Total votes: 861
FF vote grab
Comments have the RFD.
RFD in Comments.
RFD in comments (Ramshutu won by only a margin of 7%)
Full Forfeit, Con is only one to present arguments in-debate (not in debate description) and to use sources. 'Ethical' has a normal definition here unlike some traps Pro set in other similar debates of this kind. Thus, Con truly wins.
In case of FF You are allowed to vote for the other side if you can sufficiently explain why.
Con proves the resolution correct because the agreed upon definition of 'ethical' is 'relating to beliefs about what is morally right and wrong.'.
This is a sneaky definition and also because Pro spells 'abortion' as 'abprtion' as well as that they forfeit Round 1 of the autowin trap, I will give conduct to Con and let arguments be tied as the misspelling of 'abprtion' means Pro is semantically trapping himself/herself (profile says 'male' but Victoria is female) just as much as it traps Con with 'ethical'. I guess I leave arguments tied and give S&G and Conduct to Con as these are flaws on Pro's part that screw Pro over, and the FF post-trap is just bad conduct.
If you read the debate's description (which both debaters agree to when the latter accepts the debate), the definition of 'ethical' was purely "relating to beliefs about what is morally right and wrong." as opposed to being morally good/just. Therefore, You will see that Con's case indirectly does prove the opposite of the resolution (that abortion is ethical) correct, especially since it is entirely the beliefs of what is right and wrong that Pro uses to debate with. Pro was the only one who used sources in-debate so I am obligated to give the sources-point to Pro.
Con covers all scenarios of abortion, whereas Pro's entire case is about a severely rare scenario where the fetus is going to die no matter what and the mother is going to die with it.
Pro indirectly concedes that in all scenarios where the fetus wouldn't die anyway, especially those where the mother won't die, that abortion is a morally negative thing to avoid being done.
Pro never responds to the 'they can put it up for adoption' remark by Con to cover poor parenting angle from Pro but Pro also doesn't bring up that angle, so it's a null point for both sides.
Con plagiarised Pro from this debate: https://www.debateart.com/debates/560 but, in my eyes, this takes away Conduct only. Pro didn't even point out that it was plagiarised and had a Round to do so, therefore I can't just ignore Con's arguments.
Pro uses sources to visually and factually back his points up on the fetus being human and the abortion being graphic-evidence-based immoral. Con baselessly asserts that babies are bad and that, therefore, abortion is immoral but this lacks one thing:
A Foetus, especially in all nations that have legalised abortion, is not a 'baby' for the first two trimesters. Pro doesn't respond to this or bring it up but because this is inherently important to the topic and something all voters are, by default, going to consider it is a flaw in Con's argument as no voter is plausibly going to read 'baby' and go 'foetus' in their brain if they are actually educated on the topic.
Slam dunk.
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WAAAA WAAA RM DO NOT DEBATE ME WAAAAA WAAA
Grab the FF, easy vote point. Sourced FF so sources too.
The CoC makes a debate where after the first round of debating, if the opponent concedes and/or forfeits all Rounds afterwards it's automatically considered FF.
I am going to to take full advantage of this until the mods fix their voting system. Easy vote, slam-dunk thanks.
FF vote grab
RFD IN COMMENTS
Sources Full forfeit.
Conduct to Pro because Pro truly tried their level best to put up a fight while Con simply raged about the site's malfunctioning. Pro also didn't put up such a huge fight that Con couldn't respond in amount and time in later Rounds to make up for the Round 1 mishap. This is extremely good conduct by Pro.
Con attacked the character of Pro and took it a little stranger than Ad Hominem, he relied on the 'appeal to hypocrisy' fallacy.
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CREDIT TO: https://yandoo.wordpress.com/2016/12/19/appeal-to-hypocrisy/
The Appeal to Hypocrisy fallacy follows the pattern:
Person A makes claim X.
Person B asserts that A’s actions or past claims are inconsistent with the truth of claim X.
Conclusion: Therefore X is false.
