Total votes: 689
Con doesn’t appear to offer a cogent thesis here of why he feels that homosexuality isn’t determined at birth.
They key arguments presented by con are that children don’t know what sex or gender they are at the time of birth: this appears to be an odd semantic argument, and one dealt with well by pro - by pointing out the clear and reasonable interpretation of the resolution implies that homosexuality is genetic, or set by the time of birth.
Cons second point, is against a semantic twist by arguing that genetics are determined before birth, which was dismissed by pro as changing the definition.
As a result, I feel it necessary to reject pros approach to this debate as both irrelevant to the resolution, and bordering on trolling.
Pros argument that homosexuality has a genetic component remains unchallenged by con, and clearly meets pros burden of proof in the context of how the resolution is worded, pro offers a basic summary of the information that establishes that homosexuality has a genetic component with how twins example - though could have used more sources, and been a bit more specific.
As a result of this, this goes to pro: he has met his burden of proof here, while con resorts to left field context changing and quasi-semantic arguments that were easily rebuked by pro.
I’m going to deal with these points somewhat out of order.
Reliability: con argues that the Bible is a reliable document. The source con provides to support this primarily revolves around whether the bible has been altered since initially written.
Pro points out that while the Bible may have been copied accurately, that does not lend specific credibility to the claims of the resurrection, and points out that it wasn’t recorded or documented by any historians of the time
Con doesn’t really address this, and instead simply claims that the Bible is reliable for the reasons he stated, going back to the R1 to check, con really didn’t do anything more than claim that they were accurately copied; and as such I have to stick with pro here. Pros issues with the resurrection not being recorded outside of the Bible, and historicity of Jesus being in doubt due to lack of contemporary records, really casts a long shadow over the reliability of the Biblical account. I particularly felt pro could have done far more to hammer home motives for the Bible having been invented.
There was a whole host of missing information on this point, and I feel both sides could have done more with sources - the biggest issue I have is that Jesus is mentioned by some contemporary sources, but as con appeared to concede pros claim is true, I can’t weigh in.
Given this, cons entire case is predicated on the Bible being reliable. If I accept every aspect of his argument concerning explanations of the disparities in the Biblical accounts: Given the arguments, I can’t tell whether the story is inherently reliable, at best I can say it is possible that his case is true - but this falls short of his burden of proof.
In terms of pros case; in view of the lack of reliability of the Bible - pros case and showing the inconsistencies does not move the needle that strongly even if accepted; while a lack of consistent account, and the carnival example gives reason to except more consistent accounts it feels like it falls short.
Pros best portion of the argument relates to lack of contemporary historical evidence; pro mentions that a contemporary historian that would have good reason to mention the resurrection did not, was very compelling - though weakened by lack of source.
Pro outlines points out that given the potential source for initial editing, and invention - and that we don’t know where the information came from or who wrote it, we have good reason to believe it was invented to convince people to follow them.
This was a very well argued point, and it surprised me that cons only rebuttal to this was to suggest that if it were true, the pro would have challenged the integrity of the writers, what surprised me was that not only does this seem irrelevant, but I felt this was exactly what con was doing.
In summary, con relies entirely on a shaky argument for the validity of the Bible, that I felt didn’t stand up; this combined with pros arguments for why we should doubt the account from a historical perspective - in my view gives this one to pro.
Arguments to pro.
Concession
Pro appears mainly to throw out an unending series of numbers and then assert that these numbers prove God exist.
Pro has to justify exactly why these numbers support the contention of God with an argument and justification as to why these numbers show God exists; if appears as if con does a far better job of crystallizing pros argument here than pro does.
Pro really covers two main points; that medicine is in food, and that numbers assoctied with celestial bodies are special.
For the first, con points out that this is a non sequitor, that plants being medicinal doesn’t automatically shown God; for the second con outlines pros failure to show the universe is actually synchronized, pointing out multiple ways in which the universe does not appear synchronized; con also points pros sources own failure to recognize the insufficient sample size of exoplanets - assuming what can be measured now is all that can be measured.
Pro continues not by actually addressing any of the points con raised, but by simply throwing out more numbers, all of which seem to suffer the same issues con pointed out in R1.
