Instigator / Con
1504
rating
10
debates
65.0%
won
Topic
#5863
God exists.
Status
Debating
Waiting for the next argument from the instigator.
Round will be automatically forfeited in:
00
DD
:
00
HH
:
00
MM
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00
SS
Parameters
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Standard
- Number of rounds
- 4
- Time for argument
- Two weeks
- Max argument characters
- 8,192
- Voting period
- Two months
- Point system
- Winner selection
- Voting system
- Open
Contender / Pro
1500
rating
2
debates
50.0%
won
Description
The burden of proof is shared.
Definitions:
God: Deity of classical theism. Omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent.
Exists: Exists as an actual entity in reality, not only as a mere concept in someone's brain or something.
Round 1
1. Prior probability.
The God of classical theism has quite a few properties and elements, therefore their existence is a very specific hypothesis. Thus, due to Occam's Razor, we should assign a low prior probability to their existence.
2. Argument against libertarian free will.
VOTERS, BEFORE READING, PLEASE CHECK THE BEGINNING OF PRO'S R1 RESPONSE TO THIS TO SEE IF THIS IS EVEN IMPORTANT. They could be a compatibilist or something, in which case this argument would be entirely useless.
Much of muslim theology (particularly the punitive punishments and philosophies behind what people deserve what) seems dependent on the existence of free will (defined as that which is sufficient to justify moral responsibility), and generally Muslims are metaphysical libertarians, so at first I will attempt to refute the relevant forms of libertarian free will.
P1. If the probability of an event is 0% or 100%, it is entirely determined to occur or not occur.
P2. If the probability of an event is between 0% and 100%, we can break the probability down into a deterministic part and a random part. (By saying that it's entirely determined to have the particular probability that it does, and that it's entirely random what the actual outcome will be within that probability.)
P3. Given premises 1 and 2, every event must be entirely made up of random and/or deterministic part(s).
P4. No one can have control over anything without in some way having some causal influence over it.
P5. It is impossible to have causal influence over anything entirely random. (If you have causal influence over it, it must be partially determined by you. Something partially determined cannot be entirely random.)
P6. Given premises 4 and 5, for any given event's random part(s) (if it has any), we cannot have control over them.
P7. For anything that can fairly be called a human choice, the human must consciously decide it.
P8. All human conscious decisions are largely caused by underlying mental processes.
P9. Given premise 3, All events in human mental processes must be entirely made up of random and/or deterministic components.
P10. Given premise 6, humans cannot have control over the random components of the events in their mental processes.
P11. Given premises 7-10, whatever ultimate control a human has over a choice must be from their control over the deterministic components of the events in their mental processes that contributed to that choice.
P12. Given premises 7 and 8, more than a small group of irreducible mental processes would have to be used for a human to control what the deterministic components of a small group of irreducible mental processes would do. (So multiple choices would have to be used to control a portion of what contributed to a given choice, requiring an infinite regress.)
P13. It is very unlikely that we have an infinite past of somehow controlling infinite choices. (Because it is such a specific and unsupported hypothesis, and Occam's Razor.)
Conclusion. Given premises 11-13, it is very likely that every human's choices are all entirely caused by things ultimately outside of their control.
Alright! I made it in time! Yay! I am sorry for getting this out late (but I did it at least!), let us have a great conversation!
To start of, as far as I am concerned, I must prove at least one variation of god to be true for my arguments to stand. I will stand by the Islam god "Allah" to keep things in one angle (there's like 4000 variation...Maybe more). I will respond to your points first, let's get into it!
for Prior probability:
As far as I understand your point, god as a notion doesn't have a high probability to exist since he is a complex notion? Alright, lot to unpack here:
1- following this principle, I believe I should state something now rather than later. The point I want to base this statement on is that as far as the important aspects of a notion simple, the complexity of the details is irrelevant. To not confuse things, let us get an example. I have a sewer problem, two people come to me, both have equally efficient solutions. The first however, has a complex solution, he can't even explain the solution itself to me, the other, has a simple solution, and an easy way to explain how it functions. Even if his solution has too many mechanics, or has some secondary aspects that are beyond my understanding, I think we both know who will I choose. I know I am bad at examples, I hope you understood my point. What I'm trying to get at is, as far as the basics are simple, there is no need to judge the complexities of the notion. since this is established now, allow me to explain Islam's perspective. Allah is uncreated because he is the one who made the "creation" as a notion, thus won't be subject to it. He made everything, he is the most mighty, and nothing is like him. Why are we here? Well, your second point is set to disprove this, but I'll go into it later. As an answer, Allah gave humans free will, and put them into a test that is this life, you do good, you go to heaven, you do bad, you go to hell. Sound straightforward to me, answers most basic questions, and is simple enough to be understood by all ages. I'm going to leave it here, since you didn't give a possible hypostasis that doesn't take god in it's reality equation
2-this is more a problem I noticed while writing the first point, but, the notions of simplicity and complexity are....Subjective. I may find a question to be simple, while you find it complex. We truly don't have a standard to what something should be to be called "simple". Is it less rules? less interconnection? less redability? it's up to the person. And with a lack of an objective perspective. I now find this point of yours to be weak since it is more based on an understanding and interpretation of yours rather than a real world aspect we could use (or I totally misunderstood your entire argument, you tell me, I am sorry if this is the case). For all that matters, Occam's razor isn't a good argument since it should be based on collective agreement rather than individual. At least to the best of my understanding.
