Pro forfeited a designated segment (Rebuttal).
Had this been an open debate without designated rounds, I would've left this round to extend out of respect to Pro and the spirit of the debate.
However, by the Instigator's own settings, it's not and therefore I'll provide rebuttals to the opening statement of Pro.
Rebuttal
Pro shared two arguments in favor of atheism- both in my young academic opinion, incredibly incompatible with the modern debate of the same genre. How? Let's examine,
Rbt.1: Problem of Evil
This one has long been resolved, not disregarding the fact that the philosophical grounding of it is still under scrutiny. But the way Pro came out representing it is really immature. Pro cited sources of unfortunate and bad happenings around the world and asked for God in their justification. It is to be acknowledged that those responding to the Problem here accept wholeheartedly that there is evil in this world. But that doesn't, in any way, contradict with the existence of God- of course there are some classical theological arguments indicating that evil doesn't exist at all which I don't agree with. My premise is that having evil in the world doesn't disturb the notion of the Omnipotent God, rather solidifies His position as God in monotheistic prophetic sense.
However, since my opponent avoided engaging in any scriptural paradox, I wouldn't really propound arguments based on Biblical or Quranic postulation. But still, I'd like to point out a couple of bullets briefly from that theodicy perspective.
THEODICY
--------------
So, theodicy is something that deals with philosophical and moral justification of the evil. According to the theory, existence of the evil is totally consistent with existence of the God. There are multiple aspects to theodicy; all used to rebut against the evidential (textual) side of the allegation.
1. Skeptical Theism:
We basically use the Skeptical Theism side of theodicy where it's believed that the seen evil in the world pertains to a long term method of defying greater evil leading to greater good. Now, the plausible argument against such idea would be the "Omnipotence Paradox"- as to where is the greater good behind a murder of an innocent? And what is the greater evil that is prevented? Easy, because it is not a logical argument but an evidential one, we stick to our premise and cite our scriptures. Because a certain degree of faith is necessary to be a logical theist. I don't know of any Biblical verse (I'm not into the Bible for theism arguments; I mostly dig in for the trinity paradox) that addresses this issue but the Quran says,
"They plan and Allah (God) plans too and God is the best of planners" (Quran 8:30).
This stretch of faith in scriptures defends theodicy in an unaltered form.
2. Hidden Reasons Theodicy:
However, a more of a relatable argument in terms of theodicy considering the definition of God that we are dealing with is the hidden reasons theodicy. Because we accept God to be omnipotent, omnivolent and "all-knowing", we're readily ensuring that God is greater than us and the greatest. Therefore, our wisdom is super limited compared to God obviously, and the range of knowledge doesn't allow us to judge God in any way. So, we leave the certain bit of wisdom to God behind all the evils and we keep praying for the better. This side claims that just because the reason behind the evil is not comprehensible doesn't mean the reason doesn't exist. And it definitely makes sense for us because we believe in the God Pro just defined. For God says in the Quran,
"Surely I know whatever you don't know" (Quran 2:30)
3. Afterlife Theodicy:
Theism works around the idea of afterlife and Thomas Aquinas made sense of that while responding to the problem of evil. According to him and many contemporary philosophers of the time, the suffering and violence- every negative aspect of life is allowed for God to judge and place individuals in the everlasting heaven or hell. He went a step ahead and called the existence of heaven and heavenly treatment as the "greater good". Randy Alcorn agreed upon the idea and called afterlife to be the "Compensation" for all the evil in earthly life. However, monotheists don't really need to wait for philosophers to come up with a theory as they already go by the scriptures and the Bible (both Old and New testaments) and the Quran are riddled with hundreds of verses that describe about the actions on the face of earth and consequences in afterlife. So, I'm not specifying any quote here.
These were against the evidential versions of Problem of Evil. Now let's figure the logical aspect of it-
Free Will
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Pro addressed this response briefly and decided to avoid it as soon as possible. That's a classic problem with the problem of evil defenders- they would complain if God didn't talk about free will and they still do arguing why God doesn't intervene within the free will. The Judo-Chistianity and Islam refer compatibilism over absolute free will and that's what answers the issue of evil doing. Compatibilism dictates that we are gifted by God with a certain degree of freedom in this life to act out but that doesn't transcend the knowledge of the unseen that God possesses. The idea may sound complex but a couple of simple analogies (All analogies are flawed; using just to provide a gist) may help me here; made famous by Muslim preacher Dr. Zakir Naik-
ANALOGY 1:
Imagine you're at a junction of 3 roads- A, B, C before you. You have the freedom to choose any of the road. Now, your choosing of road C hasn't been affected by anything other than your own conscience and neither it has affected the knowledge of the God. So, committing evil out of our free will doesn't negate the fact that God knows it beforehand and God intercepting the evil would disrupt the respect of free will. Makes sense?
