1492
rating
15
debates
50.0%
won
Topic
#4988
The Existence of "God"
Status
Finished
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
Winner & statistics
After not so many votes...
It's a tie!
Parameters
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Standard
- Number of rounds
- 5
- Time for argument
- Two days
- Max argument characters
- 10,000
- Voting period
- Six months
- Point system
- Multiple criterions
- Voting system
- Open
1420
rating
395
debates
43.8%
won
Description
In this debate I will argue for the existence of a God. The God I am arguing for is not constrained to any one religion, rather it is an all-encompassing God, the archetype, if you will.
Any argument is acceptable, including personal opinion.
This debate is open to any contender willing to argue that God does not exist.
Round 1
I would like to begin by thanking Mall for participating.
God has been a matter of debate in all walks of life, across all of recorded history.
To open my argument; I will define God.
God is the very fabric of the Universe. God is the particles that make an apple, and God is the black hole that roams through the void. God is the void, the light shining from the stars, and every subatomic particle in-between. There is no qualia that isn't God.
There is nothing observed or unobserved that isn't God. God is the universe, the laws that govern it, and the beings within it.
I am not arguing for an Abrahamic God, nor am I arguing for any of the Gods as defined previously by any religion, monotheistic or polytheistic. I am arguing for the God that all of these Gods attempt to encompass. Any worship of any God is worship to Universe, and thus, all Gods are the same God at their core, as we are all God at our core.
God is the reason for why things are the way they are. Why does fire burn? One can use science to reduce this to simple chemistry, but the truth is that it simply is that way. Understanding that something does something does not explain why. The answer as to why fire burns is God.
God is the total and the minutiae of all things that have been, haven't been, will be, and will never be. God is the fundamental reason everything, and nothing, exists.
God isn't a puffy bearded man in the clouds, and Heaven, Valhalla, Paradise, isn't a place atop the clouds. Hel, Helheim, The Underworld isn't a fiery pit. God is the Universe and all within and without it. To deny the existence of God is the same as denying your own existence. Heaven and Hell are mindstates. Heaven is being as one with the Universe and the beings within it. In a human body this is described as euphoria, joy, and pleasure. Hell is being against the Universe and those within it. In a human body this is described as misery, pain, and torture.
The judgement of God is you judging your own actions. To be free, one must simply forgive themselves. God is every emotion, every sensation, every word. God encompasses everything from the Highest Good to Worst Evil imaginable.
Imagine you are a being of nothing and everything. You know all possibilities, all outcomes, all experiences that could ever be had. This is the basis of all creation and lack of. To be happy as an omniscient being one must be okay with doing nothing, as there is nothing to do when you are everything. It would be quite a boring existence to only experience the Universe from an omniscient perspective. For this reason, God populates itself, the Universe with everything, which God can then experience at a personal level. God can be an ant, God can live as an evil human, God can live as a caretaker, a priest, a common man.
God, existence, the Universe, at its highest vibrational state is in a quantum state of being and not being. Infinitely, timelessly, endlessly vibrating back and forth from omniscience of all to lack of self awareness as a particle. While God is in the omniscient state, it knows itself to be everything within itself, including the unaware particles, the overload of being hyper aware thrusts God through every state of being instantly, creating a populace ranging from completely unaware of its own existence, to those with an idea of their existence as God, to those who know but can't do anything but preach about it and make assumptions due to their limitations in this form.
God is always experiencing everything simultaneously and experiencing nothing at all forever. This is the basis of our reality. If you look closely enough, you'll see yourself reflected back in everything.
I myself am God, and so are You.
There's no escape from God, and to try to escape God is to escape yourself.
Simply put, it is what it is. We are all as one. We are the way, the light, the dark. We are the criminal and the victim. We learn from ourself. Tat tvam asi.
The world is a mirror, from which we can see our nature. The world is a sandbox, existing only relative to our perception of it. Nothing is as it seems, and everything is exactly as it is.
"Turtles, all the way down"
"God is the very fabric of the Universe. God is the particles that make an apple, and God is the black hole that roams through the void. God is the void, the light shining from the stars, and every subatomic particle in-between. There is no qualia that isn't God."
So this is supposed to be a pantheistic God where everything in our reality is what you're particularly calling it. Is that right?
Now I'm supposed to be the negative position. I'm to challenge you to prove that God exists.
Based on the definition of God you're electing to use, can you prove this reality is actually real?