Con added some smaller points: that to be medicinal - plants must be dosed properly, which is not done by God.
Con also points out that pro is wandering off topic.
Con continues to disprove the numbers, showing the perfection of the numbers are not neatly as strong as pro claims, with human rounding; and asking why these numbers are actually divinely significant in the first place. There are many individually flawed numbers that con effectively refuted in R1, by pointing out lack of clear warrant.
The final round follows the same pattern.
Arguments: quite frankly, pro doesn’t warrant any of his arguments and fails to meet his burden by failing to show exactly why parameters of Stellar objects, or plants having positive effects are primarily indicative only of an omnipotent super being.
Con does well to go throw each and every point, but fundamentally did his job in R1; my RfD could have been 10 times as long had I detailed each one of pros individual claism here. Arguments to con.
This debate can only be reasonably interpreted to be a rap battle - thus the bait and switch by pro is particularly nasty. Given con produced the only rap of consequence, he gets all points.
Full forfeit.
Conduct to con for the forfeits.
I believe the Burden of proof is on pro here.
Eclipses: pro argues that eclipses and scale of the moon are perfect. Given the definition con does well to point out that if the goal were total eclipses, that the design falls far short - and could be greatly improved.
Fine tuned stability: pro argues that the axial stability of the moon is fine tuned; con points out the details are near impossible to know as we are dealing with a sample size of 1 and the details are all speculative.
The number 273: pro doesn’t know why God uses the number, but he does: con points out all the examples that are not 273, and argues that if God existed, is there any reason to believe that he would
Calculate in miles, and count in base 10 rather than in natural Constants and numbers.
Archaetypes. Pros argument here is hard to disentangle here, pro makes a series of claims that appear to be an appeal to numbers. Pro doesn’t really define what they are talking about, and it’s not particularly clear how pros argument supports their position.
At the core basis, Pros entire argument seems unwarranted and poorly justified, relying on mostly assertion that there are a number of coincidences; con did well to show both how nebulous these claims were, and how empty the larger thesis pro presents.
As a result of this, arguments go to con too.
Full forfeit
Concession by Con in R1
Concession
Full forfeit
Concession
Full forfeit.
Concession.
Full forfeit
Both pro and con appear to agree that the FBI stats disprove the resolution. Noting this, con turned the burden of proof to pro, by highlighting those stats as valid governmental data for which pro must pro must provide a good reason to exclude. Imo governmental stats should be presumed accurate unless given reason to believe otherwise.
Given that the only way con is able to refute the contention is to provide governmental stats - it’s up to pro to show these stats are inaccurate. Pro throws a couple of anecdotes that imo fall well short of being able discount them due to being piecemeal examples of misconduct of individuals rather than the systematic dishonesty of the organization as a whole that would be required.
I side with cons position here that the remainder of the points are largely irrelevant as they don’t cut to the core of the debate. Specifically, pro meanders off the rails in the last couple of rounds; asking questions that are largely irrelevant or unrelated to the resolution rather than attempting to engage directly on his burden.
If your going to make substantial claims, and base your debate off these claims: you must be able to justify them, rather than simply assert they are true and offer little more than anecdotes and incredulity.
Concession
Full forfeit
Full forfeit
CVB.
FULL forfeit.
In this debate con starts out rejecting the burden of proof, arguing the burden is all on his opponent. Pro argues that con is making a claim and argues must support it; I tend to side with con here - as the terms of the debate are clear and it does give a sufficient path to victory for pro (and the rules aren’t challenged as unfair). However, there is an issue with exactly how Con can prove a contradiction.
Con doesn’t specify what a contradiction is, how substantial it needs to me, and how l as a voter should be able to determine whether pro has met the criteria.
Pro is the only side that gave me a consistent method in 1.02; explained why this method is necessary, and why other methods are unfair. This methodology was unchallenged by pro, and seem fairly reasonable to me. While pro conceded the necessity of inerrancy - he does not concede this method.
So on to the contradictions.
