Someone forfeiting sets them at an inherent argument disadvantage, as they dropped all arguments for a whole round. I've seen less organic judges disallow people to pick things up again once they've been dropped.
Special rules are copy/pasted without understanding of what they mean. The citations rule is not even a special rule, it's something that goes without saying. The K rule, well you saw how that played out (honestly, I would fold that one and trolling into a single rule along the lines of "No Trolling, to include BS Kritiks").
All this said, there's almost a week of voting left. The two most active voters on the site are maybe 30% of the active voting power (Ram's castd like 25%, and I've done 5%?), but you're behind by only five points. Any vote in your favor can be expected to be 4 points, most against you will only be 2 (I assume most people will give you conduct).
Interestingly I support the idea of automating a loss for R1 forfeiture or any 2 otherwise. Yet where I support that, I do also point out that R1 is the place that is most recoverable (just if someone forfeits it, they are most likely going to forfeit the rest anyway, so save people time and effort).
I would accept, but I expect leg counts and opinions on medicine proving God to somehow work its' way in... I've already had enough of those.
Anyway, the description should clarify the terms such as ESP (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extrasensory_perception). Also, please fix your formatting inside the debate rounds, here's a guide for how to do it right (if it helps, I'll claim God told me to tell you...): https://tiny.cc/DebateArt
The strength of your interest in me (some random dude online) is unhealthy and quite frankly disturbing.
When someone explains to you why they don't want to be your friend, you complain they're wrong to not want to be your friend and that it's trying to "shut down the dialogue as a way of avoidance and it is a vicious attack." That is exactly what you just did to me. Then you followed this up by tagging me in random single word posts as a desperate plea for yet more attention. This is all just after admitting you tried to trick the system into thinking I had unblocked you so that you could tag me in page after page of unprompted drivel.
For these reasons, I am telling you to cease and desist, and am blocking you again.
I see you've now unblocked me, well over a month after I brought it to your attention that you prevented me from tagging you in replies, only for you to tag me in a bunch for attention... As for the friend request, I am not friends with misogynists (for evidence, see your debate arguments based on the assumption that women are not people).
I'm willing to debate with you if Jesus rebuilt the temple. I am not willing to have a debate as a platform for you to preach antisemitism (which broadly calling all Jews irrational for not being Christians would be). But you can create an open challenge, and I'm sure someone will accept.
As for accusing you of word salad, bare in mind you just did five whole posts to reply to a concise three lines of text from me... The choice of calling you that was due to your four post explaining that you think buildings being rebuilt would not imply any physical structures but something akin to someone imagining it really hard.
Good luck on this debate. To predict some counterpoints, you may want to skim through one of my debates on this topic from a few months ago: https://www.debateart.com/debates/566/the-existence-of-god-is-impossible
And no, I do not want to debate this right now. I've been hounded by a couple false flag Christians lately, and don't want to imagine how they think.
I view this debate as an alpha test for group debates, so feel that the benefits and downsides have shown well. With that done, I am not particularly attached to the outcome of this debate.
Alec, do you know when you'll have computer access again? Pretty sure everyone on my team is willing to waive a round to give you more time. Our team nearly had to forfeit R3 over similar issues. We could also post what you've written for you.
Thanks for the fine example of word salad (https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Word_salad).
As best I can understand, you want to prove the temple was rebuilt by unstated non-physical standards; if so open the debate with the description detailing what criteria for proof you'll use.
Thanks for changing up your debates. Since it's a new one from you, I'll debate you rather than waiting for the voting period. Hopefully I can correct your misunderstandings related to probability theory (or you correct mine), but either way we should be able to have a decent discussion.
And yes, I assume this debate is intended to be about probability theory, if I am mistaken please put the corrected debate resolution into the start of your R1.
Pro please format these better. Here’s a guide: https://tiny.cc/DebateArt
---RFD---
Gist:
Technically the right poisons in low doses heal, which pro misses is the opposite of harm... Anyway, if pro ever met his BoP, he hid such inside the Gish Gallop.
1. “Evil Definitions”
Yes, words are derived from other words. So very evil indeed.
Con asserts that they are named after it for the similar field, instead of the intent to harm (missed the basic evolution of words, but pro never proved the intent was harm so assertion meet assertion).
