Instigator / Pro
16
1487
rating
31
debates
35.48%
won
Topic
#3536

All negative emotions spring from a separation from God

Status
Finished

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

Winner & statistics
Better arguments
0
12
Better sources
8
8
Better legibility
4
4
Better conduct
4
2

After 4 votes and with 10 points ahead, the winner is...

RationalMadman
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
4
Time for argument
Two days
Max argument characters
15,000
Voting period
One month
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Open
Contender / Con
26
1697
rating
556
debates
68.17%
won
Description

All negative emotions spring from a separation and lack of God.

Round 1
Pro
#1
What and which emotions are negative emotions?
I have a massive burden of proof criteria to fulfill in this debate, to the point where the intention is not to win this debate but to offer people a less rigid perspective of religion. To begin, if I'm arguing that negative emotions only come from separation from God, i describe separation from God as a being which has its connection and believe in the kingdom of God being within. I must first explain which emotions are negative emotions and why they are as such.

Negative emotions could be described as emotions which we don't wish to experience, emotions we experience but our goal while feeling these emotions is to make the sensation cease. For example; anger is never a enjoyable feeling to feel, as when you feel anger it makes you want to destroy the thing which causes your anger, to make the sensation of the anger cease, its not a sensation we wish to maintain such as happiness, wholeness of love. In this sense, so is fear a negative emotion. Fear makes us want to run or escape from that which we fear, as its only from getting away from that which we fear will we no longer feel fear. Its not a emotion we wish to maintain in our being.

Origin of fear
To understand whether we need God or not to not feel the negative emotion fear, we must first understand why we feel fear. Fear exists because we're mortal beings. There would be no need for fear, if we were incapable of being hurt. As long as you're mortal, you will feel fear. Fear only manifests itself in positions on uncertainty. You fear what could happen to you, but once the thing which you initially did fear happens you no longer fear it, but accept it and try to work through it. If you value your life whilst being mortal, you fear something. Therefore the only way to get rid of fear, is to believe nothing in this world can truly hurt you. The idea that you are more than your body, more than your personality and your mistakes in your life, can you overcome fear. Yet this can only be done if you believe the soul either is immortal, or has the ability to one day attain mortality. You cannot simultaneously value your life and never fearing loss of the things you love if you believe your body and belongings and culture is all you are. Once you learn you're more than the sum of your parts, more than your belongings, and that these things don't define your identity, you no longer have fear of losing these aspects as they're not you, nor do they define you. Therefore, the idea that one is an immortal soul is imperative to not living in perpetual fear and tension of ego games.

Origin of anger and jealousy
Anger and other unsavory emotions exist as an extension of fear, anger exists to protect that which we love, through fear or threat of loss. To help us achieve victory over the wrong in the world. Yet, anger is never a helpful emotion to feel. You can wish to defend that which you love, out of love and not fear not anger. Why must vitriol be involved in defending love? vitriol can only exist from a sense of separation from another. Seeking you to destroy them, to defend that which you see yourself in, naturally there's parts of ourselves we hate.  Yet we don't want them to be apart of ourself, we wish to eradicate them to no longer be "me" or "you". Empathy itself is characterised by the "mirror neurons" which simply means we feel empathy only by seeing ourselves in another. Jealousy exists too, also by the idea that you can lose something in this world or fail to attain something leaving you in a sense of loss or lack. Once you realise all is one, then there becomes no need to feel lack, even if you don't directly have these material goods, you do through another. Why then is there need for jealously? jealously can only persist through a sense of separation. Love is an attracting force, seeking to attain union and connection with that we love, fear is the opposite. Yet if its true separation does not exist, how can fear be justified? fear leads to duality, divide between humans and ideologies, only love can expel it, not more tribalism, not more political games, not more debates nor philosophy. Only the spirit of love can heal the world, and that can only be done through eradicating fear through belief in oneness with God. Otherwise duality will persist and ego will persist causing suffering.

Con
#2
I am not trying to troll Pro but I disagree with how Pro is defining 'negative emotions' and actually feel it hurts Pro's case to define it that way, meaning I am opting to concretely challenge the definition and assist Pro to define it fairer because the way it is currently defined is so absent of logic and truth that I'd need to severely lie to utilise it against Pro and that's not my style (why try hard when I can win easier and more honest? It's double jeopardy.)

