Instigator / Pro
10
1402
rating
44
debates
40.91%
won
Topic
#701

Reading The Old Testament Cover to Cover is The Fastest Way to Become an Atheist.

Status
Finished

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

Winner & statistics
Better arguments
0
9
Better sources
4
6
Better legibility
3
3
Better conduct
3
2

After 3 votes and with 10 points ahead, the winner is...

RationalMadman
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
3
Time for argument
Three days
Max argument characters
20,000
Voting period
One week
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Open
Contender / Con
20
1697
rating
556
debates
68.17%
won
Description

Full BoP for me.

Round 1
Pro
#1
So my argument is pretty straightforward. 

If one was to research causes for deconversion, you will see a mass of varied reasons why people deconvert. 

Christians will have different opinions on why in contrasts to secular critics. 

All of the given reasons are valid in the right context, so neither side is wrong on the reason, but rather what place it falls in the stats. 

There is one underline theme in most of these scenarios. 

Education. 

"But wait?  Didn't you say it was The Bible?" -- Unspecified Person. 

Ahh, but this is where we have to look to where the cause leads. 


I'm sure all of know a well educated Christian, I know plenty myself, so they definitely exist.  I don't think any of them are converting anytime soon. 

So it still goes deeper than just education. 

When people give accounts of why they deconverted, They always talk about how the religion wasn't what they thought it was.  They thought god was loving and had a perfect plan that made perfect sense.  A lot of people will do mental backflips to defend Bible verses.  But at some point, they realize they can't defend their claims truthfully and this is often the first step to their deconversion. 


Therefore, in the light of this information. 

I claim that The Old Testament, with it's contradictory verses the most common cause of the process of deconversion.

Your floor 
Con
#2
The fastest way to become an atheist is to be born to atheist parents who force it upon you from a young age.

The fastest way for anyone who wasn't raised believing strongly in OT (which will include NT-heavy sects of Christianity) to become atheist is to doubt that the God of their religion makes sense and/or is real.

The fastest way for anyone who is a Jew or OT-reading individual who is beginning to, or currently believes strongly in, the OT is to shut the book before reading it cover to cover and go 'I don't care what's inside there, I doubt God anyway'.

The fastest way for someone who wants to be an atheist but also to fully consider the OT Bible as true is to stop just before the last page's last word and doubt it anyway without having read it cover to cover.

Someone who reads the OT cover to cover will find that the fastest way to become atheist was to never have read the damn book in the first place or considered it.

Someone who is a non-Christian and non-Jew who reads the OT cover to cover may also find it's the fastest way to become a Theist.


Round 2
Pro
#3
The fastest way to become an atheist is to be born to atheist parents who force it upon you from a young age.

The fastest way for anyone who wasn't raised believing strongly in OT (which will include NT-heavy sects of Christianity) to become atheist is to doubt that the God of their religion makes sense and/or is real.

The fastest way for anyone who is a Jew or OT-reading individual who is beginning to, or currently believes strongly in, the OT is to shut the book before reading it cover to cover and go 'I don't care what's inside there, I doubt God anyway'.

The fastest way for someone who wants to be an atheist but also to fully consider the OT Bible as true is to stop just before the last page's last word and doubt it anyway without having read it cover to cover.

Someone who reads the OT cover to cover will find that the fastest way to become atheist was to never have read the damn book in the first place or considered it.

Someone who is a non-Christian and non-Jew who reads the OT cover to cover may also find it's the fastest way to become a Theist.
False


This refutes everything you just said.  Look in the R1 argument for Pro. 



Furthermore, you're just using hyperbolic hypothetical scenarios.  I made a normative argument.  So you're basically making mouth noise at this point. 


Please present a real argument instead of this nonsense.  You might have well said:

The fastest way to become an atheist is to trip of a bible and break your nose and know that god wasn't real. 
You're debating in bad faith and not trying to  approach the argument rationally you mad man. 


Oh now I get them name =P


Your floor.  Although I know you think the floor is the matrix.  Your "blah"
Con
#4
Fast: moving or happening quickly, or able to move or happen quickly
Quickly: after only a very short time
Become: to start to be
Atheist: someone who does not believe in any God or gods

I will repeat my Round One arguments one by one and cement this win home.

The fastest way to become an atheist is to be born to atheist parents who force it upon you from a young age.
We are even arguably all born atheist, so now I will add that at birth you cannot 'believe' in God as you can't even make sense of creation in the first place, right? That fits the definition of an atheist just fine. Even if we concede that babies are too agnostic to be 'agnostic atheists' I did just explain that the fastest way for 'any human' to become atheist is to be raised into it from birth as we are most susceptible to beliefs without questioning when we are young and on top of that we are 'fastest' in terms of 'from existing as a human being' to 'being an atheist' fastest speed-wise via this method.


If we take these 2 articles ^^ and their message and research and flip Theism and religious upbringing to be atheism and agnostic upbringing, the same level of persuading the children can and will work in reverse since it isn't about the children needing a faith that drives them joining the parent's religion, it's them wanting their parents to approve of them.

Children develop morality differently as they age (the rapidness of this development is probably higher in more intelligent humans but that's for another debate). I could also bring the fact that it's been objectively proven that females are easier to persuade than males and that mentally disabled people are easier to persuade but this would neither take away from my case nor add all that much either, after all if females read the OT and their friends like it too then the resolution would backfire on Pro supporting this quote of mine:

Someone who is a non-Christian and non-Jew who reads the OT cover to cover may also find it's the fastest way to become a Theist.
Nonetheless, I'll not bring up the females and the mentally disabled because that's not only a little 'offensive' but it's not even a direct insult or anything to do with this debate since they just as easily refuse to (or struggle to, especially in the case of the mentally disabled) read and comprehend the OT start to finish and frankly it will have less effect on them as they are more persuaded by social pressure than anything else so I guess I can extend my point 1 to say not just parental pressure to be atheist but combined with social pressure.

I'll just give some sources here.

Children incorporating parental morality more as they grow towards adolescence but less past that point:

McLeod, S. (2015). Piaget's Theory of Moral Development | Simply Psychology. [online] Simplypsychology.org. Available at: https://www.simplypsychology.org/piaget-moral.html [Accessed 8 Apr. 2019].
^ This uses the following references within it:
References


The other points I brought in Round 1 as joke-seeming as they are are less of a joke than to say that the single fastest way to become an atheist is to read the OT Bible cover to cover.
Round 3
Pro
#5
Since my opponent merely repeated his round 1 argument (by his own admission)  that means I have nothing new to say. 


Here is my proof 



Good debate
Con
#6
i will like to kiss the bride.