DISCLAIMER I am playing devil's advocate in this debate and believe in god outside of it (would even debate for Con under different circumstances).
Imagine if you created everything.
What then are you? Where are you?
You are something other than everything is. You are outside of all that which exists.
There is no version of God that you can hypothesise which exists other than one which falls short of the following definition:
(in Christianity and other monotheistic religions) the creator and ruler of the universe and source of all moral authority; the supreme being.
See, this entity is not some demigod that happens to be first in the hierarchy, no we are talking of the original core mechanism at the very most intricate level of reality that enables all to exist vs cease to exist at any given time. This entity knows all, controls all and judges all its creation if any element of it is actually randomised somehow.
While it's true that I keep speaking of this entity as if it exists, it is important for us to establish precisely what the hypothetical entity is and to not mock away the idea as too absurd, for it is not the unlikeliness of God existing (alone) that we are establishing but foremost the genuine real authnetic existence of it.
Is God real? Let's explore a little more.
This 'god' is consistently defined in the religions that regard it as real, as capable of handing us free will, yet there are also passages like this in the Bible:
For the director of music. Of David. A psalm.
1 You have searched me, Lord,
and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue
you, Lord, know it completely.
5 You hem me in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts,[
a] God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand—
when I awake, I am still with you.
Why did I paste all of that? It is all essential to understanding that the very scriptures said to be written by and for this entity highlight and extreme contradiction that runs deeper than just us lacking free will. If this entity is not only judging us for our acts based on its predetermined, precalculated decisions in creating us and all events that ensue throughout our life but furthermore has allowed multiple religions, sects and even atheism itself to proceed then this same entity that is said to be all-loving and the supreme moral authority is actually a mentally-torturing liar who has woven together a puzzle so secure and self-contradictory that only the most ingenious (and even then, not necessarily) human mind can 'solve' the puzzle to crack what God may even be. We have Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Pagan varirants, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Taoism, Jainism and many more (branching off of these, especially from Pagan avenues of polytheistic thought).
We must understand that if God does exist, this apparently all-knowing, ever-present, all-powerful supreme moral authority is 'morally lying' to us, not even letting all of us access the same religions from birth or judging us fairly (considering that the God itself designed everything including our brain chemistry and is all-knowing an ever-present so it can't plead any ignorance whatsoever, especially due to the verses I just quoted).
This entity is not just that which created all (and so is outside all that exists if it is somehow 'real' at all) but is deceitful, hypocritical and toying with us, yet it is a moral authority?
How can this entity be real? Con will say 'but prove it can't be'. Yet, who really is using the scapegoat of burden of proof here? Not the atheist in this debate, not at all.
You see, the Theist cannot begin to explain to you how their God can exist, how it doesn't completely contradict itself in many ways and how it can then profess to be a supreme moral authority while also being very crafty and deceitful to many of us with all these different thoughts regarding it that it allowed to grow (none of which may be true, it's possible that the true theory of the God hasn't even been invented yet, if this entity supposedly does exist that is).
I say not only that all the above is the case but that more importantly, this entity cannot be proven to exist even if it exists because it very clearly, carefully has laid out so many false ways of thinking about it, implying that even God itself does not wish for you to approach the truth regarding it.
Thus, I conclude the most bold thing of all from the Pro side of this debate;
Wven if god is 'real' it demands that we think of it as non-existent withing 'everything that exists' (which is, by definition all that it created and how can God create itself?)
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>Reported Vote: seldiora // Mod action: Not Removed
>Points Awarded: 0:3; 3 points to PRO.
>Reason for Decision: See votes tab.
>Reason for Mod Action: While very underwhelming and much too vague, the vote barely hit enough of the basic requirements for the vote to be borderline. Borderline votes are ruled as sufficient.
"To award argument points, the voter must:
(1) survey the main argument and counterargument 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."
This vote accomplishes the first two points well enough, but the 3rd point is missing.
I didn't just do that, I even attacked the amoral god as well saying how it can't exist outside of 'everything' it creates. He never once addressed me on that.
you didnt see the vote
>> How the fuck can you allow that RFD from seldiora?!