Anger is addictive to certain types of people, empowering even, many who are of a more 'dominant' and/or 'masculine' disposition prefer rage, fury, ire etc to sadness and feeling pathetic. Others are the polar opposite, of course, opting for sadness and calm as a drug (oh yes, I do not believe calm is absense of emotions and severe calm has a lot in common with suicidal ideation but I'll get into my Kritik of the Buddhist mindset later). 

I do not agree to defining as negative emotion as one that inherently is one a person seeks to end while feeling it because I even know of people who feel bad when too confident and happy, in fact it is very offensive to confuse the 'laughing' Buddha statue for a real Buddhist monk as they try to avoid getting addicted to happiness (and so to Taoist practioners and others).

Happiness addicts do exist, they are weedheads/dopeheads or ironically alcoholics despite the lack of joy they end up experiencing and things along that line, in fact the mindset of prolonging and repeating pleasure to the extreme is behind most addictions whereas the idea of denying oneself immediate pleasure and embracing hardship is often what makes a person strong-willed.

Imagine yourself now a really feisty heroine (or even villainess) and a really strong, mighty hero or cunning, wily and streetsmart male villain... They tend to be empowered by embracing the very 'negative' emotions Pro is saying are wanted to be ended. Anger gets them out of bed in the morning, they are prone to feel restless, angry and enjoy their aggressive way of being.

The god/s of this reality, if he/she/it/they exist(s) is/are not concerned with only positive emotions, it is blatant why we were granted negative ones; it is a beautifully tragic and yet empowering part of nature. In fact, I'd go as far as to argue that humans have dominated Earth not due to our raw intellect at all but due to the extent of motivation and emotional dissatisfaction we had with just letting things be without inventing and improving them. We are negatively motivated not due to an error in our connection with God and nature but because it is an intricate part of it.

The creatures that naturally dominate any environment, whether the humans and lions of the land or the sharks and dolphins of the oceans tend to be aggressive, anger-prone and feel sadness and jealousy (oh envy indeed is what drives a species to fight for the woman/man they want much more brutally and reproduce to evolve more optimally).

Smarter, stronger and more open and candid is the direction that we grew thanks to our darkest emotions. I define negative emotions as an illusion. Depression is as unhealthy, equally so in my eyes, to the manic and joyful phase of bipolar. We are only properly aware that happiness is a terrifying emotion when and if someone gets insanely addicted to something or to the pumping of adrenaline and joy itself. In fact, adrenaline is fascinating by itself for this debate as it is behind both deep excitement (all kinds) with the only difference between dread and joyful excitement being a lack or huge presence of dopamine alongside the 'fear' sensation of adrenaline rushes.

I think Pro has completely misunderstood life and god(s) that may exist to create this debate. My urge to grab Pro by the neck and say 'you are wrong' and prove myself right that alpha, brutal way is as natural and negative as my urge to go 'you are entitled to your opinion Pro, hehe I love your right to free speech and speaking dumb things'. I can give into either and be weak or I can be strong and have a balanced approach.

You see, when you get properly in touch with a god that isn't batshit or the fundamentalist psycho sort, you probably realise that all god is is a sociopathic onlooker, fascinated by our darkest urges and desires and that the reality is set up in a way that rewards those that take a balanced approach, embracing all emotions with high awareness but only so far as is healthy.

Being overly friendly and giggly leads to stagnation and is why a super feminine world would probably have not invented much, they are too busy enjoying what is there and not what could be (in fact that religion of Buddhism and many eastern philosophies stemming from Hinduism have this more effeminate approach). I am not insulting femininity alone here, too much yin is indeed toxic but so is too much Yang. Too much Yang in a culture leads to no enjoyment of sadness and insecurity, no awareness and embracing it. When an overly Yang society forms, the approach to a breakup is to slaughter the reputation of the ex, stalking them and keeping them knowing if they can't be with you they can't be with anyone, it has bullying, mercilessness and all 'joy' and 'happiness' as well as 'comfort' comes from a sadistic removal of all three from others.

The reality was made with all emotions, god gave us these emotions and when you get in touch with god, nothing is guaranteed. You see, the human mind is fragile and many invented false deities that they worship with silly guarantees and moral codes that if the real god(s) had, our reality would not have all the bad and evil things that it does.

