guyz! i need your help. we have a debate this may and i’m in the affirmative side. i need to know what are the things that i need to say in order to win against the “God doesn’t exist side” or the negative side.
this debate is equivalent to a major exam so please give me some tips… thanks!
A quick search on this question here should result in lots of valuable research material for you. Try to give credit where credit is due for the arguements presented and apply your own reasoning as well. Good luck.
I hope you take your debate more seriously than your writing, but here are a few tips:
[ul]
[li]Ask them first to prove their own existence, which is a reasonable prerequisite to disproving God’s. After all, the prover must exist in order to do things like offer proofs.[/li][li]Show that personal experience is a legitimate epistemology, and then cite the experiences of those who have experienced God’s existence.[/li][li]Enumerate the many problematic difficulties with proving a negative, i.e., God doesn’t exist, and hold them to sound principles of argument.[/li][li]Review logical fallacies, and be prepared to spot them.[/li][li]Avoid ontological proofs.[/li][li]Force them to define “God”. Keep your red herring broom handy.[/li][li]Don’t get emotional. Their arguments won’t be entirely meritless. Deal with the flaws and nothing but the flaws.[/li][/ul]
Which god?
Well, Lib, I would politely suggest that he not bring it all the way back to “you can’t prove anything exists” for the purposes of this debate. That is not useful for helping prove or disprove either side, and tends to reduce all debates to soliphism or an endorsement of arbitrary assertions. (“How can you claim that boogeymen don’t exist? You can’t even prove you exist!”, “How can you claim that ghosts don’t exist? You can’t even prove you exist!”, etc. OK, fine, now we cannot argue about the existence of anything.) The rest of your suggestions are quite good, though, and I agree with Blackclaw that some research on this board would be helpful.
Okay, fair enough. Strike the first one, jhyll06.
I think you’re absolutely right to insist on reasoned debate, avoiding red herrings etc.
Unfortunately I think most of your above arguments can be used by the atheist side:
Sometimes people do things, claiming that ‘God told them to’. This is a deeply personal experience (since no-one else can hear the conversation). Presumably any resulting charitable deeds are ‘inspired by God’, while violent criminal acts are due to insanity.
I don’t think this is evidence of an Almighty Being…
As you say, it is usually difficult to prove a negative. Is there a Loch Ness monster? You’d have to drain the Loch to completely prove there wasn’t.
If God is invisible / everywhere / omnipotent, then it’s astonishingly difficult to search everywhere!
But positives are pretty easy - just find one proof. So if you can’t find ANY evidence of a theory, it’s a reasonable claim that something doesn’t exist. (Believers are welcome to keep searching).
Forcing people to define their God tends to reveal that there are a lot of significant differences, even between believers in the same religion.
Anyway, shouldn’t the side that says something exists be the one that defines it?
‘Don’t get emotional. Their arguments won’t be entirely meritless. Deal with the flaws and nothing but the flaws.’
Surely this applies more to religious believers with their passionate faith, than to people who rely on some physical evidence.
Glee:
Neither do I. But that’s not what I’m talking about. Just because God is Almighty doesn’t necessarily mean that He’s a Bull in a china shop. If His chief attribute is Love, then it seems reasonable to expect that He might inspire charity over murder. “A tree is known by its fruit.” — Jesus
I have all the evidence I need. Your mileage may vary. If God refuses to impose His will over yours, leaving yours free, why would He manifest Himself to you if you do not believe in Him?
Clearly, both sides should do this.
Believe me, there are a few hand-stabbing atheists out there. 
Besides, why would you look for the Living among the dead; i.e., why would you seek physical evidence of something Spiritual?
By the way, if that debate they’re having goes perfectly, that is, both sides make their best possible arguments, it ought to end in a draw. Neither God’s existence, nor His nonexistence can be objectively proved.
If it’s impossible to prove a negative, the burden of proof is on those who believe there is a God and not on those who do not believe.
Sorry, believers, but that’s how it is.