Con drops the contradiction for 1.03 (where did Mary give birth)
In terms of 1.04 there, talking about the resurrection. In one Mary was told by an angel, in another Mary went and found the tomb empty. The contradictions pro points out is substantial - that Mary was told to get the disciples by an angel, and then in another tells the disciples after finding the tomb empty. Con simply objects that they were at different times of day - but it appears difficult to reconcile these two events on that basis. Both sides reiterate there side.
To me - cons argument does not make sense; Mary Magdalene would have been at the tomb twice - and would have run to get the apostles twice. Con appears to then argue that they happened together after arguing they happened at different times.
Judas contradictions. Pro presents a case where Judas died in two different ways according to those explicitly outlined in the Bible; and the name of the field itself.
Con argues both ways constitute the same way - through an AiG article.
The issue I have - is that the bible appears to be contradictory. Con has to interject his opinion or add information, and jump through mental hoops to reconcile the two. Pro did well using an example of two completely different types of death in reporting - and asking con to demonstrate the phrasing used.
In this respect the bible itself appears contradictory - by any reasonable measure. In my opinion, con must show that there is not just a potentially possible explanation, but that this explanation is plausible. While parts of his explanation indicate the former - none indicate the explanation is a reasonable common sense explanation.
2.05. Imo pro does not do enough here to outline a specific example for me. There are hints of specific cases that could be contradictions if pro went into more detail, but there is not enough for me to assess.
This all boils down to what a contradiction is. Pro outlines his definition of how to detect it, con outlines the definition in the description of the debate: and as far as I can see by any reasonable interpretation the dropped point, the resurrection issue and the issue of Judas both appear to be cases where the bible says two different things that would be reasonably interpreted as being mutually exclusive. Cons response was speculative - with an almost dismissive argument that did not address or argue the plausibility of his explanation and appeared to mostly ignore the key details of what pro was highlighting.
As such, pro has established that the bible does contain contradictions: thus arguments to pro.
Conduct: Cons argument was frequently dismissive and at times petulant - culminating in a final round where con barely engages. Two main arguments from cons relied on quoting sources in lieu of an argument in his own words - pro is debating you: not your sources, and Its not very respectful to simply quote a source without context and additional information.
Statements such as “No it's not unfair, As the Instigator, I can do what I want, and you have to accept it, stop kritiking.”
“Do I have to repeat what I just said.The events happen at the same time, why are you repeating yourself,next point”
Are disrespectful to his opponent - and the attitude seemed needless.
Saying that, these issues didn’t fully cross the line of overt unacceptability - so I won’t award the Conduct point, though con should bear this in mind for other debates.
Full forfeit.
Full forfeit
Due to the forfeit rule, and two rounds without arguments by pro, I feel it’s not reasonable for my to award this to anyone but con due to the rules. So as a result: this goes to con.
However, for the purposes of Feedback, I thought I’d note a quick summary of some of the better points and issues. This is not intended to be a specific vote style note, but more of a personal opinion on the arvukentsz
Saying that; I’m not a fan of the structure; it’s hard to follow when it really needs to be a back and forth, and I also felt this was a far too broad a debate, that somewhat went in a different direction than the resolution suggested. It was less a debate about whether faith was rational - but whether there was evidence for God.
Saying that, I thought pros cons take down of the cosmological argument was great: the second and fourth points (challenging the premises with radioactivity) were particularly strong.
The take down of fine tuning argument was devestating: I think the multiple angles pro pointed out really undermined the usage. (I even borrowed the circular logic point as inspiration in another debate!)
The turning around of Pascal’s wager too was pretty well done.
While there was some generalized boiler plate arguments I would have bet $20 would appear (pascal, 4os, some of the take down of the cosmological argument), I have to say the FTA and the CA points above really stood out.
The 4os - for me in general aren’t convincing. They seem more a way of subtly defining God into impossibility; in the context of the resolution, it made more sense; by focusing more on the incongruities of the properties of God to show its irrational. The argument didn’t go far enough though for me to really form a solid conclusions. Either way I would have likely assessed the win on these grounds anyway.