I do not even understand how all 'negative' emotions can spring from separation from god when I've met very emotionally healthy and happy people who are agnostic as it gets, atheistic even and met others who are severely emotionally deranged and who live and breathe their connection with the almighty deity they believe is behind/above/within this reality.
Round 2
Pro
#3
I would agree that some people can be addicted to feeling anger, but being addicted to something doesn't mean it's healthy. Someone can be addicted to smoking and not want to indulge in it. "Anger exists to protect that which we love, through fear or threat of loss." "To assist us in achieving victory over the world's wrongs." on from what I said in the previous round, if someone has a lot of love in their heart and exists in a state of duality, of tribalism and separation of "us" and "them" and "me" and "you", they naturally feel angry a lot and sincerely feel it. They even become addicted to it to want to see change. I argue this is still a poisonous emotion. Despite this, you can have determination to achieve victory without hate, without the sense of ego, without the ego emotion of anger. 

I do not agree to defining as negative emotion as one that inherently is one a person seeks to end while feeling it because I even know of people who feel bad when too confident and happy, in fact it is very offensive to confuse the 'laughing' Buddha statue for a real Buddhist monk as they try to avoid getting addicted to happiness (and so to Taoist practioners and others).
I actually agree with you, and have even said so much in the comment section before you published this argument. I think happiness in the way we know it is a product of separation, therefore duality, and therefore is never going to create wholeness. I just never thought my debate partner would be insighted enough to bring that up, so I just never bothered and opted for a more kindergarten argument (in my laziness). Happiness, although it will not satisfy us, does feel good and can be considered the more positive side of duality. It is still duality and therefore never whole, as happiness can only exist in separation. It can never create a true sense of wholeness in oneself.

Imagine yourself now a really feisty heroine (or even villainess) and a really strong, mighty hero or cunning, wily and streetsmart male villain... They tend to be empowered by embracing the very 'negative' emotions Pro is saying are wanted to be ended. Anger gets them out of bed in the morning, they are prone to feel restless, angry and enjoy their aggressive way of being.
If you read my quote, you will already of had a sufficient answer to this.

The god/s of this reality, if he/she/it/they exist(s) is/are not concerned with only positive emotions, it is blatant why we were granted negative ones; it is a beautifully tragic and yet empowering part of nature. In fact, I'd go as far as to argue that humans have dominated Earth not due to our raw intellect at all but due to the extent of motivation and emotional dissatisfaction we had with just letting things be without inventing and improving them. We are negatively motivated not due to an error in our connection with God and nature but because it is an intricate part of it.
I personally see our emotions as ego perversions of God's desires. Pride is the ego's perversion to attain a sense of peace, salvation, or equilibrium. Yet all of these desires express themselves through the ego, a sense of separation, therefore becoming destructive to all, not uplifting it. Anger is the perversion of the desire to achieve victory, and so on, but I digress. That's simply my own philosophy and not relevant to the discussion at hand.

 it is a beautifully tragic and yet empowering part of nature. In fact, I'd go as far as to argue that humans have dominated Earth not due to our raw intellect at all but due to the extent of motivation and emotional dissatisfaction we had with just letting things be without inventing and improving them. We are negatively motivated not due to an error in our connection with God and nature but because it is an intricate part of it.
When you can look at reality and see yourself within, there is no need for hate to get you out of bed in the morning, not even happiness. Emotional dissatisfaction has led to many scientific advancements and many improvements to material life. But what is this worth if you know that material life will never satisfy us? people will still suffer if they had infinite resources? It's obvious to me, removing anger and removing fear does not leave you empty. Removing duality does not leave you as nothing but leaves you whole. You still have the desire for victory, yet it is not based on separation. Your desire for victory is not based on uplifting one group and putting another down; therefore, anger ceases. When you realise you are the whole you realise you can only uplift yourself by uplifting all. I cant describe what you're left with when you're whole, as admittedly I'm not. Its a continual path of self-transcendence. A desire to be whole and not based on separation must then have no opposite. Since they have no opposite, there is nothing for me to contrast their experience with or define it in earthly terms if this emotional wholeness exists. It would be an experience indescribable in language, truly infinite with no opposite, no similarity. No language in the world could do it justice. Whether you believe this is up to you. Personally, I'm willing to follow this path even if it's fruitless, as I know that no matter how many women I fornicate with, no matter how much jewellery I have, I will still feel empty.

I think Pro has completely misunderstood life and god(s) that may exist to create this debate.
I agree, and that's really my fault. I was hoping to change the debate title to something not relating to God and more too "separation is why we suffer" but alas, you click too fast, madman!