2. “pharmaceutical industry is a drug cartel”
15 part Gish Gallop.
Con engages in a Gish reply.
Pro complains that he thinks irrelevant things are relevant.
3. Side Effects
Atenolol indeed has side effects, and if you believe sales fear factics employed by water filtration companies (or homeopathic practitioners... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvuzpeAIm24) diluting it into large bodies of water would magically make it stronger (implied and required for threat to be valid, but not directly stated.
Con points out that you need a prescription to avoid taking too much of it to then be poisoned.
Pro insists they prescribe intentionally dangerous amounts.
Con counters that such would make them less money (which would prevent them from being an effective drug cartel).
4. Doctors Are Secretly Greek Cultists and/or Sorcerers
They do have recognizable symbols, so there’s that. And they take evil oaths to do no harm...
Con compares these symbols to the branding on Jaguar cars, completely overlooking how many people those cars literally envelope every year!
5. CIA Surgical Conspiracies
Unsure what this has to do with the resolution...
---
Arguments: Con
See above review of key points. Sorry if anyone is confused by the dusting of comedy mixed in. Basically con wins or ties every relevant contention.
Sources: Tied
Gish Galloped sources do not win the point.
You honestly think your R2 arguments which went completely unaddressed were respected? Your opponent lacked even the decency to concede the debate when dropping out (as he repeatedly bleated about in the comment section).
---RFD (1 of 2)---
Interpreting the resolution:
Pretty straight forward proposal.
Gist:
I learned more about intersexed people than I ever thought I needed. While I disagree with pro, he makes a strong case.
1. Value Proposition to Status Quo
Con suggests more choices are good, and a lack of harm by existence of said choices. Pro counters that the bio section lets them full express themselves and explain any special details like pronouns (add some back and forth, a couple references to Sharkdado... which FYI, is a sexuality).
Con clarifies: “being able to determine something about a DART user's personality helps another such user much more than knowing what genitalia said DART user has.” Wholly agreed.
As for the potential moving the goalpost fallacy, I am oddly siding with pro on it. It seemed to be a suggestion of a tactic which should be employed in light of him proving the coherence of the sex field, which left the gender field assumed incoherent by comparison and not defended on that point.
2. Wasteful Change
The ol’ if it ain’t broke line expanded out... These don’t tend to sway me, especially when we know the competing value proposition is incoming (as much as I agree BoP rests on pro). As pro ended up pointing out, it’s only a minute amount of effort to change this.
I do count pro’s rhetorical just get rid of all the fields against him...
---RFD (2 of 2)---
3. Biological Neatness
For the first heading on this (relating to the physical world), pro did very well to say “The importance of this will be shown later.”
Con counters that this is a website (I liked a lot of this, but it got tedious by the end), but later messily talked about “more real-world uses.”
4. Gender is unscientific
It certainly can’t be determined by an outsider...
5. Aje
Well played...
Nice counter from con about why people use genders other than their sexes.
I probably found it too amusing that pro used Toasters as a gender in his defense... But pro rightly caught con insisting on biological standards.
6. Data Use
It needs to be said, people do have the option to change such things any time they want, and that is unlikely to change under any storage name. However, pro does make a case for website design and advertising to which better data would be useful. ... Con’s rebuttal directly dismissed this listed value, which as a debater I do understand the flow we get into, so am calling it a minor oversight rather than a conduct violation.
Con rightly points out that people who want to flip flop, will do that no matter what the field is called. Pro insists that there would be less of this, and the data would still be better.
---
Arguments:
See above review of key points. On balance pro pulls ahead, without a doubt proving that sex is a better metric, and further that it would be a better metric for this site. ... And yeah, I disagree for various subjective reasons, but he made the better case.
Sources:
I saw what I thought was callouts, but no sources were listed (I discount final round ones as unnatural).
I'll never understand why people who block me keep tagging me in shit...
If I'm wrong about Jesus rebuilding the temple, please point to it on a map.
...
A quick reference for anyone curious about the basic messianic prophecies Jesus failed at (please note that anyone who thinks Joseph isn't his father, has already agreed he failed to be of the prophesied lineage): https://jewsforjudaism.org/knowledge/articles/messiah-the-criteria
I tend to use debate when the difference of opinion is polarizing. It further serves as a type of peer-review, to find faults with strongly held notions.
