Instigator / Pro
12
1266
rating
119
debates
15.97%
won
Topic
#630

Atlantis was a real civilization

Status
Finished

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

Winner & statistics
Better arguments
6
15
Better sources
4
10
Better legibility
2
5
Better conduct
0
5

After 5 votes and with 23 points ahead, the winner is...

oromagi
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
3
Time for argument
Three days
Max argument characters
30,000
Voting period
One week
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Open
Contender / Con
35
1922
rating
117
debates
97.44%
won
Description

No information

Round 1
Pro
#1
Forfeited
Con
#2
Unlike many mythological place names, the origins of the Atlantis legend are well understood.  In Plato's dialogue "Timaeus" the tyrant Critias claims that his great-grandfather had a friend (the famous Solon) who once translated a work from Egyptian to Greek that described an island called Atlantis.  In Plato's "Critias," the nature of Atlantis and its war with a fictional ancient Athens 11,500 years ago was narrated.  We should note that Plato's dialogues are works of fiction recreating popular philosophies of Socrates and his contemporaries.  Socrates used the fictional Atlantis as a foil against which to contrast some of his theories regarding an ideal state.  

After the discovery of the Americas in the late 15th Century, the notion of Atlantis was revived by utopian and apocalyptic theorists as evidence supporting all manner of theories, contributing to and re-editing the fictional history of Atlantis. 

Mid-20th Century psychic Edgar Cayce, who is considered the founder of the modern American New Age Movement, popularized the notion of Atlantis on radio and books by telling many of his subjects that they were re-incarnated Atlantean souls.  Cayce asserted that there was a secret hall of records beneath the Sphinx, the discovery of which would cause Atlantis to rise again from beneath the sea.  Although Cayce asserted that this would take place in the 1960s, the fact that Atlantis did not rise from this sea did little to diminish speculation within New Age thinking.  

No convincing archaeological evidence of a sunken mid-Atlantic civilization has ever been produced.  Archaeologists can assert that there was no ancient Athenian culture as far back as 9,500 BC.  No archaeological finds to date suggest that any Stone Age culture developed sailing vessels earlier than the Egyptians and Polynesians circa 4000 BC.
Round 2
Pro
#3
Forfeited
Con
#4
Extend arguments
Round 3
Pro
#5
Forfeited
Con
#6
Atlantis is fake news.  Pls. vote Con