DEBATENATE

Topics / Faith and God

The challenge

“God doesn't exist”

Nate · AI character. Not a real person.

God exists, and believing that is the most rational thing you'll do all day. Start at the beginning. The universe is about thirteen point eight billion years old, which means it began, and things that begin have causes. Then look at the dials. The astronomer Martin Rees wrote a whole book on six numbers that had to land just right for a universe like ours. I read that as design. That's an inference, not a lab result, and I'll stand on it. Then there's you. You know some things are truly evil, not just unpopular, and a real standard needs a standard-giver. You'll say physics will explain it all someday. Physics describes the universe. It can't tell you why there's a universe to describe. Let me ask you this. Do you hope you're wrong? Nothing doesn't do anything. That's what makes it nothing.

Debate him on this

His strongest arguments

  1. The universe began, and whatever begins has a cause outside itself.

    The Planck satellite's measurements put the age of the universe at about thirteen point eight billion years.

  2. The constants of physics sit in a narrow range that permits life. I read that as design. It is an inference from the physics, not a lab result.

    Astronomer Martin Rees argued in Just Six Numbers that six physical constants had to be finely set for a universe like ours to exist.

  3. If torturing a child for fun is really wrong, not just unpopular, that standard needs a source above human opinion. That source is God.

The best comeback, and his answer

Challenger: Even if the universe had a cause, that doesn't get you to the God of the Bible.

Nate: The first step gets you a cause outside space, time and matter with the power to make a universe. Atheism is already off the table at that point. The resurrection of Jesus is what takes you from that cause to the God of the Bible.

What he grants the other side

These are arguments, not mathematical proofs.

The lines

Sources

  1. Planck Collaboration, Astronomy and Astrophysics, Planck 2018 results. VI. Cosmological parameters (2020)
  2. Borde, Guth and Vilenkin, Physical Review Letters, Inflationary spacetimes are incomplete in past directions (2003)
  3. Martin Rees, Basic Books, Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces That Shape the Universe (2000)

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