for Argument against libertarian free will:
for this point, I should perhaps make my position clear. I did state before I'm a Muslim. Thus, I will argue this point from the Muslim perspective. I'm firstly obliged to...Well...Explain it. Islam is, as far is my research on both compatibilism and libertarianism, kind of a mix of the two. You see, in Islam, nothing is random. Any circumstances you find yourself in are pre-determined. Allah made a test for every human that made it to the age to be judged (a rich man 's test for example is whether he will to Allah's orders and be generous or fall to greed). Every situation a human finds themself in, every catastrophe, every problem...These are all decided already by Allah, nothing is up to chance. In Islam, we have something called "the Tablet of Decress (Luahu ‘l-Mahfuz)", this is basically where everything is stored, everything that happened, is happening, and will happen. So, Allah knows and directs for every aspect of the world we inhabit, nothing is random then. The other side of the coin is, humans do have free will. This is why I said it's a mix. You see, Allah knows everything about you, your thoughts, your actions, you simply can't surprise him. He already knows everything from your first to last breath. The only difference between you and other aspects of the world is that Allah didn't decide your actions for you, he just knows you'll do them. So, to make it simple, in Islam, your circumstances are already decided for you, the way you react to them is what's yours to decide. the event where you get kicked out of your job is something Allah decided for you, it's pre-determined, what you'll do after that is totally your choice, Allah knows what'll happen, but he don't decide it for you. So, you get judged only in what you did, because Allah don't interfere in that. I believe right here, I should call the distinction. Your brain in Islam had the same status as your hand or tongue, it's an organ, it doesn't decide for you. In Islam, we have something called soul and something called self. They aren't the same thing, but are usually used together, so I'll stick to self since it is the most accurate (if you'd like, I can discuss this in more details later on). Your body, alongside your brain, are all just instruments for your self. Your self is what will be judged, thus, attributing choices to the brain is not true in Islam, your brain is simply something your self use, it won't be judged. I'll also argue against relying on the brain as an answer to the question of who choose, since we don't understand the brain functions fully to assume how they're made and how they differ. there are many ambiguous aspects of the brain, you and your brother came from the same womb, have the same brain composition the same organ, yet will both exhibit different actions, you won't be the same despite technically having the same brain (I hope you got my point, I can explain it further if you'd like). That was a lot of explaining, let me take a look at your points:
P 1, 2, 3 : the probability is only initiated by human's lack of knowledge. Allah had decided everything, so everything that happens already had a 100% chance of happening since it was decided by Allah
P 4, 5,6: All events are pre-determined by Allah, in this case , your actions don't change the course of events, they only change the angle on how they are perceived (if your sick mother is destined to die on said date, your choice to care for her or not is not going to change the date of her death, it's only going to change how you and others are going to see her death, and is going to play a role in your deeds) your actions then don't change an event unless Allah chooses so. I guess I agree with this point in a way then?
P 7,8,9,10,11: I went through this before, as far as science can't disprove the existence of a soul or a self, then I can simply say the brain is simply an instrument to the self rather than an individual mastermind. This goes by the principle that everything is correct unless proved to be wrong
P 12,13: with Allah in the equation, only one outcome can occur, the human reaction, while unexpected to us, is expected by Allah, taking some root from this point.
And I did it! I made it in time! Sorry for taking so long. Your arguments were interesting! And I had fun searching some new concept! I hope I answered your points well, if not, feel free to share my mistakes!, I am still new to debating, so please don't take my mistakes for any hidden intentions. I hope you enjoyed reading this!
One last thing before closing , everything I stated before does not mean Allah can't change things, he is able to do as he please after all, and he can change your fate. He won't control your actions because that makes judging you unfair, and Allah is just. He knows more than we do, and he does as he please
Round 2
Prior probability and Occam's Razor:
As far as I understand your point, god as a notion doesn't have a high probability to exist since he is a complex notion?