Round 2
I don't need to prove that reality is real.
Even if it isn't "real" we are operating within it.
All that I can do is experience the qualia presented to me.
Barring the term real, this simply is. I am experiencing qualia. And if I'm not, well, I've got a very good imagination.
And if the imagination is so good that is indistinguishable from reality, then imagination itself is real as well.
Taking the position of God, operating from a quantum state of everything and nothing, it's all equally real and not real. Regardless of how you define it, it is experience.
"I don't need to prove that reality is real. "
Oh then you're evading your burden and thus forfeiting the debate.
Let me take you back to what you said regarding reality.
"God is always experiencing everything simultaneously and experiencing nothing at all forever. This is the basis of our reality. "
This is what our reality is based on according to this statement. The experiencing of things which we call real and you particularly call God. So now I'm asking you to prove the reality actually is real. Pretty much still saying prove God.
See people that just redefine God or relabel reality as God think they've hit the ultimate irrefutable position. They're so confident in their self proclaimed or claimed justification that they hit the fallacy of invincible ignorance dismissing all challenges thereafter.
But this is about your proof for God. So prove God(reality) is indeed real.
"Even if it isn't "real" we are operating within it."
Lookey there. Even you don't know this reality is real. So you don't have evidence that it is. What is your argument based on?
"Barring the term real, this simply is. I am experiencing qualia. And if I'm not, well, I've got a very good imagination.
And if the imagination is so good that is indistinguishable from reality, then imagination itself is real as well.
Taking the position of God, operating from a quantum state of everything and nothing, it's all equally real and not real. Regardless of how you define it, it is experience."
Well don't stretch into ad hoc statements. Be careful of that because you defined God as reality, the universe, everything in it as real . You didn't define God as simply an experience or imagination but reality. It's one or the other. You already made so many claims basically communicating everything woven and interconnected.
This is why I'm asking what your argument is based on to get clarity on the direction this debate is supposed to go. Are we going in the direction of facts or not?
There's no such thing as debating opinions. There's no debate over you liking mustard and my personal taste and views on ketchup. To each its own.
What is your argument based on?
Round 3
Forfeited
Oh I rest my case. Is the debate over already?
Round 4
My apologies, I've been quite busy.
Reality can be defined as that which can be experienced.
Every explanation must be based on a fundamental axiom.
The fundamental axiom for all explanations, is reality is real, or experiential.
Within experience, reality, there are different realms of experience. Imagination is within the mental experience, and the material world is within the physical experience.
The material world and mental world can only be understood relative to each other.
God is not simply an experience, an imagination, a singular object, or the lack thereof.
God is every experience, every imagination, every particle. Reality is God.
There is no way to provide further evidence for the existence of reality than you've already been provided. You're alive.
It's the fundamental axiom upon which all understandings are based.
Everything is interconnected energy.
Oh the opposing side is back.
You said "Reality can be defined as that which can be experienced."
Is the experience real?
"The fundamental axiom for all explanations, is reality is real, or experiential. "
Is this saying that it's a given that reality actually is what it is?
"There is no way to provide further evidence for the existence of reality than you've already been provided. You're alive."
Are you saying you can't prove reality is ?
I'm asking all these questions to try to get substantiation. I'm not really getting much information from you or elaboration.
It seems like the basic communication I'm getting from you is reality is as real as for what it is to us. Which is no way demonstrating that it is actually what it is.
You didn't even answer my question of what your argument is based on. Just to say something is a fundamental axiom, well why?
Is it just because it's an accepted axiom that's understood? Well that's circular.
See no matter how you or we define God, we still can't get down to the bottom of this with any kind of proof.
Round 5
If existence isn't proof enough for existing, then this debate is pointless.
Not only is this debate pointless, the language we're using means nothing.
If we have no proof of existing, then our conceptions of language mean nothing.
Consciousness is nothing if not for the realm which it operates within.
Honestly, I'm less interested in a debate of proving the other wrong, and more a conversation of why things are the way they are.
An argument of semantics on the broadest term of reality will go literally nowhere.
Reality is what we're experiencing, why? Because reality is the English term that people have attributed to the overarching everything which all exists within.
Can I prove reality is real? No. No one can.
On that note, all science that's ever been done means nothing. All things that humans have ever done, recorded, studied, advancements made, mean nothing. Because the only proof we have of them existing is the belief that they do. There is no proof that fire burns, only observations of how it does. It just does. There is no proof that water is a liquid, it simply is. Any proofs of anything are only held in relation to another observation. For any thing to be true, one must accept that something else is also true. Challenging what we know to be true is how we make progress, and find more understanding. But we can only challenge what we know because we learned it by trusting a prior observation. Without input, there is no output.