In case you're being serious that you're not familar with the conversation you were taking part in, I'll give a refresher before blocking you for trolling:
See previous post: "He was required to be in order to be the messiah (well any male path descendant of Abraham would do). That's why the book of Matthew spent so long at the start proving he was the blood son of Joseph." ... That you're "very familiar with the story, so no need to recite the lineage" but are now obtusely denying it, is why I'm calling you out for trolling.
That you claim didn't see Genesis 12:1-3 (or various others within the link stipulating whose bloodline the messiah had to come from), either speaks of your trolling mastery or your reading comprehension; out of respect for you I am assuming the former.
Basically Joseph and Mary had sex, Jesus was one of the children that resulted; hence why Joseph's lineage matters.
As for prophecies about Jesus' parentage, I did a little Googling for you rather than trying to do it justice myself: https://www.blueletterbible.org/faq/don_stewart/don_stewart_234.cfm
He was required to be in order to be the messiah (well any male path descendant of Abraham would do). That's why the book of Matthew spent so long at the start proving he was the blood son of Joseph.
A typo of note from me in R3 was: "Con has offered no value alternative" which should have read "Pro" instead of con (as I was con referred to pro). Anyway, I don't expect S&G to become an issue on this debate.
If you ever want advice about how to strengthen an argument, let me know. I actually enjoy arguing both sides in theology debates.
Oh if you haven't already read it, there's some great advice in the style guide: https://tiny.cc/DebateArt
On page 6 I offer quick suggestions specifically for speculation debates like this one.
If you are this opposed to the conduct of someone stating what they believe BoP to be inside a debate, you should probably start a debate on the topic.
While not a winning argument, a good piece of evidence for you would actually be found in my site guide for DDO: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1B2zJX6-A0NNwQguIoWrM9HDoB_nbGhi7NIhYZ2v68Q4/edit#heading=h.pn6obigpxbnb
That said, my guide for this site outright advises use of foreshadowing in that manner. For a quick and entertaining example of it being well used by someone other than Ram: https://www.debateart.com/debates/949/morals-cannot-exist-without-god (granted I had someone create a lengthy forum topic to complain that they think the guy who forfeited secretly won that debate...).
---RFD (1 of 3)---
Interpreting the resolution:
X made Y. Made Y is the key claim, with X being presumed (a K would be valid, but they’re pretty annoying and usually unnecessary)
Gist:
About 8000 characters more than the argument warranted.
1. Evolution v. Creation: Con
Pro opens with “we just popped into existence” and scientists who imply otherwise glued some bones together.
Con counters with the theory of gene mutation, which intuitively explains why different people from different parts of the world look different (“When two groups of the same species become geographically separated: these organisms acquire random changes independently”), and of course why we’re not suffering from worse inbreeding (granted the creation theory would prevent any mutation, so inbreeding would not be a problem if it’s true).
Pro dismisses it as “illogical,” because we don’t massively mutate spontaneously like the X-Men (he mentioned fairy tales, rather than specifically Marvel Comics). Plus some mention of different bear species, which with the evidence unchallenged actually supports mutation rather than creation.
---RFD (2 of 3)---
2. Numbers AKA “List or coincidences”
Pro offers a bunch of numbers within a number system based on observations of these things, and concludes that God must have done it. Con counters that it’s an argument from ignorance. If it was proven that some cosmic being created the sun, it would not prove creation of life by the same being. So, this section is irrelevant to the resolution.
Regarding animals, pro makes the case for God spontaneously created each variant to be perfect for its environment. Pro counters that it lacks optimization on form for each area (maintaining a constant number of legs on all mammals, the same useless hip bones inside whales, etc.); and if no shared ancestry due to spontaneous creation the leg count would be random on each species of mammal (honestly, it’d look pretty cool were that the case..., Pokémon or other anime monsters, instead of extreme but dull variants of the same form we see today).
3. Drugs/Herbs
Carbon-based organisms are successful with carbon-based food sources... This doesn’t prove anything. Nor does not all living things being adapted for our consumption prove that God (or “mother nature”) reaches down each time to lay a curse on what would otherwise be healthy.