If God is everywhere, I should be able to find Him anywhere! I should find Him every time that I look. I should find Him even when I’m not looking. (Haven’t you ever found something you weren’t looking for?)
[trying my new WaterJ inspired approach…]
I don’t think God is “everywhere” in that sense, Jab. Clearly, if He is Spirit, and Spirit is not made of physical stuff, His presence must be discerned by some other means. Like faith, for example. (Warning: analogy follows…) It’s sorta like the universe is everywhere, but without any activation of your sensory organs, how would you know it?
The Bible, if you believe what it says, is full of accounts of the Spritual getting very physical. The God described in the Bible doesn’t just leave his creation alone; he’s constantly raining fire and brimstone down, parting seas, appearing as a burning bush, etc. He gave Noah plans for an ark. Angels in corporeal form visited mortals.
Not so! It is impossible to prove His nonexistance, but it should be very easy to demonstrate the existence of the God described in the Bible.
The Bible, if you believe what it says, is full of accounts of the Spritual getting very physical. The God described in the Bible doesn’t just leave his creation alone; he’s constantly raining fire and brimstone down, parting seas, appearing as a burning bush, etc. He gave Noah plans for an ark. Angels in corporeal form visited mortals.
Not so! It is impossible to prove His nonexistance, but it should be very easy to demonstrate the existence of the God described in the Bible.
Well OK, assume God is responsible for inspiring charitable acts. Who’s providing the ‘unpleasant’ voices?
(If voices are evidence of an otherwise undetectable being, then you have to explain all such experiences. Otherwise you can just pick evidence that suits you, and ignore awkward contradictions.)
Well if He made me, then He knows I believe in things that can be physically observed. I’m ready to believe in any such thing!
Surely the ‘refusal to impose’ is that I don’t have to worship Him - why is He reluctant to reveal Himself?.
I don’t agree. If a branch of the Christian Church, (which could be for example as varied as Congregationalist / Anglo-Catholic / Roman Catholic), state something exists, then I can examine the evidence.
By contrast, it seems pointless for me to say something like ‘the pope is God’s vicar on Earth’, when I might be told ‘no he isn’t - and that shows God exists!’.
Well physical evidence can be alive, but I think I understand. You’re saying that there is no physical evidence of God. So we’re left with personal voices and feelings, plus the nature of the world around us?
Does the world today show evidence of being created by an omnipotent loving God? That’s probably another thread - but my opinion is that the world is pretty random.
In your latest post you say that God is only discernable in non-physical ways e.g. faith.
OK, some points in reply:
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why didn’t He grant me faith?
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can He manifest Himself? If so, why doesn’t He?
(If He can’t, then presumably a miraculous manifestation would be proof that He doesn’t exist?!)
There is only one rational question which can be asked to atheists, and theists alike. This question is “How can you be so sure?” Obviously, no one has definite proof that God does or does not exist (if someone did, then we wouldn’t be having this “Discussion”)
The aforementioned question can lead people one either of the God-Belief-Spectrum to become Agnostic (asuming they aproach the question from a rational, and not-so-emotional point).
I never said He doesn’t interfere in the physical universe. In fact, in another thread, I listed a few ways He might do exactly that. I’ve said simply that He Himself is a Spiritual entity. Please don’t restate me and then argue against your new statement.
The point about the Living among the dead is that you cannot find Him as an atom, or field, or energy, or anything like that, anymore than Mr. Flatlander can find Mr. Three-D by looking at his plane.
Well, it’s easy when you understand the description.
I think you’re talking about schizophrenia. I’m not. God speaks to the heart, not the brain. Think of it as more like a phase shift in comprehension. When He speaks to you, you will suddenly understand old things in new ways. He speaks by giving understanding.
Well, God is not a rapist. What you choose to believe in, i.e., things that can be physically observed, is entirely up to you. Choose to open a door for revelation through Love, and you will see Him. You exercise a similar faith in science all the time. You believe your dials and graphs and switches are faithful representations of reality, despite their tautological relation.