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So, what Con failed to do in this debate is explain why, if Pro has stated elsewhere that activities online that have barely any real-life impact waste life that therefore those activities should result in us concluding that the resolution in false. Pro is entitled to be a hypocrite, Pro is entitled to not only play devil's advocate but break their moral code or life prioritising system in order to engage in the arena of debate. It is not our place as 'judges' to judge their moral integrity when we officially vote (that's for outside of the arena) but rather to judge if Pro represented the resolution well or Con tore at it well enough in a debate of this format.
What I am left with is Con completely offering 0 arguments against the resolution but instead Con defeated their own case, because Wylted is wasting his own life as are voters under the system of life priorities that Con is advocating (on behalf of Pro in the past on the Forums).
Pro explained how an omnipotent being, even if it is omniscient, is invalid to be tested for omniscience as it could not only fool any test but the very idea that we could test the being with components within the reality that it totally controls and has created is ludicrous.
Con offered 0 refutations to this, one would be that the ability to test omniscience is not absence of untested omniscience and to Kritik the Kritik back onto Pro and push harder with the rest of the case to impress and convince voters that the resolution is false due to others factors while leaving that as a stale-mate counter-Kritik'd angle. Con didn't do so, thus the Kritk alone won Pro the debate.
Pro also Kritiks that evidence of complexity of design necessitates a creator, to this Con offered 0 refutation.
Con lost the debate and forfeited the last 2 Rounds. Con tried voter intimidation against me (which is a CoC violation on 2 counts due to how he encouraged his opponent to join in with it as well) in the comments but because he's Wylted, the mods won't do anything about it and I feel bad for him so I'll let it be.
I want to grab the easy vote-point.
Pro fails to ascertain why the imprecise coincidences prove an intricate design. Con caused Pro to forfeit but this wasn't just by being better, Pro is quitting smoking cold turkey as posted on the 0
Personal forums so there's clearly a lot going on in her life. Do not judge this loss as her quitting the site, may she become healthier happier and a better debater in time!
tie ff.........
This is 85% what an FF on the part of Con. Pro's later (but not R1) only forfeited Round is negligible as there was nothing more to reply to than in the previous Round.
Con loses because Pro counterargues that sex itself causes, not just results from, attachment. Con is left without a remaining point against cohabitation that I can see. Con inherently conceded that if there is attachment, said relationship is 'healthy' meaning that Pro's defensive argumentation style didn't need offence as Con had admitted that if attachment is there, the relationship is acceptable and that cohabitation is fine.
Sourced FF
This is not a troll vote... This is a genuine vote where I feel Con was just plain lazy overall. In fact, forfeiting is something I consistently don't comprehend as being bad conduct as it makes your opponent's life easier in the debate but what I do see on Con would make me tie the conduct and basically if this had been four-points debate I'd be giving S&G to Con (even though Con REALLY needs to learn to spell acronym, it is fine to be dyslexic but it is not fine to not compensate for it at all that many times when your entire R2 is one sentence and R3 is a troll-phrase.
Another reason I would give it a tie for conduct is that while Con was smarmy and lazy throughout, Pro didn't even remotely answer Con in R2. Pro was smart to use this method of scoring as Pro would be tying (3 for arg, 2+1 source and S&G to Con) had this been what I see as the superior debate-voting scoring system of the two that are currently available.
Now, the reason why Con loses is that Con assumes sourcing is everything. Let me explain something Con does wrong, Con's source is his grandma and joke or not, obvious or not, this kind of remark makes his source even less reliable than Pro's. At least Pro is here reasoning his own theory, where is Con's grandma to reason hers? Is she a renowned source of any kind? Con's source, while maybe somehow indirectly proving what he says as somewhat plausible, has headline about the raping done by Priests and basically supports Pro's case completely. While it was a better use of source than Pro's 0, this scoring system has no sources, it's winner-takes-all so... Sorry? You used the source very poorly in my eyes, Alec, please next time provide another source that would support the 'majority are good guys overall' part of your argument.