That's the only thing people have to have faith in for reality to work. They don't have to have faith that man in the clouds wants them to repent their sins.
They don't have to believe that a miracle will solve all their troubles.
To do literally anything meaningful in this world, it requires belief, faith, in the information you have available regarding the past, in the qualia you can experience in the present, and in the possibility of a tomorrow.
That which we're experiencing. The fundamental belief which this world runs in is belief, faith, in itself, in its own existence. Self-sufficient, self-sustaining.
There is no proof for anything. That's where faith comes in.
The fact that you can have this conversation shows that you have faith in your own existence. If you didn't believe you existed, you'd exist in constant psychosis.
Perhaps you or I are in a psychosis, hallucinating all of this. Who knows? We can only go off of what we can observe.
Good debate, Mall. There's much more to be said on this topic, but it essentially boils down to "Can you prove reality exists?"
It's already existing. What other proof does one need? And if it's not existing, any proof of it, accepted or not, would be equally non-existent, thus making any attempt to prove reality as real moot.
Either it exists or it doesn't. I see reality as both existing and not existing. Quantum existence. How can I prove that? I can't. The same way literally nothing can be proven, only agreements within qualia about the interpretation of qualia.
"If existence isn't proof enough for existing, then this debate is pointless."
This is circular. The proof that existence is real is that it exists.
Well nobody seems to be able to prove we're not in a false reality. At least admit you can't.
"Not only is this debate pointless, the language we're using means nothing. "
It is pointless as you were meant to prove that God exist or in direct basic terms, prove that reality actually is.
"If we have no proof of existing, then our conceptions of language mean nothing."
Unless you actually prove it. This is coming off as just giving up. Just throwing your hands up not knowing what to do. Well indirectly it's pretty much what you're communicating.
"Can I prove reality is real? No. No one can. "
I appreciate you stepping up to concede and doing that. So many do not do that.
"All things that humans have ever done, recorded, studied, advancements made, mean nothing."
Well you have no proof of this. So this has to be proven something means nothing. Just because you haven't proven reality actually is doesn't automatically mean it actually is not.
"Because the only proof we have of them existing is the belief that they do. "
Having a belief is not proof of an existence.
"There is no proof that fire burns, only observations of how it does. It just does. There is no proof that water is a liquid, it simply is. Any proofs of anything are only held in relation to another observation. For any thing to be true, one must accept that something else is also true."
Where's the proof for all of this ? You're going from one extreme to the other.
"That's the only thing people have to have faith in for reality to work. They don't have to have faith that man in the clouds wants them to repent their sins.
They don't have to believe that a miracle will solve all their troubles."
You're just continuing to claim things. This is why you got stuck on this topic you came up with. Then you say you're less interested to debate to prove anything but discuss. Why not take the little interest you have to prove something unless you're cop-ping out?
Then you're making all these other claims to try to still push justification. This is why my question wasn't answered about what your argument is based on.
This is almost like winging it. So you want to discuss opinion. Ok, I ask you how do you know what you know and basically you say "I just know". Really end of discussion. We've hit the end of the thought process.
"There is no proof for anything. That's where faith comes in.
The fact that you can have this conversation shows that you have faith in your own existence. If you didn't believe you existed, you'd exist in constant psychosis."
You say there's no proof but yet this thing of a conversation is fact.
Not very congruent. Like I say it seems like you're just winging it along at this point.
"It's already existing. What other proof does one need? And if it's not existing, any proof of it, accepted or not, would be equally non-existent, thus making any attempt to prove reality as real moot.
Either it exists or it doesn't. I see reality as both existing and not existing. Quantum existence. How can I prove that? I can't. The same way literally nothing can be proven, only agreements within qualia about the interpretation of qualia. "
Nothing can be proven so therefore validity still remains. No it just presents a clear conceding. Now you say you have less interest in proving I guess because you can't. If you could, would you be more interested?
You mentioned about pointlessness but what is the point in discussing, debating, challenging, questioning your opinion or beliefs?
"Can I prove reality is real? No. No one can. "
I appreciate you stepping up to concede .
Apologies for forfeiture, have had my schedule slam full the last few days. I will address concerns of the previous round in the next.