Not sure I follow you here, but both sides in the debate must know what it is they’re debating. If they’re debating the existence of God, then God must be defined for both sides.
God is Love. There is therefore evidence of God within a loving heart.
“Didn’t?” Don’t be too temporal. As my sainted mother used to say, “You never know what’s around the corner.” You can have faith merely by opening your heart to His Love.
Well, that’s a bit like asking why Bill Gates’ software engineers don’t manifest themselves to AS400 operators. When you look for God, don’t look for a genie. Look for the Living Love.
For those who believe in Him, the proof is sufficient. For those who don’t, it isn’t. That’s just the nature of the thing.
I wasn’t trying to restate you; I was trying to answer your question. Why look for the spiritual among the physical. I still say if you say the God of the Bible exists, it should be easy to see Him in action. He was always interacting visibly in the world according to the Bible. I was trying to answer your question of why look for him in the physical world.
What description?
It’s all well and good that God is Love, but I don’t see how love demonstrates existence of God
I don’t deny that love exists. I just don’t see why love must be personified or how a loving heart proves that God exists.
If we assume that God is the entity described in the Bible, then He doesn’t exist or He, for some reason, no longer manifests himself as He did then.
Insist on a working definition for “God” before proceding with the debate, since if your opponent(s) means one thing by the word “God” and says “God” doesn’t exist while you are referring to a completely different thing when you say that “God” does exist, no communication is taking place.
This is a reasonable request.
Then you insist on a definition for “God” that dovetails nicely with the defense you intend on constructing. (Do not, for example, let them define “God” as a semi-translucent bearded male in the sky who created the world and its lifeforms in 7 days via non-evolutionary processes roughly 4000 years ago and operates a place called “heaven” for good folks to reside in after they die.)
Do pre-emptive strikes against any notions about “God” that you figure they are likely to plan on attacking as part of their debate strategy by excising those notions from the definition of “God”.
This one:
“Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit… Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.” — Jesus (John 3:6-8, John 4:23-24)
Well, if A is B, and B exists, then it seems clear enough that B demonstrates the existence of A.
That is why it is so important to define terms as clearly as we can, so as to avoid any amphiboly. Love has many definitions, some for common usage, some for philosophy, some for theology, etc. In this case, Love is akin to charity. Specifically, It is the unconditional Giving of Life. God is therefore the very Source of Love.
Given that definition and axiom set, if Love exists, then so must God. He gives Himself freely, and like any gift that is not forceably given, there is no receipt without acceptance. God’s gift is accepted by opening the heart, which is effected by contrition. You must die in order to live.
Again, a tree is known by its fruit. Just as a sick tree will produce sick fruit, and a good tree will produce good fruit, so God may be discerned by the discerning of a loving heart. You will know a tree by its fruit. Goodness and evil are not opposites; evil is merely goodness grown cold.
Understand that the Living Love is not alive in the way that a cell is, but in the way that an understanding is. If a man loses his understanding, he is now ignorant. But if he will apply his understanding, then it will grow and become increasingly intense until it is a part of his very nature.
God, as Love, is personified because we are created in His image. That doesn’t mean He has opposing thumbs and walks upright. It means that we — our essential selves — are Spirit, just like He is.
It is the latter.
Let me now give you more of the John 4 text above, and you will see how Jesus describes a change in the paradigm that is predicated upon His earthly manifestation.
You see, people had theretofore looked to miracles and signs and such to see God. But Jesus rebuked the genie search:
The sign of Jonah, of course, was His resurrection. He was the Living Fulfillment of the Law and Prophesy. He demarcated the end of what you call “the entity described in the Bible”, thus:
There was now a new interpretation of God and His kingdom:
From now on, God would deal with men in a different way…
So, there you have it, the Readers Digest version of why He came here, why grand and flashy miracles have all but ceased, and what is the essence of His (and our) true nature. I hope this helps toward an understanding.