ANALOGY 2:
You are giving a paper and your professor predicts that you are gonna fail and on the result day, you actually did. So, will you blame the professor for your failure or take responsibility for your poor performance? Because you didn't work hard, you failed and so you can't rightfully blame the professor for merely predicting it. Now, since God is WAY GREATER than the professor or any man on earth according to the definition He definitely KNOWS (doesn't predict like the professor) the outcome but doesn't alter your free will for it. It's up to you and you only how you use that free will- either in a benevolent manner or an evil one.
That's why philosopher Boyd states that
“ people with free will decide to cause suffering and act in other evil ways. It's their choice, not of God”
Rbt.2: Naturalism is a Better Model
Pro tried to justify naturalism with some far fetched claims.
First, the scope of our universe is best explained undernaturalism.
He numbered some counts of stars and galaxies and claims that's what we'd expect under naturalism. Dig in, folks but there's nothing in the works that says that naturalism deals with the stars and galaxies.
the universe is a finely-tuned cosmic killing machine. Our very source of light and heat causes cancer, thousands of killer asteroids nearby that could wipe out life, gamma rays, supernovae, and harmful radiation can easily wipe out life.
The same universe that maintains life can't be detrimental at the same time according to pro. But my R1 Teleological Argument and Rbt 1 against Problem of Evil in combination answer Pro's assumption.
Third, under naturalism, you would expect the Earth and the universe to be billions of years old to allow sufficient time for life to evolve
This is where Pro has messed up big time. If evolution is considered, then naturalism itself is a self-defeating theory according to Alvin Plantinga and rightly so. Plantinga propounded the Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism or the EAAN that really weakens the naturalism model to its core. If you're not familiar with the theory, let me briefly plot it out-
If, E= belief in evolution, N= Naturalism and R= Mental faculties of humans are 100% reliable to contain the truth of life, then Plantinga proposes that P(R|N&E) is significantly low and inscrutable; that the probability of our independent mental faculties and functioning is low enough to grasp the idea that evolution and naturalism can walk together-
Reason
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Darwin's theory is based on natural selection and got remodeled through molecular biology in the name of random mutation. None of the processes entail that the evolving life develops a constant belief as well. To quote Darwin's doubt,
But then with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?
— Charles Darwin, to William Graham 3 July 1881
Darwin's doubt coupled with random genetic mutation made it evident that belief is not coherent with the idea of evolution at all. Evolution passes on survival functioning and behavior; not a belief system. Therefore, combining it with naturalism doesn't make any sense because our mental faculties are NOT reliable enough as proven. But that stands for some case studies.
Case 1: If we believe that P(R|N&E) is low and inscrutable, that doesn't even mean theism is the only plausible option, it just means agnosticism takes over atheism in our faculties.
Case 2: If we believe in N&E and agree that P(R|N&E) is low and inscrutable, our attitude towards R is still agnostic; not atheistic.
Case 3: If we believe in N&E and reject the idea of P(R|N&E) we still are unsure of what it holds and therefore, again, we take the agnostic approach.
Therefore, I've successfully proven that believing in N&E by Pro renders him to be an agnostic, not an atheist.
I will attach my sources in R3 due to lack of space. I apologize.
VOTE FOR CON!
For future reference, you are allowed to add your list of reference sources here in comments, but only during the debate, such as
Sources for R1:
[1] abc
[2] lmn
[3] xyz
*crisis in space
I sincerely apologize for not being able to fit in the references inside the Round but there was a serious crisis.
If my opponent wishes to, I can wire the sources in his inbox or even in the comment section, np.
Ikr, it's really dissapointing
Forfeit? Really?
Ah man, RIP David. This was a good one
Your second contention is fairly convincing, but the problem of evil isn't particularly convincing of an argument. I suppose your specific definition of god kind of helps it out, but usually we could simply conclude the god not caring of humans, irrespective of it's kindness or lack thereof.
The ultimate debate.
Is there a God?
I've created a monster, 'cause nobody wants to see Marshall no more
They want Shady, I'm chopped liver
Well if you want Shady, then this is what I'll give ya
A little bit of weed mixed with some hard liquor
oh thats weird im listening to em rn
Guess who's back, back again
Shady's back, tell a friend
Guess who's back, guess who's back?
Guess who's back, guess who's back?
Guess who's back, guess who's back?
Guess who's back?
Atheism
Which side are you debating for? I can't tell from the description.