---RFD (3 of 3)---
4. God did it
Basically a weak repeat of the evolution claim, which has already been addressed.
5. Unintelligent Design
Pretty much just a reminder that the design sucks at supporting life, making it a fluke anything lived long enough to adapt (and usually pretty poorly, such as us not being able to drink most of the available water, while depending on water to live), while reminding us that it is the result of adaption rather than perfectly suited creation down to limb counts that would be randomized if the creatures were unrelated due to spontaneous creation...
---
Arguments: con
See above review of key points. This pretty heavily goes to con, particularly as BoP is pro trying to prove the status quo wrong, which needs significant reason for it to be rejected.
Sources:
I don’t want to go to the trouble of looking through all the various sources, but I do need to call con out on the “Real Science Radio” religious racist propaganda site. The page in question insists repeatedly that God is a ginormous Caucasian Male Human (or at least the disembodied hand of one), which anyone familiar with the bible knows to be BS. Seriously, use better sources.
S&G: con
Was already leaning con due to organization and not all bolding any paragraphs... However basic rules about capitalization and punctuation were ignored by pro, repeatedly pulling me out of the argument. Examples from just the first paragraph, “female. the” “tracing. since” “Lucy. instead” “parts. seriously” “human. instead”
Con on the other hand was perfectly legible, even adding necessary organization to pro’s points (could have been better, as they were over expanded and each given their own number away from the initial numbering system...).
Conduct:
I find the repeated calling everyone morons distasteful, but it was technically a source which did this (to which pro repeatedly quoted in rapid succession), so giving a pass due to it being somewhat borderline.
Interpreting the resolution:
I want to just say ‘Noah’s flood = factual,’ but this resolution is a jumble of different separate (but related) cases to not be understated. Key thing is it is not about weak likelihood, it is about a strong degree of certainty (at least to within each of the proposed measurement standards). Or as con puts it “Noah's flood is proven true.”
…So I write this section before reading debates, but in the final round pro seemed to try to move the goalpost to generally that a worldwide flood may have happened (and that Noah’s is just the best historical record). If that was the originally intended debate, Noah would have not been mentioned in the resolution, nor so much in R1.
Gist:
This was just way too much to try to fit into one debate.
1. Definitions
They are agreed (surprised the year one was agreed to, but oh well).
Pro, technically it’s not a concession unless you previously disagreed, as is you just agree.
2. Possibilities
By agreeing to judge this, I have agreed to the possibility, making this contention slightly redundant unless Con prior to R1 made a contention about impossibility. Double redundancy comes from if something is proven to have happened, it is automatically possible.
3. Water
The “1,085,166,768 cubic miles of water” indeed seems unlikely. Some back and forth, talk about the ocean floor spontaneously turning to magma pushing all the water up, and other things that seem in the realm of proving a vague possibility instead of proving that it actually happened.
Worse was the salt issue, that all the land recovered would have been submerged in saltwater for an extended period, killing the plants we enjoy today.
That various ice samples from around the world do not indicate a flood, gets a bit weird with in the inclusion of magma probably having melted them all… But assuming they’re not accurate over longer periods of time, when trying to prove said flood happened in such a narrow window of a few thousand years of recent human activity (the recorded history argument which was accepted), it becomes suspect that they would all be that inaccurate.
Thanks for the vote. Unfortunately it falls a little below the standards for a couple reasons, so an admin will be removing it.
Also welcome to the site. I hope you have a lot of fun here.
Someone forfeiting sets them at an inherent argument disadvantage, as they dropped all arguments for a whole round. I've seen less organic judges disallow people to pick things up again once they've been dropped.
Special rules are copy/pasted without understanding of what they mean. The citations rule is not even a special rule, it's something that goes without saying. The K rule, well you saw how that played out (honestly, I would fold that one and trolling into a single rule along the lines of "No Trolling, to include BS Kritiks").
All this said, there's almost a week of voting left. The two most active voters on the site are maybe 30% of the active voting power (Ram's castd like 25%, and I've done 5%?), but you're behind by only five points. Any vote in your favor can be expected to be 4 points, most against you will only be 2 (I assume most people will give you conduct).
