Christians are Delusional

Reason for argument points.

Pro's side:

"All Christians believe in one or more of the Christian tenants objectively centered around magic. Though the attributed tenants differ from denomination to denomination, every known denomination subscribes to at least one or more magical Christian tenant. Whether it's Jesus's resurrection, Creationism events, a thought policing dictator (God), answered prayers, talking snakes and donkeys, burning bushes, a staff parting a sea, a global flood, walking on water or turning water to wine, they all are considered by definition to be magic.

Nothing in our observable reality demonstrates magic is real. Furthermore, holding a belief in it, despite contradicting scientific evidence and observation, is absurdly disjointed from reality. Nonetheless, Christians still believe various magic based tenants of Christianity".

Pro established pretty clearly in my opinion that all Christians, at least subscribe to the basic tenants of Christianity. Pro rightly points out that Christians essentially belief in some kind of magic. This is enough in my opinion to warrant that Christians can adopt mass delusions since Pro also rightly points out later that the views tend to be idiosyncratic.

Con's argument had three main prongs. First that Christians weren't idiosyncratic, second that magic isn't magic if it's real, and third that some Christians use metaphors, I didn't find any of these arguments strong and pro showed in future rounds why this didn't follow. Con did a little to show that views weren't idiosyncratic, but not enough to stop mass delusions. Pro also pointed out that there is scientific evidence for mass delusion which helped his case quite a bit here. Con's critique of magic was more a definitional trick and not really practical or in tune with reality. Furthermore, con's examples came from the bible which would have been fine except Con did nothing to support them further aside from assert them ad infinitum. On the metaphors, the problem was that Con was referring to a fringe group and did not make a strong enough effort to show how this could refute pro's claim.

In the end, Pro came out on the winning side of the argument point because pro did not rebut the points enough in my opinion. Pro still had plenty of room off of his initial claims to show his argument reasonable.

Tied on all other points.

Arguments.

This is a good old fashioned definitional argument. It mostly comprises of both sides covering the definitions

1.) idiosyncratic

Con argues that as there are 2.3bn Christians, the belief cannot be idiosyncratic. Pro argues that it can be considered idiosyncratic to christianity. Con argues that the definition used by pro is being applied far too broadly - and that other definitions clearly imply that 2.3bn people believing the same thing is not “unusual”.

I think con did better on this point, if felt like pro was very much stretching the definitions used.

2.) contradicted by reality.

Con has two main thrusts - that in Christian majority countries the reality is christianity. The second is that the religious believes are nominally unfalsifiable so they can’t contradict reality. I am not going to consider cons argument against atheism - even if I accept it, it doesn’t prove or refute the resolution so I would consider it non topical.

Pros response is to point out some claims are falsifiable and where they have they have been falsified - and specifically lists a series of the more major ones. I also particularly like the collective delusion argument - for me this leads me to believe that the definition of “accepted reality”, is more rooted in objectively demonstrable reality, rather than any false constructed reality shared by many.

Con raises a definition objection here that pro is arguing against his own definition - I felt pros definition or collective delusion was somewhat more convincing than an appeal to the dictionary - however pros argument that the literal biblical beliefs are not commonly held by even “most”
Christians. This negates much of the falsification pro was raising.

3.) Christianity is explicitly excluded from delusion.

Con cites some specific diagnostic criteria, while pros response is to outline a series of whacky behaviour (speaking in tongues, believe they have witnessed miracles. This point ties in with a few others I will cover in a second.

4.) Magic.

A big part of this debate was characterization of miracles, about the violation of natural law. I feel that this is where pro did a little better. While I feel the term magic was a little bit ad hom, he did a good job of covering the seeming “magic” in miracles based on core Christian beliefs (such as the resurrection), and did well in my view to paint them as absurd - cons primary response was what felt like a shady non response - talking about magic only as an apparent influence: in my view if explliarmus worked in the real world - I would categorize this as magic.

Conclusion.

I’m going to start with the most broad definition of this debate resolution - that many or most Christians are deluded - and believe in whacky and irrational claims.

Even If I start here - I feel pro falls short on two points:

A.) That enough Christians hold this irrational belief. I feel pro relied too much on implying that all Christians hold these beliefs in the way he claims.

B.) That the belief is inherently held irrationally - rather than just a belief that isn’t paid too much attention - to the point we could consider it irrational.

IMO con was sufficiently good to prevent pro from establishing even the most limited form of the resolution - and I believe pro was a victim of his own narrowly defined resolution.

Arguments to con: all other points tied.

Argument (Con):

Pro's basic argument was that Christianity is a delusion because it contradicts reality. Con tried to refute this by saying that not all Christians believe in the things that Pro described, such as resurrections, but Pro made it clear that a Christian believed in the Bible, which says that Christians must believe in Jesus' resurrection. I will give that point to Pro.

However, Con additionally refuted Pro's main claim by showing first how science cannot necessarily disprove supernatural claims, and also why Christianity is not idiosyncratic because it is widely accepted as the truth. Pro laid the definitions in the description, which I always count as a higher power over rounds. I'd advise debators to stick to anything and everything that you put in your description, because I will count it against you if you don't.

Pro tried to say that Christian beliefs were idiosyncratic to Christianity itself, which makes no sense to me, so I cannot give him that point.

One thing I really liked that Pro said is how Christian beliefs can be delusional if the contradicted actual reality. The only problem I found with this is that his original definition of delusion was shown as what goes against what is generally accepted as reality. This is what Con was arguing against, so this didn't really help Pro in the end.

I am giving the point to Con because he focused on the original definitions given in the description, while Pro's points tended to sway from that.

Sources (Con):

Con's sources firstly explain what an idosyncrasy is, and then furthers his claims by showing how Christianity has been excluded from the definition of delusion by experts. Pro's sources did not have much to do with the debate, like when he cites sources about different denominations. Con's showed statistics, which furthered his points much more. That is why he gets sources.

Spelling & Grammar (Tie):

Both parties had some grammatical inconsistencies, but they did not impede the flow of the argument.

Conduct (Tie):

Both parties conducted themselves professionally, so there's nothing else to say here.