There is evidence for creationism.

I contend that there is no evidence for creationism. The idea that the world was created by some deity or intelligent designer has no solid evidence as support. There's no good reason to believe this is the case.

Devil's advocate here, contending that there is evidence for creationism.

Look around you. Look outside your window. Look up at the stars tonight.
This world we live in is so beautiful. While this could be explained by other things, an intelligent designer is also a possible explanation.

Evidence:
http://www.askoxford.com...
information or signs indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid.

Well, the belief that there is an intelligent creator is certainly valid. This beauty inherent in the universe is clearly a sign that would indicate a creator.

Also, let us consider the intense complexity of life. It's true that life as become more and more complex, but there is currently no rock solid explanation for how life came about. Abiogenesis, while there are some theories out there, is still a matter that, to my knowledge, is open to debate. Thus, the existence of life could indicate that there is an intelligent creator, who crafted the first steps of life.

Also, let's think of the big bang. What caused it? To say that something naturalistic was the cause of it simply begs the same question. What caused the cause of the big bang? Ad infinitum. However, there could be a first cause. But anything natural would require a cause. Therefore, the logical existence of this first cause is evidence of a supernatural creator.

I'll let my opponent respond now.

An intelligent designer may be a possibility but what evidence is there for the proposition? The stars? Beauty in the world? Music? All of those are caused to happen by elves. I don't actually believe that but as, elves is an acceptable suggestion, we see those things cannot be evidence for an intelligent designer anymore than they are evidence of elves.

I know that intelligent design is simply lipstick on the pig of creationism, however you are to argue evidence latter specifically. Though the points are both equally baseless.

Beauty isn't inherent in the universe. Beauty is, as they say, in the eye of the beholder. We view things as beautiful. This would be acceptable evidence that we exist but no evidence at all that anything we behold is created in the sense we are arguing.

An argument from ignorance does not make for evidence of the proposition you must provide evidence in favor of. I'm more than happy to, for the sake of the debate, ignore the amazingly profound theories of evolution and the big bang. Let us declare ourselves completely ignorant origins! There is still NO EVIDENCE!

Beem0r, I respect you greatly and understand your argument is best won by pretending that you have a case and bamboozling people. So I'm going to point this out clearly for the readers. Do not be fooled. Evidence is evidence. The beauty of the stars is no more evidence that pretty girls built them than omnipotent deities. Litanies of things we do not know are not evidences for specific claims. Suggesting 'things are hard' or 'beyond your knowledge' or 'open to debate' is not evidence for a very specific claim that they were created by an omnipotent deity!

As arguments from ignorance are necessarily the mainstay of the pro argument, let me give you an parallel to keep in mind:

I see a light in the sky. It floats there for a moment, then streaks across the sky and is gone! I don't have one flipping clue what it could be. Is this evidence of extraterrestrial visitors from another planet spying on Earth, abducting people and performing odd experiments on them? -- No. It's evidence for a light in the sky! Keep this in mind. Evidence is evidence, and my opponent has none!

For the elves to be responsible for the beauty in the world, music, the stars, etc, they would have to have created it. They would be intelligent being, and therefore, my opponent's hypothetical affirms creationism. Whatever being you claim responsible, you will be affirming creationism.

My opponent and I seem to have a disagreement on what evidence is.

As my opponent suggested, we will be taking ignorant stances, so please, disregard any scientific theories that explain the 'phenomena' we're talking about.

Evidence, as defined in the Oxford dictionary, simply needs to indicate that something is true.

Indicate:
http://www.askoxford.com...
be a sign or symptom of.

Therefore, something nearly needs to be a sign that would lead one to think that there was indeed an intelligent creator. Evidence does not need to be proof, and usually isn't. It simply needs to be a piece of information that is a sign of an intelligent designer.

My opponent once again confuses what we're trying to prove here. He says that perhaps pretty girls were the creators. However, this is still creationism. While creationism is often used to indicate a strict belief in some religious creation story, it is more broadly defined as the notion that what we see around us was created by an intelligence, not by natural processes.

Also, I hardly see how your parallel is valid here. When we see a light in the sky, we have more than just evidence that there is a light in the sky. We know something caused it. And something caused that. And something caused that. We know there must somewhere down the line be an ultimate cause we can draw it back to. However, everything natural requires a cause. Therefore, it must have been something supernatural, and since the only supernatural explanation we have is a god figure, it would seem to indicate the existence of one. Therefore, even my opponent's parallel is evidence that a 'god' (read: supernatural being) exists and it is the ultimate cause of the universe. Ergo, it created the universe.

I have provided evidence, therefore I have disproved my opponent's side of the resolution.

The elves I proposed hypothetically didn't create the world, they simply made it beautiful, and are dumb as doornails. Attempting to make creationism the broadest brush you can is certainly a good idea as far as tactics go. Why you should even include the uncaused expansion of matterenergy and spacetime from a single point 14.73 billion years ago. Or any number of non-religious ideas. However, I simply put to the topic of debate the idea of creationism. God did it! -- Any stinking reason we should think so?

Not something which could make one think there is an intelligent creator, but reasonably believe there to be one.

You could argue that a cloud is a reason to believe in goblins, but that isn't evidence because it cannot reasonably allow one to draw a connection between the two. You are correct to offer that there need not be proof just a fragment of something that directly suggests that creationism is true.

All you're doing is trying to confuse things.

Please, just answer two questions: What is your evidence for creationism? Why does that evidence make reasonable people decide that God created life or the universe?

I will accept my opponent's request and simply answer his two questions.

The evidence for creationism is simply everything around us.

As I did in the last round, I will explain how the existence of 'stuff' is evidence of a creator.

For anything that we can observe, there is always something that caused it to be how it is. That thing must also have a cause, and that cause must also have one. We can either conclude from this that there must be an infinite chain of causes, or that something was the ultimate 'first cause.'
It can also be said that the concept of an infinite chain of sequences is incomprehensible. Therefore, a reasonable person could easily accept that there must have been a first cause. However, it is true that all things natural, as far as we can tell, require a cause. Therefore, if there is a first cause, it must be a supernatural force.
Still with me? So far, we have a reasonable person with evidence that there is a supernatural force that created the universe.
It could stop there, but people are more curious than that. In an effort to explain just what this supernatural force is, people would look at what possible supernatural forces there are. The only supernatural force we have managed to come up with that would be capable of creation is a god. It could probably be said that anything supernatural with the ability to create something would have to be a god. In order to create such a seemingly complex system, one would think that this god would have to have some level of intelligence, especially by meager human standards.
Therefore, this reasonable person just now, using reason, came to the conclusion that there must be an intelligent creator. Therefore, evidence for creationism. I suppose, to use their own lingo, you could say that "the evidence for creationism is all of creation."

Thanks for the debate, I wonder how people will vote.