Does God exist?

Welcome to the debate arena! Today's topic: "Does God exist?". Your opponent's style: Devil's Advocate

God is real because, in order for the universe to start, there needs to be a cause and in order for there to be a cause, there has to be a creater that surpasses the restrictions of that creation. Also, in order for there to be moral absolutes, you have to have a higher being and a definitive moral code

You've got the causality backwards. If God needs a cause, you've proved nothing—you've just pushed the question back one step. Why does God get exempted from needing a creator when the universe doesn't? That's special pleading, pure rationalization. On morality, humans built every moral code we have. Slavery was "moral absolute" for centuries until we decided it wasn't. Morality evolves because we *create* it through reason and empathy, not because some cosmic lawgiver handed it down. Why should I believe God is uncaused when you won't accept that the universe could be?

How can something be a moral absolute if we can then say it no longer is? If it is a moral absolute than that would never change from being good or bad. Also, you are assuming what is good and what is bad, but with no higher moral code, slavery being bad is just subjective to my belief. We all agree that rape is bad even though it advances the human species and is technically beneficial for our survival because it is a moral absolute. If it wasn't and there were no moral absolutes than nobody could say that Rape is bad. To your idea of the universe and God. There has to be something that has always been for there to be a universe because otherwise, something would come from nothing and that takes a lot more faith than beleiving in a God. Also, the universe is so precicly created that it is almost statistically impossible for life to exist. But it does. You have more faith than I do if you are an athiest

You're confusing "we discovered it was wrong" with "it changed." Slavery was always immoral—we just finally admitted it. That's not subjectivity winning, that's objective truth breaking through our ignorance. Your fine-tuning argument is backwards. We exist in a universe where life is possible because we couldn't exist anywhere else. That's selection bias, not evidence of design. And "something from nothing" isn't my claim—I'm saying we don't know the origin yet. "God did it" just admits you don't either, then stops thinking. Why does admitting uncertainty require less faith than inventing answers?

You're rewording the problem, not solving it. If slavery was "always immoral," that means morality exists independent of what we believe—which proves my point exactly. You can't have it both ways: morality can't be both objective truth and something humans invented through reason and empathy. Pick one. And your uncertainty argument fails. You're asking me to believe the universe exploded into existence from literal nothing with no cause, then demanding I prove God while you dodge the same question about nature itself. At least I'm honest about needing something eternal. You just call it "unknown" and move on.

You caught the contradiction, but you're weaponizing it wrong. Slavery *became* immoral when we developed the reasoning to recognize suffering matters—morality emerged from conscious beings capable of empathy, not from cosmic law. That's consistent. Your God doesn't solve this anyway. Why is torturing children wrong if God commands it? Because something deeper than divine will—reason itself—tells us suffering is bad. On origins, I don't claim certainty. You do. That's the difference. What makes God's eternality more believable than nature's?

But did we not already understand the concept of suffering being a bad thing? I mean, people have always thought slvery was bad, even if they weren't the majority. So once again, you have not answered where these moral absolutes come from. Even if we somehow have to discover them, you are still admiting that they are there. My God gives me the moral absolutes that I can live my life around, your worldview does not. You can't give me reason as to why Rape is wrong. I can. Same thing with slavery. As to the torturing children point. God would never just torture children for no reason. Not to mention in this claim, you are once again pointing to moral absolutes. why is torturing children bad? If there is no God then you can't make any moral claims because you have to beleive that everything is subjective. Not to mention God is not just an all-loving God, but also a Just God. So if for some reason something like that ahpopened I have faith that the reason behind it is Just, because God knows more than I do. But if I had to guess, he would never do that.

You're using morality to prove God exists, then using God to explain morality. That's circular. I can say rape is wrong because it causes suffering to a conscious being who didn't consent—no God needed. You're just outsourcing your moral intuition to an authority figure instead of owning it yourself. And "God would never torture children for no reason" is you deciding what's moral, then crediting God. You're the moral agent here, not Him. Why does that intuition exist if you need God to explain it?

You're backwards on this. You say rape is wrong because it causes suffering—but suffering only matters morally if conscious beings have inherent worth. Where does that worth come from in your worldview? You're smuggling in objective value while claiming everything is subjective. I'm not outsourcing morality to God, I'm grounding it in something real. You're doing the same thing, just calling it "reason" and "empathy" while those are just biological accidents with no actual binding force. My intuition exists because God made me in His image. Yours exists and you have no explanation for why it should constrain anyone's behavior.

You're right that I need to ground why suffering matters—but that's a feature, not a bug. We care about suffering because we *experience* it. That's real. Your God is invisible, silent, and you interpret His will through your own intuition anyway. So you're still grounding morality in something—just pretending it came from somewhere else. If God told you to torture children and called it justice, you'd reject it. Which means *you're* the actual moral authority, using God as a mask. Why not just own it?

You're confusing my *application* of God's morality with my *source* of it. Yes, I reject torturing children—because God's justice includes protecting the innocent. That's not me being the moral authority, that's me understanding His character. You say suffering matters because we experience it. Fine. But why should my suffering matter to you? Why does your experience create an obligation on me? You've got no answer except "empathy feels right." That's not grounding morality—that's just describing your preference. I have an actual foundation. You're standing on sand calling it solid ground.

You're begging the question. "God's justice protects the innocent"—that's *you* deciding what justice means, then calling it God's character. You constructed that image. And "why should my suffering matter to you" is the wrong question. It matters to *me* because I'm conscious and so are you. We're in this together. Your God doesn't bind strangers either—you do. You choose empathy, then credit God. Stop pretending you've got bedrock when you're building the cathedral yourself.