You see, when you get properly in touch with a god that isn't batshit or the fundamentalist psycho sort, you probably realise that all god is is a sociopathic onlooker
I and my father are one. All suffering is self-inflicted, and God feels through us, God feels what we do. God is fine with letting extensions of itself act out their free wills. If you do believe in a God, to argue that you know more than they do and what's right is very prideful of your own capabilities, if you do think that. Unless you have all the moral answers to free will, I feel like it is best to refrain from making moral arguments against God. Pride is the spiritual poison of believing you've attained some ultimate state, some ultimate salvation or state of being. In reality, existence is movement, all is going to change and your pride will be shaken one day, one way or another.

Being overly friendly and giggly leads to stagnation and is why a super feminine world would probably have not invented much, they are too busy enjoying what is there and not what could be
Gigglyness and fun, too, can only exist in duality. I don't know what wholeness looks like. Even if I did, I couldn't describe its infinity to you, by definition. But why don't you try to follow it? What do you have to lose? Feminine and masculine are polarities and therefore, duality.


I do not even understand how all 'negative' emotions can spring from separation from god when I've met very emotionally healthy and happy people who are agnostic as it gets, atheistic even and met others who are severely emotionally deranged and who live and breathe their connection with the almighty deity they believe is behind/above/within this reality.
None of these people are happy, and if they are, What does it matter? You admitted it yourself that even if they're happy, they're not whole. They're not whole because they have egos. The ego is the "I." We must continuously transcend our old identities and die daily. People who claim to be one with God but live in the duality of "me," "us," and "them" are not one with God, they're false teachers. How can something with a limited identity of believing they're a human act as one with that which has an infinite identity? If you create distinctions and duality among people and natures, You're not one with anything but your own ego. 

Con
#4
Pro is trying to agree with me and overturn it so that I seem to be proving Pro's case. The only way to reverse this and properly secure the victory is to set out the semantics that Pro has failed to and to analyse where emotions stem from and how they function.

Firstly 'God' with big G is always referring to the Judeo-Christian one. 

One of the most common questions people ask about religious words is whether to capitalize the word “god.” The name or title of any specific deity is capitalized just like any other name, so when “God” is used to refer to “the one God” (in other words, in any monotheistic religion), it is capitalized. 

For example, you’d capitalize “God” in these sentences:
  • Some Christians give thanks to God before every meal.
  • Dear God, please let my team win tonight.
When referring to gods in general, though, or when using the word "god" descriptively, keep it lowercase:
  • The Romans believed a god named Jupiter ruled the heavens.
  • The Greek gods were always causing trouble for humans.
The same rule holds true for Yahweh, Allah, Zeus, and the names of gods in other religions. They’re capitalized.

That said, I am willing to look past the capital G, let's see what 'god' means.

1God the supreme or ultimate reality: such as
athe Being perfect in power, wisdom, and goodness who is worshipped (as in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism) as creator and ruler of the universeThroughout the patristic and medieval periods, Christian theologians taught that God created the universe …— Jame Schaefer… the Supreme Being or God, the personal form of the Ultimate Reality, is conceived by Hindus as having various aspects.— Sunita Pant Bansal
bChristian Science the incorporeal divine Principle ruling over all as eternal Spirit infinite Mind
2or less commonly God a being or object that is worshipped as having more than natural attributes and powersspecifically one controlling a particular aspect or part of realityGreek gods of love and war
3a person or thing of supreme valuehad photos of baseball's gods pinned to his bedroom wall
4a powerful rulerHollywood gods that control our movies' fates

spirit or being believed to control some part of the universe or life and often worshipped for doing so, or something that represents this spirit or being

God is not simple reality, it is a 'supreme reality' an entity outside/beyond our space-time construct and even outside time itself (hence how it is infinite and always has existed while having formed the rest of reality and its timeline).

We must now understand how emotions work and the answer isn't simple, since anger is quite hormonally and brain-structure-wise alternate from sadness, fear, happiness etc.

That said, anger and fear are more similar than we'd think, angry people tend towards the 'fight' while sad and timid people tend towards the 'flight' response.
That's not true, though. Anger is a natural emotion that alerts us when something has violated the natural order of how we think things should go. This natural order may be societal; for example, when a shopper has 20 items in a 10-items-or-fewer line, this may make us angry because it's a violation of a clearly defined rule. But it can also show us that things are not happening the way that we as individuals expect them to go.