The pass over in silence thing: It seems pretty forced here, while I may have missed something: my biggest issue with it is that there assumes there is no point of reference for God to be able to discuss it. The implicit assumption in this debate from the pro God side is that there is a point of reference - personal experience and religion. I would have liked to have seen how this one would have played out as this was effectively dropped, and as it pretty much hit the resolution right on the head with it being directly relevant to whether it was rational or not - it was a significant drop too.
In this debate, pro must show that there is some compelling reason to use capital punishment. Con must show that there
Is a compelling reason not to.
This debate starts off with a pre-rebuttal of arguments against the death penalty by pro. That there is no correlation with murder rate and death penalty (this seems to be a reason against the death the penalty), that while its expensive, that can be paid for: with a rather ridiculous argument about public execution, and and argument that it isn’t wrong to kill people in some cirumstance.
Even if I accept all of these on their face - none are compelling reasons to have the death penalty. Pro should be providing an argument of what the death penalty provides, what is the impact of not having, or the impact of having it.
The only example that came close, was pros argument from treason which felt highly speculative and ungrounded in reality.
Con starts off much better. Con explains his notion of what should be present instead, but pro doesn’t really explore or explain the impact of rehabilitation. Why is it preferable? What does it gain.
Cons death argument is much more solid ground, though very tentative: con argues that innocent people are being put to death, he states 14 people have been wrongfully executed (he omits the statement in his source that up to 4% of inmates in death row could be innocent), the idea that making a mistake is final is the first genuinely compelling and evidenced harm either side have brought.
Con rounds out with rebuttals. Con argues that the death penalty doesn’t lower homicide rates; but I can’t really understand what his argument was due to phrasing, or why it was a straw man.
Con strangely appears to try and argue against pros position that the death penalty is expensive: this seemed an easy way of turning pros argument. But con does do well pointing out pros unsupported points.
Con argues that pros argument on wether the death penalty is ethical is illogical. My issue with pros argument is that it doesn’t show the death penalty is moral, but that one specific argument against the death penalty being moral is wrong. This point is getting pretty meta at this point, and while con does well pointing out that pros source disagrees with him, the whole point being argued is largely moot considering the debate itself.
Con finishes off by pointing out that pros treason example is simply what if speculation, that doesn’t appear grounded on facts - I agree.
Pro begins his final round with speculation, that if Dylan roof escaped jail they’d kill more black people. Pro doesn’t begin to support this if, to show me its possible, or probable. I can’t weight the potentiality of a speculative argument that you do not base on facts.
Pro goes on to shoot himself in the foot by raising the number of innocents put to death. Pro goes on to say that the alternative is to just make the police force better... how? Robots? Will that work ? What are the deficiencies that can be addressed? I can’t weight such an arbitrary and unexplained plan.
To be honest, this whole argument from pro seems like it’s meant as a joke.
Pro finishes his rebuttal by arguing that the death penalty prevents future deaths. He doesn’t appear to explain how many deaths being prevented, or support his notion that those in prison for life could escape.
Pro finishes off by arguing his treason case “could happen”. I could grant that this is a potential impact - but if the chances of it happening are 0.000001% it’s not a big impact, it’s really hard to weight speculative what if cases like this.
Cons reply says much of the same thing: pointing out that pro is simply speculating. That his harms are based on what ifs that he is not supporting. Con lists some of the issues pro doesn’t explain, and while I think con spent far too much time pointing out that pro is simply engaging in idle speculation; he does this pretty well.
Con could have done a bit more here to show that almost no one escaped prison. If he had done this, he would have gotten source points.
In terms of cost and treason points - there wasn’t much added to these points, pro didn’t present much more than speculation on either.
all in all pro didn’t support his case as much as simply try and preemptively refute the other. There were almost no harms presented of not having the death penalty, and the ones that were, were speculative and largely unweightable due to the lack of objective support.
Con presented clear harms of innocent people being out to death, quantified it; and explained that pro had no factual basis for asserting his what if cases.
Out of the two - only con really presented quantifiable harms: and while con missed several key opportunities to twist the knife on this one: the harm itself and the lack of a cohesive framework from pro means that his harms outweigh pro.
Arguments to con.