A prior probability is a probability attributed to a hypothesis before some evidence is taken into account. In this case I intended for the evidence in question to be arguments in favor and against God's existence that don't involve complexity. In other words, my claim is equivalent to saying that: before we account for other arguments, based solely on the complexity of the hypothesis, we should initially place the probability that God exists somewhere below 50%. Maybe not very far below, but just enough that in the absence of any substantial evidence for His existence, we should believe that He does not exist.
1. The complexity of a hypothesis and its relevance to the prior probability.
The reasoning behind Occam's Razor that I use is that for virtually any given phenomenon, there are exponentially more specific hypotheses than there are non-specific hypotheses, at any scale of specificity. For example if we have a square, we might believe that it was built using two rectangles, or two triangles. Then, for both of those hypotheses, we can propose various hypotheses for how those shapes came to be, and so on. We can build and build onto a hypothesis, but the number of competing hypotheses at a given "complexity" (as in number of irreducible elements) grows greater and greater as the "complexity" increases. "Simpler" (as in having less irreducible elements) hypotheses which only include the first step encapsulate many specific hypotheses, and are thus more probable than any individual specific hypothesis it encapsulates, unless there is only one more specific hypothesis available. In the absence of evidence, no hypothesis is more substantiated than any other. Thus in the absence of non-Occam's Razor evidence, simpler hypotheses (which must be true under more overall hypotheses) are more likely.
With that explanation in mind, I am happy to concede that some specific hypotheses are accurate despite having a much less lower prior probability than a mutually exclusive simpler hypothesis. The sewer example may fit this description, and there are a vast number of other examples, so going off of the prior probability alone is generally a terrible practice. I only argue that it is a small bit of evidence based on the fact that the classical God is a hypothesis with more elements than the lack of the classical God, since both the lack of God altogether and the existence of god(s) that lack classical properties are competing hypotheses.
2. The notions of simplicity and complexity are....Subjective.
I should have clarified that (as far as I'm aware) in the context of Occam's Razor, "complexity" and "simplicity" refer to the number of irreducible elements, not anything subjective. "Elements" is a pretty vague term and I'm not sure exactly how to define it, but I think the above sections explain the general reasoning I'm getting at regardless.
Free will
Since we're still working this out in DMs, I'm going to largely leave this for next round. But to address a couple misunderstandings:
- I meant to use "mental" in a broad sense, encompassing whatever we can fairly call "us" that contributes to our decisions. This should be compatible with souls.
- That we don't fully understand something does not at all preclude it from being a fantastic answer to a given question. Thus our lack of fully knowing how the brain works does not preclude it from being a good answer to "who chooses".
[...] there are many ambiguous aspects of the brain, you and your brother came from the same womb, have the same brain composition the same organ, yet will both exhibit different actions, you won't be the same despite technically having the same brain [...]
This demonstrates either a lapse in reasoning on this matter or severe ignorance on how neural networks function, in fact how systems in general (biological or otherwise) function. Sharing the same fundamental composition (in any sense relevant to the point you made) does not at all determine something to function the same way or exhibit very similar or exact behaviors. Think of all the many different functionalities that have been achieved via engines and gears, we would never assume that such machines would all serve the same purpose or behave in the same way based only on the facts that they are made up of the same components and come from the same place. And in fact we understand a good bit about how neural networks work and it's quite obvious that all human brains are massive neural networks. Despite being made up of the same fundamental components, emergent complexity and the analog logic gates that neurons essentially act as allow for very dynamic possibilities with minor differences, as AI has been proving more and more in recent years. And human brains tend to have much more than merely minor differences in structures in their neural networks. No human has exactly the same brain as any other in any sense relevant to the kind of behaviors we could expect the brain to produce, that is statistically impossible given all the very-difficult-to-control ways that different neural structures can form in the brain.
Other
Why are we here?
My answer isn't going to be anything unusual, perhaps there was some unconscious entity that somehow put the fundamental rules of the universe in place, or perhaps the fundamental rules were always there and something kickstarted the spacetime reality we're familiar with. Either way, once things started, I propose that things like emergent complexity, abiogenesis, evolution and so on caused us to be here. We can get more specific later on, but its a safe bet that my perspective aligns with the majority of atheists' on the matter of human origins.