Interestingly I support the idea of automating a loss for R1 forfeiture or any 2 otherwise. Yet where I support that, I do also point out that R1 is the place that is most recoverable (just if someone forfeits it, they are most likely going to forfeit the rest anyway, so save people time and effort).
https://www.debateart.com/forum/topics/2290/propositions-for-automatically-finished-debates
https://youtu.be/oVnuFY20st0?t=40
I would accept, but I expect leg counts and opinions on medicine proving God to somehow work its' way in... I've already had enough of those.
Anyway, the description should clarify the terms such as ESP (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extrasensory_perception). Also, please fix your formatting inside the debate rounds, here's a guide for how to do it right (if it helps, I'll claim God told me to tell you...): https://tiny.cc/DebateArt
The strength of your interest in me (some random dude online) is unhealthy and quite frankly disturbing.
When someone explains to you why they don't want to be your friend, you complain they're wrong to not want to be your friend and that it's trying to "shut down the dialogue as a way of avoidance and it is a vicious attack." That is exactly what you just did to me. Then you followed this up by tagging me in random single word posts as a desperate plea for yet more attention. This is all just after admitting you tried to trick the system into thinking I had unblocked you so that you could tag me in page after page of unprompted drivel.
For these reasons, I am telling you to cease and desist, and am blocking you again.
RIP Caesar
August 12th 2006 - August 15th 2019
Given that it's the start of the weekend, I figure now would be an ideal time for a vote reminder. So please vote...
Of course if not voting, any debate feedback would still very much be appreciated.
I see you've now unblocked me, well over a month after I brought it to your attention that you prevented me from tagging you in replies, only for you to tag me in a bunch for attention... As for the friend request, I am not friends with misogynists (for evidence, see your debate arguments based on the assumption that women are not people).
I'm willing to debate with you if Jesus rebuilt the temple. I am not willing to have a debate as a platform for you to preach antisemitism (which broadly calling all Jews irrational for not being Christians would be). But you can create an open challenge, and I'm sure someone will accept.
As for accusing you of word salad, bare in mind you just did five whole posts to reply to a concise three lines of text from me... The choice of calling you that was due to your four post explaining that you think buildings being rebuilt would not imply any physical structures but something akin to someone imagining it really hard.
Good luck on this debate. To predict some counterpoints, you may want to skim through one of my debates on this topic from a few months ago: https://www.debateart.com/debates/566/the-existence-of-god-is-impossible
And no, I do not want to debate this right now. I've been hounded by a couple false flag Christians lately, and don't want to imagine how they think.
I view this debate as an alpha test for group debates, so feel that the benefits and downsides have shown well. With that done, I am not particularly attached to the outcome of this debate.
Alec, do you know when you'll have computer access again? Pretty sure everyone on my team is willing to waive a round to give you more time. Our team nearly had to forfeit R3 over similar issues. We could also post what you've written for you.
Thanks for the fine example of word salad (https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Word_salad).
As best I can understand, you want to prove the temple was rebuilt by unstated non-physical standards; if so open the debate with the description detailing what criteria for proof you'll use.
Thanks for changing up your debates. Since it's a new one from you, I'll debate you rather than waiting for the voting period. Hopefully I can correct your misunderstandings related to probability theory (or you correct mine), but either way we should be able to have a decent discussion.
And yes, I assume this debate is intended to be about probability theory, if I am mistaken please put the corrected debate resolution into the start of your R1.
You may wish to start another debate on this topic, as I don't think the contender is coming back...
Pro please format these better. Here’s a guide: https://tiny.cc/DebateArt
---RFD---
Gist:
Technically the right poisons in low doses heal, which pro misses is the opposite of harm... Anyway, if pro ever met his BoP, he hid such inside the Gish Gallop.
1. “Evil Definitions”
Yes, words are derived from other words. So very evil indeed.
Con asserts that they are named after it for the similar field, instead of the intent to harm (missed the basic evolution of words, but pro never proved the intent was harm so assertion meet assertion).
2. “pharmaceutical industry is a drug cartel”
15 part Gish Gallop.
Con engages in a Gish reply.
Pro complains that he thinks irrelevant things are relevant.
3. Side Effects
Atenolol indeed has side effects, and if you believe sales fear factics employed by water filtration companies (or homeopathic practitioners... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvuzpeAIm24) diluting it into large bodies of water would magically make it stronger (implied and required for threat to be valid, but not directly stated.