Counting the ridiculous vote of clout02.
https://www.debateart.com/debates/1101?open_tab=comments&comments_page=2&comment_number=373
Agreed tie
Con forfeited 3/5 rounds, and thus it is essentially impossible for him to win on the grounds that I rarely, if ever award fewer than 4 points for a song
This debate was framed around two specific types of power.
Pro is arguing that in terms of economic power, Germany is more powerful. Con argues that both diplomatically, militarily, and culturallyFrance is more powerful.
On most points, both sides agree on most of the others points.
Cons rebuttal starts of conceding that France is stronger militarily, and then goes on to show that it isn’t stronger militarily. Con argues Germany could build nukes (the resolution is “as of now”), that the war would be devestating to both sides, and the military is not as good due to being full of reservists.
Con argues that the power of trade and food self sufficiency. And that money supersedes cultural power - using China as an example.
Pro points out con conceded the soft power issue, and largely takes down the military aspects, pointing out that there is no evidence that Frances army is not as well trained, and that Germany is treaty bound not to build nukes and limited in its military. On food self sufficiency con points out of that there is a large advantage for France; and on trade con goes on to argue that leverage with BMWs is harder than leverage with food.
While short, in this debate pro establishes that Germany has a stronger economy. Con on the other hand I feel establishes that France as a stronger military, stronger cultural influence, stronger soft diplomatic power.
Given that these things are all what is typically associated with power, and I feel that economic power is only really established as such if it translates to soft power: this debate must go to con.
Concession.
Full forfeit
Full Forfeit.
To be honest, there was not a lot in here to separate the two of you. I don’t think either side really edged out the other, the flow and creativity were about the same, I didn’t think either side was particularly great; there was a lot of build up in the rhymes, but. It a forceful follow through. Each line needs to be building up to a specific punchline, and I didn’t really think either side did great here.
The only thing that really separates either side was that while the level of rhymes was similar; con had fewer rhyme fizzles that didn’t work out, as a result;,8’ going to award rhymes to con.
https://www.debateart.com/debates/1100?open_tab=comments&comments_page=1&comment_number=52
Conclusion.
So, for the resolution: if I take the resolution in the description; con has to prove the earth is 10k years old. Pro has to prove that it is likely multiple billions.
On the matter of 10k, there’s some back and forward: con lands some points that show the earth could be 10k years old, and pro lands some points that show it can’t be. Con landed a lot of unconvincing points, but pro landed a couple of convincing points (Pangea, ocr, sediment, and partially radiometric dating), that cast enough doubt on the proposition to go for con.
However, pros only real way of definitively proving the likelihood of a 4bn year old earth was radiometric dating. While con cast doubt on this as a justification (but not enough to prove the earth is itself young), I feel pro came up short on this fact. There were lots of good arguments, but none stuck out enough for me to feel comfortable awarding for pro either.
This seemed more of a quote and source battle; one that was actually really quite well balanced on both sides.
As a result, I feel I have to award this one as a tie; as neither side elevated their position enough for me to feel comfortable awarding points.
I’m also not going to award any other category. Grammar and conduct were pretty even, sources would be too much reliant on my personal bias.
The first rule of this debate is that no labelling of people as racist.
Con then starts the debate by labelling pro as racist - makes his second round about labelling pro racist, continuing onto the third, almost all of the fourth, and touches upon this in the fifth.
In fact; 80% of cons part of this debate consist of con arguing pro was a racist.
I’m not going to address the comments con is arguing pro made; any of the racism claims, or irrelevant side tracks such as why not deport Africans from Europe (why not?) as I don’t find these relevant to the resolution in the slightest.
Given all this, con offers almost no argument to contest why whites should not be deported. Other than touching upon it being unfair to those who are there now and haven’t done anything wrong.
Pros opening round spelt out the damage being done by western corporations and resource companies, and that whites and their descendent in general have come to steal their resources in the past.
Pros position appears to be an appeal to give the stolen land and resources back to their original owners.
This RfD was far shorter than I had expected it to be, just because con really does not offer anything close to a substantial case and mostly glosses over the issues pro raises.
I’m faced with a flood of information about everything that was stolen, and resources being exploited - and a half hearted appeal to fairness - that even though land, businesses, etc, may potentially have been acquired by genocide, brutality, colonialism, etc - that generations today should not give it back because It’s theirs now.