You may want to cool down. Votes get posted, and then IF reported get reviewed. They are by default allowed from any member in good standing.
don't vote if you didn't read the debate
hol up a sec, I'm re-reading the debate. Con's stance is a bit slick to examine in detail.
You just deleted your vote and voted for me while your RFD supports Con.
What do you mean run out of ideas? I did not forfeit the last round.
How the fuck can you allow that RFD from seldiora?!
"While Pro is ditching his religion and the God he believes in, in order to assert a God that doesn't judge people or care about morality, in order to win this debate "
I meant Con but technically both sides are doing this.
I linked merriam.webster as the source but the definition was Cambridge's I will fix this error next Round.
That isn't proof of god and I believe in god. The anseer to your question innthis debate will be
that it 0% proves god.
Comment below is intended for you. I thought Pendragon was the atheist.
If God doesn't exist, then how come the solar system is flat as opposed to being shaped like an atom?
Agnosticism imo is an invalid position. If im unsure of his existence, then i currently do not believe in his existence. If not sure if i can score a goal, than at the moment i do not know that i can score that goal. Its a yes or no question, there is no in between.
Zeus can take many physical forms, anything from animals to light. You can go to mount opympus and he can be there, and you will never know.
If absense of evidence is evidence of absence, does that mean black holes and those wierd fish near hydrothermal vents didnt exist before we found the evidence? No, they exist independent of our evidence. Absense of evidence is evidence of absense of evidence, and nothing else.
Even in fantasy lands where fairies exist, they are rarely seen by people and actively avoid them. Do we know what kind of skeletons they leave or do they simple disintegrate into pixie dust? Perhaps they were visitors from another dimention and exist elsewhere in the universe. Its all guesswork, but the point is *proving* nonexistence is impossible. You can declare something doesnt exist in a specific point of space, like between earth and venus, but that doesnt mean it doesnt exist elsewhere.
Your argument about "no evidence of fairies means ita silly to believe in them" is completely opposite of "if you cant disprove god you must believe in him." I mean i cant disprove any god exists, whether its the christian god or the hindu gods. Should i believe in all of them at once even tho only 1 god and many gods is completely contradictory? You cant disprove fairies, so you must believe in fairies! That is very silly.
I disagree that according to the myths Zeus doesn’t have a physical form, but obviously, one could amend their hypothesis and say Zeus is non-physical, sure. But that’s my point: as hypotheses become more and more as hoc, they because less and less likely to be the best explanation of the evidence (in this case, lightning, various calamities sometimes claimed to be wrought by the gods, etc). Moreover, absence of evidence IS evidence of absence of something, when we should expect that thing to leave traces if it existed. For example, the absence of evidence for a planet between Venus and the Earth is pretty good evidence that there is no such planet. Do you really think we have no reason to believe that elves and fairies don’t exist? That’s silly. If there were little flying people or immortal people with pointy ears out there on planet Earth (depending on how you define “Elf”), we would expect to find traces of them: either direct observations of them, or little fairy skeletons, etc. That we do not find these traces is pretty strong evidence that elves and fairies don’t exist.
And even if I grant that you can’t disprove that God exists, then you shouldn’t be an atheist, because claiming that God does not exist goes beyond what you have said you can prove! If there is no way to show that God does not exist, then only agnosticism about his existence could ever be justified.
In case you didnt realize, zeus is a god and not usually in physical form. He has entered places in the form of literally a stream of light. If he doesnt want to be seen by a mortal like you, he wont.
Even if we take a step away from divine beings. Can you prove that elves or fairies dont exist?
Yes! We can go to Mount Olympus, and lo and behold, there is no collection of gods waiting for us. Moreover, scientific explanations of lighting are more powerful explanations than appeal to Zeus. Those two facts undermine the “Zeus hypothesis.” Of course, one can always make a hypothesis more as hoc to explain the data, but that applies to any hypothesis or explanation, not just religious ones.
Can you prove that Zeus doesn't exist?