Con points out that you need a prescription to avoid taking too much of it to then be poisoned.
Pro insists they prescribe intentionally dangerous amounts.
Con counters that such would make them less money (which would prevent them from being an effective drug cartel).
4. Doctors Are Secretly Greek Cultists and/or Sorcerers
They do have recognizable symbols, so there’s that. And they take evil oaths to do no harm...
Con compares these symbols to the branding on Jaguar cars, completely overlooking how many people those cars literally envelope every year!
5. CIA Surgical Conspiracies
Unsure what this has to do with the resolution...
---
Arguments: Con
See above review of key points. Sorry if anyone is confused by the dusting of comedy mixed in. Basically con wins or ties every relevant contention.
Sources: Tied
Gish Galloped sources do not win the point.
Conduct: Pro
Forfeited round.
Someone remind me tomorrow morning and I'll vote (maybe even tonight depending on how late my social plans go).
Thanks for that extremely detailed vote!
You honestly think your R2 arguments which went completely unaddressed were respected? Your opponent lacked even the decency to concede the debate when dropping out (as he repeatedly bleated about in the comment section).
---RFD (1 of 2)---
Interpreting the resolution:
Pretty straight forward proposal.
Gist:
I learned more about intersexed people than I ever thought I needed. While I disagree with pro, he makes a strong case.
1. Value Proposition to Status Quo
Con suggests more choices are good, and a lack of harm by existence of said choices. Pro counters that the bio section lets them full express themselves and explain any special details like pronouns (add some back and forth, a couple references to Sharkdado... which FYI, is a sexuality).
Con clarifies: “being able to determine something about a DART user's personality helps another such user much more than knowing what genitalia said DART user has.” Wholly agreed.
As for the potential moving the goalpost fallacy, I am oddly siding with pro on it. It seemed to be a suggestion of a tactic which should be employed in light of him proving the coherence of the sex field, which left the gender field assumed incoherent by comparison and not defended on that point.
2. Wasteful Change
The ol’ if it ain’t broke line expanded out... These don’t tend to sway me, especially when we know the competing value proposition is incoming (as much as I agree BoP rests on pro). As pro ended up pointing out, it’s only a minute amount of effort to change this.
I do count pro’s rhetorical just get rid of all the fields against him...
---RFD (2 of 2)---
3. Biological Neatness
For the first heading on this (relating to the physical world), pro did very well to say “The importance of this will be shown later.”
Con counters that this is a website (I liked a lot of this, but it got tedious by the end), but later messily talked about “more real-world uses.”
4. Gender is unscientific
It certainly can’t be determined by an outsider...
5. Aje
Well played...
Nice counter from con about why people use genders other than their sexes.
I probably found it too amusing that pro used Toasters as a gender in his defense... But pro rightly caught con insisting on biological standards.
6. Data Use
It needs to be said, people do have the option to change such things any time they want, and that is unlikely to change under any storage name. However, pro does make a case for website design and advertising to which better data would be useful. ... Con’s rebuttal directly dismissed this listed value, which as a debater I do understand the flow we get into, so am calling it a minor oversight rather than a conduct violation.
Con rightly points out that people who want to flip flop, will do that no matter what the field is called. Pro insists that there would be less of this, and the data would still be better.
---
Arguments:
See above review of key points. On balance pro pulls ahead, without a doubt proving that sex is a better metric, and further that it would be a better metric for this site. ... And yeah, I disagree for various subjective reasons, but he made the better case.
Sources:
I saw what I thought was callouts, but no sources were listed (I discount final round ones as unnatural).
Conduct:
Forfeiture.
Reading your arguments now... Neat thing about age: There's one or two major lawsuits going on about that right now (it's neat, but weird).
I'll never understand why people who block me keep tagging me in shit...
If I'm wrong about Jesus rebuilding the temple, please point to it on a map.
...
A quick reference for anyone curious about the basic messianic prophecies Jesus failed at (please note that anyone who thinks Joseph isn't his father, has already agreed he failed to be of the prophesied lineage): https://jewsforjudaism.org/knowledge/articles/messiah-the-criteria
Thanks for voting. R'amen!
