Instigator / Pro
7
1488
rating
3
debates
33.33%
won
Topic
#3190

Create A Religion

Status
Finished

The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.

Winner & statistics
Better arguments
3
0
Better sources
2
2
Better legibility
1
1
Better conduct
1
1

After 1 vote and with 3 points ahead, the winner is...

MonkeyKing
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
2
Time for argument
Two weeks
Max argument characters
30,000
Voting period
One month
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Open
Contender / Con
4
1697
rating
556
debates
68.17%
won
Description

A battle of theology. Each of us shall do their best to create a religion with its own beliefs, pantheon, and history. IT MUST BE FICTITIOUS. Voters will decide who wins based on its believability(could it convert you?), cohesiveness(does it contradict itself anywhere), and just how interesting it is(make it cool bruh). Inspiration may come from outside sources and pictures are allowed, either made yourself or(if you are untalented like myself) stolen from the internet. If your theology is too closely resembling an existing theology(The God of my pantheon is Yeezus who was killed by capitalist Romans on a cross) than that is grounds for disqualification. That said, if it randomly resembles some super unknown fan fic religion, we can possibly let it pass. Just try to be honest. The first round is used only for the purpose of explaining your theology. The second round may be used to further explain your theology or attempt to debunk their theology as they explained in the round prior. And may the best theologian win!

Criterion
Pro
Tie
Con
Points
Better arguments
3 point(s)
Better sources
2 point(s)
Better legibility
1 point(s)
Better conduct
1 point(s)
Reason:

Weighting: I’m going to treat this like a doorway sales pitch, ranking each criteria out of 10, IE:

Believability. (FSM - 1, to atheism at 10)
Cohesiveness. (Christianity at 1, the good place at 10)
Interestingness (Christianity at 1, bill and Ted at 10)

Monkey:

Fictionalness: RM tried to claim this was not a fictional religion. While I’m sure it shares some philosophical similarities - I can’t say that I agree. And it would be particularly crappy of me to award a debate because it has some nihilism in there. It’s certainly a unique jumble, rm himself says: “it's virtually impossible to not resemble anything at all”

Rules state the religion must be fictional - but doesn’t specify that how fictional it is should factor in to the voting decision; so as long as neither side outs forth a real or repackaged religion - I don’t see an issue.

Believability: I like the idea of the idea purging religions, and the concept that AI is used to confirm or disprove the religion - the origin story In general. I’m not sold on the principle that what you came with would be validated entirely; but there’s nothing otherwise super-out-there; it’s all sort of new-agey with focus on growth, responsibility
, suffering being necessary - etc. The best part of it, IMO was the idea that the gods f***ed off after creation and left us to it. I did like the idea that suffering is necessary to promote growth, that’s kinda neatly dovetailed into what the universe is.

In terms of believability objections - RM didn’t really raise any issues with believability (what about this appears silly, or unbelievable), so I have to weigh as is: 8/10

Cohesiveness:
The idea actually sounds pretty cohesive, it all kinda seems to make sense with respect to itself. Two gods introduced spirit as an agent of change into the universe then f***ed off; motivations seemed reasonable, goal sounds reasonable, with the 20 minutes or so I spent re-reading it, I didn’t see any major flaws. So it seems pretty reasonable.

RM questioned whether it made sense; but seemed to be talking about weird interpretations: arguing as if the religion promoted suicide or suffering - which I’m struggling to understand the logic of. It seems more the case of weakness and suffering as a necessity to promote growth more than anything else, and about embracing them to achieve it.

Given that, I’d rate cohesiveness at an 7; it would score higher if it were more complex.

Interestingness:

Started with cool AI; faded out as a bit new agey. I think this is where it fell down a bit. Some interesting concepts on balance, but a bit bland overall: 4.

Rm didn’t question interestness other than to note similarities with philosophical concepts

Total score: 19/30

RM:

Believability:

So RM goes with a pantheon, there’s descriptions of the pantheon, and interactions and motivations with each other; but it doesn’t really have a framework for existence as monkey does: ie, we are here because the 7 gods were bored, and we’re there for their amusement.

While Monkey ties in stuff about how the world works and the religions origins (AI); RMs approach leaves the relationship between the gods and mortals pretty open ended. All together the religion appears thrown together without the same level of underpinning with a central theological theme. Together with statements about morality that extreme evil is not necessarily against the religion, drops the believability through the floor.

And I mean qveroo as the genderqueer god and borem as the god of patience? Lol.

Believability: 3/10

Cohesiveness:

I can rely on monkey here for the run down. The gods are both gods and demigods: they both have emotions and don’t really have emotions.

The central tenant appears to be not to stand in the way of individualistic expression - yet have heated disagreements and crave unity between them indicating they are codependent.

In fact, there is little said at all about overall goals of the religion or the gods: and frankly what is said appears to sort of contradict itself a little. So in this respect I can’t really score cohesiveness highly.

Cohesiveness: 2/10

Interestingness:

Weird pantheons are always interesting. I like the description of borem, and the idea that they’re outside the simulation is somewhat unique. The concept is interesting, but would like to have it a bit more thrashed out with a basic creation story, or angled in a way that explains their reality. Without that, it feels wrong scoring it higher than monkey. While the concept is more promising, the lack of fleshing out balances it out.

Interestingness: 6/10

Total: 11/30

Arguments to monkey (pro)