that also plays into your last point), and you could have definitely brought up something like, "He created the Sun on the fourth day yet there wouldn't be any days without the Sun in the first place," and other contradictions. Which btw, nzlockie, who went to the tomb after Jesus' crucifixion and what did they see? You say the gospels were quite alike yet they differ a vast amount on this one point. If they were truly "eye-witness" accounts they would not differ on much of anything, especially to the extent they do here. On the last point, with the evil argument. It's a good idea to discuss, would've definitely tied that in with the point I suggested earlier and had something else in its place like, "omniscience vs free-will." Great debate also tying in the benevolence of God as well, (if he knew they were going to suffer for eternity why not just have them not exist?). Overall it got somewhat repetitive and very confusing in regards to the paradox issue towards the end. Side-note--admin--Buddha I believe actually existed as a person. Buddhism is both a philosophy and a religion which can be mutually exclusive and I think for the religion part people just thought he was God if you will. So just for future reference. The debate was okay, I would say it was pretty close but better points made would've made it so one-sided.

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2013-12-29 19:50:01

Judge: De@th
Win awarded to: nzlockie
Reasoning:
As mentioned in the opening statement, the debate can never prove or disprove existence/non-existence of god unconditionally.
However, considering that it is always relatively easier to argue favoring the non-existence of a physically unperceivable quantity, I feel that 'nzlockie' has done a good job, again comparatively.
However, in an absolute sense, both the participants were more or less balanced and even in their lack of more generalized view on the subject and ideas.
To add, the way 'admin' presented his ideas were better than the way 'nzlockie' opted to and the fashion was more convincing as well.
However, my choice goes to 'nzlockie', though not in a satisfied manner, only because of what I've previously mentioned.

Feedback:
I wonder why Christianity alone is discussed here...One can always find greater and deeper interpretations of god and spirituality in Pagan cultures...so it would be preferable having a more generalized debate on spirituality and god more than those mundane debates on whether Christ walked on earth or if he really turned water into wine...
And it would indeed be better if 'nzlockie' really tries to perceive what the opponent says rather than jumping into thoughtless arguments.

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Rules of the debate

Text debate
Individual debate
3 rounds
8000 characters per round
Reply speeches
No cross-examination
Community Judging Standard (notes)
Forfeiting rounds means forfeiting the debate
No images
HTML formatting allowed
Rated debate
Time to post: 1 day
Time to vote: 2 weeks
Time to prepare: None

The proposition is that "God" does not exist.
"God" is defined as the Christian God described in the Bible.