Instigator / Con
7
1540
rating
4
debates
100.0%
won
Topic
#437

"God is evil because the bible says most people will burn in hell forever."

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...

Raltar
Judges
Ramshutu's avatar
Ramshutu
43 debates / 689 votes
Voted
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
3
Time for argument
Three days
Max argument characters
15,000
Voting period
One month
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Judges
Contender / Pro
4
1596
rating
42
debates
63.1%
won
Description

Several times, Debateart.com user Alec has made statements to the following effect;

"I think God is evil because the bible says most people will burn in hell forever. No one deserves to burn in hell forever."
(Source; https://www.debateart.com/debates/386/comment_links/3143)

Alec is not the only user who has advocated such a position. User Swagnarok has made similar allegations (https://www.debateart.com/forum/topics/911/post_links/40474).

Based on these statements, I hereby challenge Alec to a debate to defend his claim.

CON - Raltar - AGAINST the idea that "God is evil because the bible says most people will burn in hell forever."

PRO - Alec - FOR the idea that "God is evil because the bible says most people will burn in hell forever."

I have asked Ramshutu to judge this debate. Ramshutu is widely considered one of the best and most mature voters on this site. Ramshutu is also a non-Christian, so his view will be unbiased and he will be difficult to convince of either position.

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@Ramshutu

Good to know. Thanks for all your feedback!

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@Raltar

I’ve seen this type of argument multiple times, so I think it’s fairly common. I made a variation of it years ago myself - but using Saddam Hussein, on MySpace - so that kinda dates it.

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@Ramshutu

Of course! I'm glad to get your perspective on this. I'm sure I will hear an argument like this again someday and having an opportunity to refine my response is helpful. Out of curiosity, have you ever seen anyone else attempt a Stalin->God comparison before? Is that a common Atheist viewpoint as far as you know?

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@Raltar

Bear in mind these responses aren’t a reason why your arguments were bad - simply my opinion (as an Atheist) as to how you could make it harder to argue against.

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@Raltar

It was a good rebuttal with some limitations.

If he had made the same argument about Stalin, and argued if Stalin had made a rule that everyone who said anything bad about Stalin should be shot on sight, that it would not have been Stalin ordering people to their death, it would have been their own choice - that would have been a good argument that was directly equivalent. That’s what I was trying to get at with my RfD.

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@Ramshutu

So, did you find it to be a good rebuttal in the way he used it, in response to where one of my sources claimed that God doesn't send people to hell? Or are you saying that he should have fleshed this out further to try to compare God to Stalin and gulags to hell?

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@Raltar

Yes, i think it was specifically incomplete - but is a great explanatory example - when you can change the word God for Stalin, and make an argument is a fairly compelling moral argument it implies immorality using an agreed baseline, rather than having to specifically prove one example of another.

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@Ramshutu

When you refer to his Stalin argument, do you mean where he said; "This also would be like saying that Stalin did not send Russians to death camps, but rather the Russians chose to go there for disobeying Stalin."

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@Raltar

If you’re arguing God, and talking about Biblical questions and quotations as pro did - fight the ground that is strongest for you. In this case, using
Blocks citations and theological principles would have been better. Arguing from a secular position massively weakens your position in my view, as you cut off the biggest source of support for your arguments

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@Raltar

This is purely personal preference: but the strongest way, in my view, that you could have argued this, is to have offered a specific framework then defended that framework. While your argument is valid, it was a bit of a patchwork of different examples and positions that made it harder for you to defend as a whole and tie everything together; that’s not to say that you’re argument was poor.

As a hard core Atheist, I don’t think this would have been too hard for me to argue against the individual points you made: the only argument I could have made against you presenting and defending a framework, is biblical support - which immediately gives you the advantage with your excellent interpretation argument.

Saying that, you didn’t do badly by any means, pro was hampered by the forfeits, and very short dismissive rebuttals.

Note that his Stalin rebuttal was really good - if you’re interested in atheism debates, this is a great example of one individual point.

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@Ramshutu

I guess I also avoided using "specific examples" because I wanted to make an argument from as much of a "secular" position as possible, so that even non-christians who disagree with the Bible in general could follow along with my reasoning. Do you think it would have been better to have taken a "more theological" approach and responded to his Bible citations with counter-citations?

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@Ramshutu

Interesting. So, if I understand correctly, you wanted to see more of an explanation of how hell (somewhat regardless of the "forever" angle) is moral beyond merely refuting Pro's interpretation? I could have gone that way, but to do that I would have probably had to completely alter the approach and not even addressed point #2. I felt that if I undermined the specific wording of his argument, specifically the claim that hell is proven to be "forever" then trying to explain the morality of hell would be largely unnecessary. In fact, the two things somewhat would contradict each other, because most sources I could draw upon to defend the morality of hell tend to take the "forever" stance, and the sources that oppose the "forever" interpretation tend to brush off the moral argument because it's largely moot if you don't think people will be there forever. So... I suppose I could do what you are suggesting, but it may require a lot more research, some more specific sources and a much longer argument (30,000 characters per round would have been necessary, most likely). I'll definitely take that under consideration for the future.

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@Ramshutu

Yeah, that certain collection... but anyway, please do! I'm especially looking for feedback on if what I presented was able to be easily understood by a "secular" audience or if it was too theological/apologetic for the average person to see what I was driving at. And even if Alec didn't refute all my points, I'm curious to see how well his overall argument stands up to the way I attacked it.

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@Alec
@Raltar

Generally speaking, as I can’t score conduct: there wouldn’t be any specific impact from the forfeit, other than if one side made a good argument that isn’t refuted. It’s hard to determine a winner without considering unrefuted arguments - but if both sides are happy with me doing so I can provide constructive feedback in the RFD of both sides along with the decision.

I’ve generally started avoiding doing that, as it seems a collection of individuals are unable to discern constructive feedback portions, from my actual decision.

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@Ramshutu
@Alec

Alec, just to clarify, judged debates don't have any effect on your rating, so it won't actually matter who wins/loses/ties in this debate. It's basically just bragging points, at best.

Ramshutu, even though my opponent ran out of time, I hope you can score this debate as though it wasn't a forfeit. I hit this one with everything I had and I actually want to see how effective I was at convincing you on this topic.

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@Alec

There is probably an option that says "other" or something along those lines.

At the time I made that, I would call myself a Christian who hates God. I should change it but I don't know what to change it too.

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@Alec

But your profile also says you are a Christian and you argued that God is evil. So I dunno how much we aught to trust profiles on this site...

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@Raltar

As of right now, your profile does.

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@Alec

I don't vote on my own debate and this is the last round, so there is no further action I can take anyway. It will be up to Ramshutu to decide how to weigh everything. Besides, who said I was a Christian?

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@Raltar

I apologize for forfeiting. I think I was too involved with schoolwork. Given that your a Christian, I would expect you to forgive me for the forfeit. It's the Christian thing to do after all.

Very interesting to debate an opinion.

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@Alec
@Raltar

This is a much more interesting read than I thought it would be from the topic. Will be voting. :)