Now, I think we need to really think about Pro's argument to understand that, while terribly presented in an eyesore manner, it isn't really that flawed logically. As a Pagan, I actually do believe my God is indeed a genius of deception meaning both the best deceiver and hardest being to deceive. This is because I believe in quite a sinister God who is essentially 'natural selection' as a mentality among other things. I won't go into my god other than to say, no disrespect was meant by this, Fiora, I know you mean no harm it is just what naturally comes with progress.
Okay, so Pro's argument is that the GOD you believe in, and sneaky reason the name 'God' caught on in all religions, is that this being which you assume is the ultimate bringer of truth is actually the same being inside all religions ultimately and that is a genius of deception. It is never once refuted by Con other than to jokingly say 'well duh' in a few ways and sorry but that's not formal debating. If we don't punish this here, what then will we as a site allow in other debates as something an opponent can just go 'haha you madman, my grandma said the Earth is Round don't you know it's obvious? LOL!' and win. Forum debating surely would allow that, formal debating... The reason I pay for this site monthly and truly adore the mental-sport of debating, should never ever allow that as a valid argument even once. I don't care if Alec loses, I don't care if Alec begins to grudge-vote against me, this is a very significant moment for me in the site's history where I need to take a stand. This attitude is disgusting even more so as it's quite clear that Pro struggles with writing in a structured manner suitable for formal debate and all Alec is doing is toying with him, goading him... It's not funny, it's like bullying a child for being less able to fight back, we all hate it when it's sexual or violent but why not emotional or intellectual taunting of the less-well-developed too? We need to nurture noobs, train them well.
Pro's entire argument was actually well formed if he'd written it better. Pro is saying that all God is, is basically a scapegoat for one dynasty or regime to be barbaric to another in the name of their 'superior God' to the others'. Con NEVER EVER refutes this AT ALL. Con's argument is LITERALLY that his Grandmother told him and that not all Priests rape (or molest) children... This isn't really funny to me, and if you have the better reasoned argument that is left unattacked you DO NOT NEED a better source.
The reason I am not giving either side sources is that while Con only uses his for providing definitions of things, Pro only uses his to credit others for theories... Which is basically saying that neither side actually used sources to reference facts or give validity to put-forth statistics or any such thing. You may think that Con used sources better but he was only clarifying points and expanding on his rant, he was not actually proving anything correct in and of itself that is key to the case. I will explain why in later stages.
Pro wins the debate because Con never ever, not even hinting at it, explains what is the reason for which we should have homeostasis as the basis of morality. On top of that, Pro explicitly causes Con to fail via encouraging Con time and time again to fall flat by pointing out how even eating vegetables can be (and is) evil under Con's regime. This means that Con's moral framework is proved to be ridiculous and that it's then up to Con to no longer be able to say 'well I'm obviously giving a reasonable morality system' but now has to explain why the ridiculousness of it is justified by a supreme basis other than God. Con is constantly on a backfoot as the only way to win this debate as Con is to break rule 6, meaning this was an autoloss trap from the get-go that Con fell into.
Without a supreme, unquestionable and insurmountably intelligent entity being the source of morality, there is ALWAYS the flaw of the source of morality being taken into question as means to negate said morality system altogether. The only way to overcome this is to prove your system to be subjectively less ridiculous and more overall sensible a moral system than the opponent's. The issue here is that this debate is angled such that the only way for Con to win would be to Kritik from the angle that 'only' is refuted since even with God the morality would be subjective to all involved.
Con keeps reexplaining how, if we assume irrationally that homeostasis is a valid objective foundation for moral framework, that we then can have objective morality without God and keeps framing his argument as 'this can work' and not 'this does work and is objectively the right and wrong thing to do without us subjectively assuming that death or ending homeostasis is inherently evil or wrong'.
Because of this, Con could not ever meet his BoP. Con didn't actually fail due to lack of skill, he had no way to succeed in the first place.
Pro debates for Con's side. Pro explicitly admitted this and points out Con's lack of honour but lack of honour is only hurting site-rep, not immediate debate record. It's the trade-off.
Pro used his free will to forfeit the debate. Con involuntarily defeated him and used sources in order to do so.
