Again, I'd like to thank you for having this debate. I've enjoyed it. And intend to have more of these debates in the future. Perhaps, another one with you sometime -I don't know. I've got another debate begining today concerning Biblical errancy, so I'll be busy with that for a while.
Looking back over the transcripts of this debate, it looks as though this debate evolved into the classical first cause argument. Unfortunately, this is a long dead argument in the philosophical community. There are a few reasons why. I remember your statment "What you're saying is that at one point, nothing at all existed. And then, for no particular reason, matter and energy suddenly began to exist out of nothing." That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying that that point when nothing at all existed did not exist. There was no one point when nothing existed. What is a point, anyway? Well, we could have a point in time, a point in the x direction, a point in the y direction, or a point in the z direction. Anyway, the point requires a dimension. The Big Bang was when dimensions began. It's this sort of thinking before the Big Bang this is irrational. Saying the Big Bang must have had a cause is irrational. Think about it. What do we know about causes and effects? The first thing that pops into my mind is that they require time to happen. Now, a cause of time could not very well require time. 'Cause' is not the word we're looking for to describe the begining of time. Following, a 'timeless cause' is irrational, too. What is a timeless cause? That phrase has no refferent. We simply have no idea what a timeless cause is. The first cause argument fails. I think I've done a better job of explaining this in my previous letters, but I wanted to briefly touch on this point again.
We've also touched on quantum mechanics. And you've blatantly denied the observation that matter (in the form of energy) comes from nothing. I've also directed your attention to an article in which this is explained some. Matter does come from nothing, and it does so according to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. Denying this won't get you anywhere. It is observed.
You've also tried to claim that science is what made you believe in God. Well, all we've got to do is look back through history to see why people thought it was necessary (scientifically) to believe in God. Needless to say that when we do, we find that their reasons for believing in God are no longer valid. God does not keep the spheres of the universe moving around this motionless earth. Science is the pursuit of truth. Religion is defending a belief as truth. The two will never be the same.
So we are stuck with having no reason to believe in God. Now for the killer. I've also tried to show through the course of this debate that the term 'God' has no refferent. I think I've done an adequate job of that. Words are used as names of things. The way we know what words mean is by pointing at what they refer to. We simply can't do this with God. The word is meaningless. And it takes no genious to draw the conclusion that God can not exist without a basic knowledge of what 'God' means. Otherwise we're talking about a word. If we don't know what God is then saying "God exists" is like saying "Fiskles exists" without having the vaguest clue of what a fiskle is. The word "God" has no refferent, thus any talk using that word is meaningless, thus there is no concept of God to prove or disprove. There is nothing.