Instigator / Pro
7
1456
rating
28
debates
58.93%
won
Topic
#5597
Agnostics are Correct
Status
Finished
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
Winner & statistics
After 1 vote and with 4 points ahead, the winner is...
Owen_T
Parameters
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Rated
- Number of rounds
- 4
- Time for argument
- Three days
- Max argument characters
- 6,000
- Voting period
- One month
- Point system
- Multiple criterions
- Voting system
- Open
- Minimal rating
- 1,490
Contender / Con
3
1500
rating
8
debates
31.25%
won
Description
Agnostic: someone who believes that there is no way to determine the correct religion.
Round 1
If there was a way to determine what religions is the correct one, then why are there so many of them?
People have devoted their entire lives in trying to find the answer, and yet there is none. With the information available to us, it just isn't possible to know that answer.
The entire basis of agnostic ideology is that-
"Absence of evidence(of existence of a god)is not evidence of absence."
I think this statement raises some kind of epistemic problem. Like, how are we supposed to conclude the potential non-existence of something, like Santa Claus or dragons?
Agnostic people often conflate "negative observations" with "absence of evidence".
To take the Santa example - if you simply declared "I have no evidence that Santa exists, therefore he does not exist", then you would be arguing from an absence of evidence.
However, if you said "Santa is said to travel in a flying sleigh, and no radar returns consistent with such a vehicle have ever been observed" then this is not an absence of evidence. This is a hypothesis (namely, that Santa flies around the world in his sleigh) from which we can make a prediction (that the sleigh would be visible on radar) and then we make an observation that the predicted scenario does not arise.
This is a negative observation - it's not an absence of evidence, it's evidence that our hypothesis may be incorrect.
Of course, you could argue that the sleigh is magically hidden from radar by the pixie dust mixed into its paintwork, but at some point Occam's Razor kicks in and reminds you that the simplest explanation for a negative observation is that the thing you were expecting to see simply doesn't exist.
Hence agnostism's main argument is actually an argument for atheism.
Round 2
Rebuttals:
The entire basis of agnostic ideology is that-"Absence of evidence(of existence of a god)is not evidence of absence."
I don't know where you got that, but it's simply not true. The basis of agnosticism is evidence for different regions and ideologies, and all of them not having sufficient evidence to prove that they're right. Not an absence of evidence.
Take Christianity, there is evidence for the crucifixion, but enough to prove it happened.
Take Atheism, which seems logical, but still doesn't answers questions about how the universe formed.
While lack of evidence is certainly not the basis of agnosticism, that doesn't invalidate the argument completely.
I've done quite a few debates similar to this, and I have seen that there is definitely evidence in favor of religion, even if not conclusive.
If atheism is correct, it makes no sense that the big bang was able to create an organized, comprehensive universe. It doesn't explain where the original matter from the big bang came from, nor what prompted it to happen.
I accept that in the far future, we may be able to explain these things with science. In the present, however, there is no way to find answers to these questions.
"Agnostic: someone who believes that there is no way to determine the correct religion."
Note use of the word is. Not will be. With the information available to us in the present, we can't determine the correct religion.
Forfeited
Round 3
Extend
Forfeited
Round 4
extend
Forfeited