­The bodily effects of anger are meant to motivate us to take charge and restore the balance of right and wrong. But for this to occur, you have to get angry for the right reason and express your anger appropriately. As the images on our TV screens and monitors show us, this is a fine line to walk.

You can probably think of lots of things that make you angry. A sports referee who doesn't call fouls on the opposing team. A friend who forgot your lunch date. A child's bedroom that is never cleaned. The driver who cut you off this morning. The price of gasTelemarketers, politicians, cell phones.

The list could go on and on, but what all these things boil down to is two things: violation of expectation and blockage of goals [source: Carpenter]. We expect to be treated fairly and get angry when we're yelled at for no reason. If your goal is to get a refreshing drink but the soda machine is empty, that could cause some anger. If others don't adhere to your social or personal norms, you'll get angry. To take a silly example of this, let's say that you don't think people should wear socks with sandals. When this aberration walks through your door, it violates your expectations of taste.

Anger triggers differ for everyone. They vary by age, gender, even culture. One study evaluated anger in babies of different ethnicities. Chinese babies were generally found to be calm in any position they were placed. In one experiment in which a cloth was briefly pressed against the baby's face, American babies tended to get fussy and push the cloth away, while Chinese babies usually put up with the cloth, not letting it anger them [source: Tavris].

While this study is interesting, it doesn't mean that anger is hardwired into a particular culture. It doesn't even mean that a baby will grow up angry; studies have shown that even a 1-year-old with a penchant for throwing temper tantrums can be a perfectly mild-mannered 5-year-old [source: Tavris]. Each of these babies, though, will learn the triggers that are acceptable for that culture, and the way that the culture deals with them.

Anger in women is more likely triggered by their close relationships; they feel let down by family members and friends, or they feel that these people expect too much of them without anything in return [source: Thomas]. A man is more likely to be angered by strangers, objects that aren't working correctly and larger societal issues that prompt concerns about right and wrong [source: Thomas]. Men's anger is a little more abstract, while women's anger appears to be intermingled with the hurt they feel with those closest to them. Children's anger tends to be about goal blockages and objects; if you've ever seen a child separated from toys, this likely makes sense [source: Carpenter].

But these triggers by themselves aren't enough to get us angry. There's a mental component in which we evaluate whether anger is a justifiable response against this person or object. In a split second, we take in who's to blame, how harmful the trigger is, whether the action was avoidable and whether anger will even be useful in this situation [source: Linden et al.].
We also evaluate the intent of the person behind the trigger, based on the information we have. In rush hour, we may get angry at the driver who cuts us off because it violates the rules of the road. But what if you knew that the driver was trying to make it to the hospital for the birth of his first child? Would your response be different? These are the assessments we're weighing. In less than a second, our brains determine if this trigger justifies our anger.

There is absolutely nothing about this that requires one to either be non-separate nor separate from god, one can be as connected to the deity/deities behind reality as they wish and still be angry or be resisting it. In fact, Buddhism and Taoism, known to be very against extreme emotions and anger in particular, are not crystal clear on their Theistic stance, barely discussing the mechanics or agenda of god, in fact Buddhism can flat out be deemed an atheistic or deistic religion.

In their book "Discovering Psychology," authors Don Hockenbury and Sandra E. Hockenbury suggest that an emotion is a complex psychological state that involves three distinct components: a subjective experience, a physiological response, and a behavioral or expressive response.2

In addition to trying to define what emotions are, researchers have also tried to identify and classify the different types of emotions. The descriptions and insights have changed over time.

  • In 1972, psychologist Paul Ekman suggested that there are six basic emotions that are universal throughout human cultures: fear, disgust, anger, surprise, happiness, and sadness.3
  • In the 1980s, Robert Plutchik introduced another emotion classification system known as the "wheel of emotions." This model demonstrated how different emotions can be combined or mixed together, much the way an artist mixes primary colors to create other colors.4
  • In 1999, Ekman expanded his list to include a number of other basic emotions, including embarrassment, excitement, contempt, shame, pride, satisfaction, and amusement.3

Plutchik proposed eight primary emotional dimensions: happiness vs. sadness, anger vs. fear, trust vs. disgust, and surprise vs. anticipation. These emotions can then be combined to create others (such as happiness + anticipation = excitement).

Key Elements of Emotions
In order to better understand what emotions are, let's focus on their three key elements, known as the subjective experience, the physiological response, and the behavioral response.