Well, guess I am simply horrible for treating topics early:) . with that being said, I am just proud to deliver something within deadline, so let's start!
regarding low probability:
I beg to differ, saying "god is complex" is a very vague statement. I'll say that believing a complex universe was created by a more complex god is easier to absorb than believing that the universe came by chance, since the latter explanation grants more questions than answers. To grand something a low probability(I suppose, that's my view) is not too important if it's higher than it's peers. If everything has a probability chance of under 50%, than a preposition having 45% suddenly becomes the most probable. I find the problem with this point is how it doesn't specify if a hypothesis other than god's(Allah's) existence is more probable, and if so, why?
regarding point one:
sooo, I believe there is no dispute between us since you conceded the point? I believe based on your wording that you believe god to be an axiom(something we can't prove true just as we can't prove wrong). in such case, we just need to observe around us to conclude which outcome is more logical. I don't know, you correct me if I argued something wrong here.
regarding point two:
I am also unaware of Occam's Razor, you are the first person to mention it to me, so I can't state anything with confidence. Yet still, you didn't tell me why would God(Allah for me) have too many irreducible elements for him to count as complex, I believe I already demonstrated the opposite the last round, so I will leave this point too for the lack of demonstration (or because I am too stupid to find one, either you'd like to interpret)
regarding free will:
yeah....I'll also leave this can of worms to the 3rd round, still need some time in DMs. but for now, I'll prefer to go over a few points:
- is this an agreement from you that the soul is what determine our actions? because as far as I am aware, in Islam, your soul is like the CPU of your brain, it's what separates us from other animals. And also where all our evolving capacities(what made us this society from cave man time)is registered. so, I 'don't know, this is what I understood at least. You may correct me, for the worst thing for me is to misunderstand my opponent
- If you're going by this logic, than a lot of this debate differs, what stops me from saying that the soul is what determines the actions and is what causes the stimulations of the brain? The soul isn't understood fully, but that doesn't stop it from being a fantastic answer!(I don't imply maliciousness here, I just wanted to give an example)
regarding my point (the quote):
I believe I was the one who worded the argument poorly here. I simply begged the why question in those two lines. For me, no matter how complex, your brain is under the same category as your hand, they're both organs. I didn't speak against the diversity of brains between different humans. I just simply asked, why do that happen, it's almost impossible to find two identical brains in function(despite always having the same origin and biological structure), the same can't be said about the hand. This is why I don't like when people attribute determinism to the biological reactions of the brain since both brain's neurons will do the same actions in both brains, so why would there be a difference on the terms of actions? What I am arguing for here is that there is another force at play, one that monitors and uses the brain just as it uses the hand. I was essentially hinting at the soul
other:
god as an axiom:
I believe in broader philosophy, god in general is viewed as an axiom(something that has no strong evidence to solidify or reject it's existence, 50% for each side I'll say) I will leave this for later, I just wanted to mention it here.
why are we here?:
I believe everything serves a purpose, and that any creation had a beginning, will have an end, and has a creator. I find Islam's narrative to be the most logical, everything you go through in life is a test, your actions do have consequences, you serve a purpose, your existence isn't an accident.
and I am done! finally.....
Round 3
Occam's Razor and the origins of the universe.
saying "god is complex" is a very vague statement.
This should no longer be a problem, since I explained at length what I meant by it and how it's relevant.
The complexity involved in the atheist's hypothesis for the origins of the universe.
I'll say that believing a complex universe was created by a more complex god is easier to absorb than believing that the universe came by chance, since the latter explanation grants more questions than answers.
If by "the universe came by chance" you mean something like "the universe as we know it started with a lot of fundamental things in a very small, hot place that, via an extreme case of emergent complexity, caused the complex universe we see."
Then I disagree that a complex God has a higher prior probability. Unless you argue that the universe started only some thousands of years ago instead of billions, under either hypothesis we know that virtually everything around us arose via emergent complexity. So the difference is really about what most likely caused the initial conditions, which were very simple.
The complexity of the universe really only emerges much later, using a very simple set of laws of physics underlying everything. This is not very surprising, given the number of elements at play, because emergent complexity very often occurs given enough elements and rules that do not immediately lead to some simple repeating pattern or complete destruction (the most famous artificial example probably being Conway's Game of Life). And such rules could be non-contingent or have arisen by chance in a multiverse (for which the anthropic principle can explain why we happen to be in the universe that lead to such complexity).
And I don't see how a hypothesis causing more questions than answers is a substantial sign that the hypothesis is wrong, when involving something as complex, fundamental and difficult to test/measure as the universe. On the contrary I think a hypothesis on the matter that claims to give more answers than questions should be held under greater scrutiny, since it would generally involve a more specific claims with more required elements to be true, as the God hypothesis does (more on that later).
To [grant] something a low probability(I suppose, that's my view) is not too important if it's higher than it's peers. [...] I find the problem with this point is how it doesn't specify if a hypothesis other than god's(Allah's) existence is more probable, and if so, why?