Pros justification was a bit flaky; he could have really hammered the point home, by addressing this issue head on (like the case of Nazi art and Gold, for example); but chose to mostly argue over con.
Given that neither side compares their harms, or gives me a value: I’m forced to weigh the impacts myself: and in this regard, con does much better quantifying the extent of the issue, and arguing how much has been lost to theft or brutality, than pro does simply appealing to fairness, with an abstract, rather than concrete numerical harm
Pros position is on very shaky ground, but cons argument was a half hearted attempt to appeal to this fairness; and repeated attempts to label pro as racist lost this one.
As a result therefore, arguments to pros
Conduct to pro also due to cons repeated rule breaking of “labelling racist”, as noted at the top of this RfD.
The first thing is what a theyby actually is. Con chose a fairly extreme example of allowing the baby to specifically chose their gender; pro presented a scenario where parents simply don’t expose their children to gender stereotypes, and allow the child to chose preferences in toys, clothes, etc: and allow them to develop without socially mandated roles and preferences - to allow them to develop as they would normally without overbearing social pressure from parents.
This sounds pretty reasonable. It is also supported by cons own sources!
Con argues that there will be issues of whether there would be gender confusion. This seems to be eliminated by pros actual explanation that it is simply a removal of social stereotypes, rather than a denial of biology: even cons own source implies that gender confusion is less of an issue: as if a child ends up being gay, being brought up neutrally allows the child to be more comfortable with it.
This issue is largely repeated with the issue of responsibility con raises. It’s not clear how Con sources that this is really a problem as his sources imply it is one of the strengths - as pro points out.
Cons final issue, relating to gender neutral pro-nouns, doesn’t appear to clearly follow; while I can appreciate gender neutral pro nouns maybe difficult, I don’t believe this difficulty translates into completely undermining the position. Even considering the French language concession, this doesn’t imply that the intent is doomed to fail.
Cons next round; his arguments are that kids would make fun of socially unacceptable gender choices, and what appears to be a misportrayal of the subject: implying that it is up to the babies to decide what gender they are: rather than the scenario that pro puts forward which is to raise children in the absence of stereotyping and let them develop as they want.
Pro points out the issue of choice, and that the negative con raises is actually a positive. Pro also casts doubt on both the bullying aspect (by pointing out this is something that is inherently unacceptable and not the responsibility of theybies themselves).
Out of all of this, I feel that con doesn’t offer any substantial harm here as to why gender neutral parenting isn’t viable. On the other hand, pro offers a set of reasonable arguments as to why it is both viable, and most important, that it has some clear benefits.
As a result, arguments go to pro.
Sources: cons sources shot him in the foot. The first source undermines two of the key points he made, and supported pros; and the second was not in my opinion particularly authoritative; as a largely magazine style article.
I normally award sources when one side turns a source to support their position or land a knock out blow.
Given that cons own source adds warrant to pros main perceived benefit, and pro uses this to undermine con and bolster his own position, sources go to con here also.
Arguments to con.
Pros R1 was completely plagiarized, and as such this will be ignored. Con accepted a debate against pro, not against the prepared statements of an Op Ed writer. This means con does not offer a positive case and as such must result in at best a tie.
Cons arguments are basically that the land belongs to Israel as it was recognized by the previous owner. Pro doesn’t really provide a cohesive argument and, effectively argues that residence determines ownership implies that Israel is legal.
For both these reasons - arguments to pro.
Conduct to con for then plagiarism. This is odious and dishonest behaviour violation of copyrighted material can cause legal issues: it warrants the conduct penalty on its own.
Concession.
Half countering Pink Freud’s vote. I thought GGLs vote was fine.
I’m scoring rhymes as a tie; as I would have probably voted either as s tie or for con. Both sides had a number of fizzles of rhymes where they didn’t really stack up (intercom/firearm) (rebel/peasant), com used ever so slightly more complex rhymes, but shot himself in the foot with the last round/sound/pound etc; the rhymes were more Sandra Boynton than Vinnie Paz. So on balance, imo this was a tie.