Subjective Experience
While experts believe that there are a number of basic universal emotions that are experienced by people all over the world regardless of background or culture, researchers also believe that experiencing emotion can be highly subjective.5 Consider anger, for example. Is all anger the same? Your own experience might range from mild annoyance to blinding rage.

While we have broad labels for emotions such as "angry," "sad," or "happy," your own experience of these emotions may be much more multi-dimensional, hence subjective.
We also don't always experience pure forms of each emotion. Mixed emotions over different events or situations in our lives are common. When faced with starting a new job, you might feel both excited and nervous. Getting married or having a child might be marked by a wide variety of emotions ranging from joy to anxiety. These emotions might occur simultaneously, or you might feel them one after another.

Physiological Response
If you've ever felt your stomach lurch from anxiety or your heart palpate with fear, then you realize that emotions also cause strong physiological reactions.

Many of the physiological responses you experience during an emotion, such as sweaty palms or a racing heartbeat, are regulated by the sympathetic nervous system, a branch of the autonomic nervous system.
The autonomic nervous system controls involuntary body responses, such as blood flow and digestion. The sympathetic nervous system is charged with controlling the body's fight-or-flight reactions. When facing a threat, these responses automatically prepare your body to flee from danger or face the threat head-on.

While early studies of the physiology of emotion tended to focus on these autonomic responses, more recent research has targeted the brain's role in emotions. Brain scans have shown that the amygdala, part of the limbic system, plays an important role in emotion and fear in particular.6

The amygdala itself is a tiny, almond-shaped structure that has been linked to motivational states such as hunger and thirst as well as memory and emotion. Researchers have used brain imaging to show that when people are shown threatening images, the amygdala becomes activated. Damage to the amygdala has also been shown to impair the fear response.7

Behavioral Response
The final component is perhaps one that you are most familiar with—the actual expression of emotion. We spend a significant amount of time interpreting the emotional expressions of the people around us. Our ability to accurately understand these expressions is tied to what psychologists call emotional intelligence, and these expressions play a major part in our overall body language.

Research suggests that many expressions are universal, such as a smile to indicate happiness or a frown to indicate sadness.
Sociocultural norms also play a role in how we express and interpret emotions. In Japan, for example, people tend to mask displays of fear or disgust when an authority figure is present. People in the United States are more likely to express negative emotions both alone and in the presence of others, while people in Japan are more likely to do so while alone.8

I ask to you where at all god plays into that, the real answer that Pro is avoiding to admit is that god doesn't.

The only emotion god could factor into is anxiety as temporarily it gives someone less anxiety to think god is guarding them and listening to their prayers, protecting them from unknown variables and threats that can ruin their wellbeing and wealth but... Well, this won't save them when things do go wrong, if anything it will add to the trauma.
Round 3
Pro
#5
I forfeit this round. Mostly because I've trapped myself arguing for something i never intended too with God. Making it unnecessarily complicated and subjective. Potentially ill open up this debate again in the future with a more appropriate titling and description. 
Con
#6
I don't undertand what that means, my opponent hasn't conceded the debate just the Round...

So, I will clarify where we are at,

I have explained that emotions work part hormonally part psychologically and that the hormonal part has nothing to do with god. As for the psychological part, I am unsure where or how Pro is gathering supposed evidence and aspects of theories that result in concluding that all negative emotions stem from a separation from God.

It is also very confusing that the way Pro has defined negative emotions is specifically emotions we want to end, meaning people with chronic rage, who enjoy and thrive on being angry at least in the short-run would be called positively enraged when really it is a negative emotion and again what does this have to do with God.

Religious Zealots are often full of negative emotions, as in the most fundamentalist severe believers tend to be filled with negative emotions. On the other hand, atheists have a huge variety in their mental wellbeing, again I am not saying a connection to god cannot coincide with a healthy psychological status but it is not a causal agent of all negative emotions.
Round 4
Pro
#7
"i dont know what that means"

I said ill reopen the debate again in the future (when I'm motivated) but this time take God out of the equation. Then my argument becomes much stronger, I'm just bored of trying to argue for god in this debate when its unnecessary for the central point, that pain all comes from duality, separation. I don't know how to forfeit the debate. Do you just let the timer run out or can you press something?
Con
#8
I am taking that as a soft concession and not repeating what I've already said, I will note I made a significant typo at the end of my round 3:

again I am not saying a connection to god cannot coincide with a healthy psychological status but it is not a causal agent of all negative emotions.
I meant separation from god, not connection to god.