This is true, which is why I provided the argument against libertarian free will alongside Occam's Razor.
I conceded the point about Occam's Razor?
sooo, I believe there is no dispute between us since you conceded the point [about "the complexity of a hypothesis and its relevance to the prior probability"]?
No. I conceded that Occam's Razor gives a prior probability rather than a certain declaration of truth:
I am happy to concede that some specific hypotheses are accurate despite having a much [lower] prior probability than a mutually exclusive simpler hypothesis.
But I did not concede that Occam's Razor cannot be used as evidence, which was the main point.
God is an axiom?
I believe based on your wording that you believe god to be an axiom(something we can't prove true just as we can't prove wrong).
That isn't the definition of "axiom" that I use, but using that definition, maybe. It depends whether you meant "can't" in a logical sense or "can't" in a practical sense. And how you're defining "prove".
If by "prove" you mean "logically prove" such that it's impossible for it to be false, then I think it's unlikely that we'll ever be able to prove that God exists or doesn't exist for practical reasons, but I don't claim to be able to show that it's logically impossible to prove one way or the other.
If by "prove" you mean "show to be very, very likely", then I think it's possible to prove that God does not exist. But I probably won't attempt it here because I don't think it's necessary and I'm not sure I could do it.
in such case, we just need to observe around us to conclude which outcome is more logical.
Either way I agree with everything here past the comma.
Why is God complex?
you didn't tell me why would God(Allah for me) have too many irreducible elements for him to count as complex
I don't think one could have too many irreducible elements to count as complex, so assuming you meant "simple" instead of "complex", I will provide this explanation now.
As far as I'm aware, the kind of rationality that God is said to have requires very specific kinds of mechanisms. For example mechanisms dedicated to:
- Breaking down specific data to broad, abstract data.
- Using broad, abstract data and goals to calculate what the best approach to the situation would be.
- Performing intermediary steps for the above processes.
Such mechanisms require the equivalent of at least many millions of logic gates fit together in a certain way to function properly.
This wouldn't be so bad if there was an explanation for it such as "there was a very simple species that evolved over a very long timespan to eventually have these mechanisms in order to better survive", because then we could have a relatively simple hypothesis that leads to a complex outcome (defining "simple" and "complex", like before, the number of irreducible elements). But Islam (like most religions) rejects such hypotheses for God.
So we're left with a hypothesis that such a specific collection of mechanisms always existed or directly began to exist from a set of necessary events, or something like that. Such a hypothesis must specify the organization of the equivalent of millions (if not exponentially more) logic gates, without many repeatable patterns or anything like that. So the hypothesis must be incredibly complex and specific.
Souls
is this an agreement from you that the soul is what determine our actions?
No. I'm only making my argument work with souls to attempt to show that, even with souls, some properties of Abrahamic religions most likely aren't compatible with each other.
[By that logic], what stops me from saying that the soul is what determines the actions and is what causes the stimulations of the brain? The soul isn't understood fully, but that doesn't stop it from being a fantastic answer!
I agree, that the soul isn't fully understood doesn't stop it from being a fantastic answer. The difference between souls and brains in this case is how much evidence we have for how they work (and for whether they exist).
- We can easily demonstrate that brains exist.
- We can easily demonstrate that brains cause our behaviors, even if we don't always understand exactly how.
- We can pretty easily demonstrate how large portions of the brain operate at a high level. And how neurons, when combined in large numbers with the right training, are able to support the kind of complex behaviors we see humans perform.
- AIs, using the same fundamentals (neurons) and often similar methods to train (changing the strength of neurons and/or synapses in accordance with training results using something like backpropagation.), are able to perform seemingly pretty intelligent behaviors, even with major handicaps like far less neurons and bad (for general reasoning) model designs like LLMs. And any consistent outside influence of a soul would easily be seen in most AIs, so we know no souls are involved there.
In contrast, for souls:
- It's either extremely difficult to demonstrate the existence of souls, or they don't exist.
- In all the millions of hours in total spent studying human brains and brain activity, we appear to have no repeatable observation of any part of the brain having unexplainable neuron activations, deactivations, synapse changes, etc. It always seems to follow a neuron-to-neuron cause-and-effect chain. If there were souls heavily influencing our behaviors, we would expect the opposite unless God is really carefully hiding it: lots of repeatable observations of very strange neuron behaviors in specific parts of the brain (such as the prefrontal cortex).
Bonus
Well, guess I am simply horrible for treating topics early:)
I don't think you're under any obligation to wait.
my apologies, for the sake fact of some personal problems, I can not respond to the claims of this round in time. I hope you could understand
Round 4
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