Everyone knows the Death Star was an inside job: https://vimeo.com/61930750
> "plus no one is voting on this"
It's only been four hours...
I'm going to second what Luke said.
I tend to use debate when the difference of opinion is polarizing. It further serves as a type of peer-review, to find faults with strongly held notions.
With the two of you, even while being tired of this broad topic, I am now excited for this debate.
Welcome to the site. Good luck on this one.
Nice job trolling, I actually fell for it.
In case you're being serious that you're not familar with the conversation you were taking part in, I'll give a refresher before blocking you for trolling:
See previous post: "He was required to be in order to be the messiah (well any male path descendant of Abraham would do). That's why the book of Matthew spent so long at the start proving he was the blood son of Joseph." ... That you're "very familiar with the story, so no need to recite the lineage" but are now obtusely denying it, is why I'm calling you out for trolling.
That you claim didn't see Genesis 12:1-3 (or various others within the link stipulating whose bloodline the messiah had to come from), either speaks of your trolling mastery or your reading comprehension; out of respect for you I am assuming the former.
See previous posts in conversation.
Basically Joseph and Mary had sex, Jesus was one of the children that resulted; hence why Joseph's lineage matters.
As for prophecies about Jesus' parentage, I did a little Googling for you rather than trying to do it justice myself: https://www.blueletterbible.org/faq/don_stewart/don_stewart_234.cfm
He was required to be in order to be the messiah (well any male path descendant of Abraham would do). That's why the book of Matthew spent so long at the start proving he was the blood son of Joseph.
A typo of note from me in R3 was: "Con has offered no value alternative" which should have read "Pro" instead of con (as I was con referred to pro). Anyway, I don't expect S&G to become an issue on this debate.
It being a full forfeit I only skimmed it to provide light feedback.
At university I actually wrote a paper about an example of God being truly omnipotent, which was the paradox of Christ being Joseph's son by blood.
Why 30,000 characters?
Welcome to the site, and good luck on your first debate.
Good setup.
Welcome to the site, and good luck on this debate.
You're welcome.
If you ever want advice about how to strengthen an argument, let me know. I actually enjoy arguing both sides in theology debates.
Oh if you haven't already read it, there's some great advice in the style guide: https://tiny.cc/DebateArt
On page 6 I offer quick suggestions specifically for speculation debates like this one.
To suggest you start a debate on a topic for which you clearly feel impassioned.
If you are this opposed to the conduct of someone stating what they believe BoP to be inside a debate, you should probably start a debate on the topic.
While not a winning argument, a good piece of evidence for you would actually be found in my site guide for DDO: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1B2zJX6-A0NNwQguIoWrM9HDoB_nbGhi7NIhYZ2v68Q4/edit#heading=h.pn6obigpxbnb
That said, my guide for this site outright advises use of foreshadowing in that manner. For a quick and entertaining example of it being well used by someone other than Ram: https://www.debateart.com/debates/949/morals-cannot-exist-without-god (granted I had someone create a lengthy forum topic to complain that they think the guy who forfeited secretly won that debate...).
For clarity, was it agreed that pro would not waive the final round as per the debate description?
Always write in a text editor.
---RFD (1 of 3)---
Interpreting the resolution:
X made Y. Made Y is the key claim, with X being presumed (a K would be valid, but they’re pretty annoying and usually unnecessary)
Gist:
About 8000 characters more than the argument warranted.
1. Evolution v. Creation: Con
Pro opens with “we just popped into existence” and scientists who imply otherwise glued some bones together.
Con counters with the theory of gene mutation, which intuitively explains why different people from different parts of the world look different (“When two groups of the same species become geographically separated: these organisms acquire random changes independently”), and of course why we’re not suffering from worse inbreeding (granted the creation theory would prevent any mutation, so inbreeding would not be a problem if it’s true).
Pro dismisses it as “illogical,” because we don’t massively mutate spontaneously like the X-Men (he mentioned fairy tales, rather than specifically Marvel Comics). Plus some mention of different bear species, which with the evidence unchallenged actually supports mutation rather than creation.
---RFD (2 of 3)---
2. Numbers AKA “List or coincidences”
Pro offers a bunch of numbers within a number system based on observations of these things, and concludes that God must have done it. Con counters that it’s an argument from ignorance. If it was proven that some cosmic being created the sun, it would not prove creation of life by the same being. So, this section is irrelevant to the resolution.
Regarding animals, pro makes the case for God spontaneously created each variant to be perfect for its environment. Pro counters that it lacks optimization on form for each area (maintaining a constant number of legs on all mammals, the same useless hip bones inside whales, etc.); and if no shared ancestry due to spontaneous creation the leg count would be random on each species of mammal (honestly, it’d look pretty cool were that the case..., Pokémon or other anime monsters, instead of extreme but dull variants of the same form we see today).
3. Drugs/Herbs
Carbon-based organisms are successful with carbon-based food sources... This doesn’t prove anything. Nor does not all living things being adapted for our consumption prove that God (or “mother nature”) reaches down each time to lay a curse on what would otherwise be healthy.
This area is just too each to take seriously.
---RFD (3 of 3)---
4. God did it
Basically a weak repeat of the evolution claim, which has already been addressed.
5. Unintelligent Design
Pretty much just a reminder that the design sucks at supporting life, making it a fluke anything lived long enough to adapt (and usually pretty poorly, such as us not being able to drink most of the available water, while depending on water to live), while reminding us that it is the result of adaption rather than perfectly suited creation down to limb counts that would be randomized if the creatures were unrelated due to spontaneous creation...
---
Arguments: con
See above review of key points. This pretty heavily goes to con, particularly as BoP is pro trying to prove the status quo wrong, which needs significant reason for it to be rejected.
Sources:
I don’t want to go to the trouble of looking through all the various sources, but I do need to call con out on the “Real Science Radio” religious racist propaganda site. The page in question insists repeatedly that God is a ginormous Caucasian Male Human (or at least the disembodied hand of one), which anyone familiar with the bible knows to be BS. Seriously, use better sources.
S&G: con
Was already leaning con due to organization and not all bolding any paragraphs... However basic rules about capitalization and punctuation were ignored by pro, repeatedly pulling me out of the argument. Examples from just the first paragraph, “female. the” “tracing. since” “Lucy. instead” “parts. seriously” “human. instead”
Con on the other hand was perfectly legible, even adding necessary organization to pro’s points (could have been better, as they were over expanded and each given their own number away from the initial numbering system...).
Conduct:
I find the repeated calling everyone morons distasteful, but it was technically a source which did this (to which pro repeatedly quoted in rapid succession), so giving a pass due to it being somewhat borderline.
You should probably post it.
I normally get annoyed when people Bump things too much, but a reminder a couple days before this left the voting period would have been nice.
---RFD---
Interpreting the resolution:
I want to just say ‘Noah’s flood = factual,’ but this resolution is a jumble of different separate (but related) cases to not be understated. Key thing is it is not about weak likelihood, it is about a strong degree of certainty (at least to within each of the proposed measurement standards). Or as con puts it “Noah's flood is proven true.”
…So I write this section before reading debates, but in the final round pro seemed to try to move the goalpost to generally that a worldwide flood may have happened (and that Noah’s is just the best historical record). If that was the originally intended debate, Noah would have not been mentioned in the resolution, nor so much in R1.
Gist:
This was just way too much to try to fit into one debate.
1. Definitions
They are agreed (surprised the year one was agreed to, but oh well).
Pro, technically it’s not a concession unless you previously disagreed, as is you just agree.
2. Possibilities
By agreeing to judge this, I have agreed to the possibility, making this contention slightly redundant unless Con prior to R1 made a contention about impossibility. Double redundancy comes from if something is proven to have happened, it is automatically possible.
3. Water
The “1,085,166,768 cubic miles of water” indeed seems unlikely. Some back and forth, talk about the ocean floor spontaneously turning to magma pushing all the water up, and other things that seem in the realm of proving a vague possibility instead of proving that it actually happened.
Worse was the salt issue, that all the land recovered would have been submerged in saltwater for an extended period, killing the plants we enjoy today.
That various ice samples from around the world do not indicate a flood, gets a bit weird with in the inclusion of magma probably having melted them all… But assuming they’re not accurate over longer periods of time, when trying to prove said flood happened in such a narrow window of a few thousand years of recent human activity (the recorded history argument which was accepted), it becomes suspect that they would all be that inaccurate.