"Con was the only one to make an argument. Pro just linked us to a Youtube video.
Con also forfeited more than half of the debate."
Mharman speaks for me.
Full forfeit with sourcing.
Full forfeit with good sourcing.
Tie agreed on by both debaters.
FF........................
IN COMMENTS RFD
Pro gave arguments, Con gave none. FF Pro wins.
My hands are tied, I plead guilty to voting for Pro.
Con forced Pro to never meet BoP by making a single point to Pro's 0.
FF.
Uses sources to illustrate points and has arguments.
Other side has 0, full forfeit.
Con explains that God existing would be "a posteriori" proof-requiring as opposed to an a priori given, especially if we are to ascertain it to be the Christian one as opposed to that of other religions.
The fascinating part of this, to me, is that Pro doesn't say God is a priori, he actually amps it up further back the other way by saying God is not even a 'given/assumed truth that must be' but is in actual fact the supreme essence of truth in itself or something along that line.
Con completely decimates Pro in Round 4 but had already been successfully building up this case and chipping away at Pro's case to that point such that I feel it wasn't bad conduct or poorly times new-point-raising time to finish Pro off once and for all. Con wins by the following:
"Truth isn't a thing. It is an intellectual idea. If this world has a creator, that creator can only be a thing, as how could an intellectual idea create anything? Only an entity has the ability to affect the physical world, therefore if this god exists, and it is indeed the creator of all things, or even the creator of just one thing, then it is an entity, and an entity is not an intellectual idea, therefore an entity is not "truth." It really doesn't matter how many books define an entity as "truth," an entity's being is incompatible with the idea of what truth is.
I conclude that unless my opponent can either prove that an intellectual idea can create something/affect the physical world, or prove that an entity can be an intellectual idea, their entire premise is false, and they would have to prove that this god, indeed an entity, exists."
^^ Pro NEVER came close all debate to taking on Con's line of thinking or logical processing nor did Pro defend against this attack in his R4 (Pro goes second in this debate) or R5. Pro keeps explaining how the Bible describes God, the father, as the supreme truth and how the son is the 'word' and the ghost is... The GHOST OF TRUTH?? Did Truth die and become The Holy Ghost? I didn't grasp that one.
Anyway, Con wins due to the quoted section undeniably, in a direct and logically brutally-defensive manner lead Pro to fight against an impossible formation to fight against unless Pro were to explain that we are living in a simulated reality (like in the Matrix) whereby the 'real reality' is this God itself and absolutely nothing but God exists but to prove this is so demanding on Pro he'd lose anyway given how well Con was doing so Con won an unloseable debate and I feel bad for Pro but Pro really, really was underperforming even for being on the unwinnable site.
This sort of 'I have a study and only I can see it' mentality of non-URL source-users irritates me immensely. So what if your source is run by anti-socialist pay-to-see agenda researchers? That's your problem not ours. No source vote to Pro for literally only using this unclickable abstract-only-if-you-do-not-pay mentality research usage as sources. If money is their primary motive and not just a bonus/means to an an end then they are corrupt researchers.
I also will note that Pro had very assumptive arguments about what intelligence is or isn't. There's four types of intelligence, only one is heavily IQ and only two are heavily nature-based. I won't go into my four-type-theory of intelligence here but those who know me know about it or are free to PM me about it.
I care very little about forfeiting because it was Pro who had the bad conduct and not Con if you look at the Comments-section. Pro didn't even have the guts to admit he was ruthless to Con, he just silence-manoeuvred it.
I don't have Pro but this was not his best piece at all. FF so automatically Pro gets the arguments.
When Con approached Pro with the troll-definition of 'discriminate' Pro didn't only explain that in his debate description and intended context of debate this was meant to specifically be about islamophobic type of discrimination but he furthermore goes into the redirected topic and explains an interesting take on the matter:
If you are discriminating against someone who it is discriminatory to not discriminate against given their background and the context, are you then not opposing the superior discrimination in reprimanding them and holding them to the standard level of suspicion that you would any given the set of events and information leading to the 'discrimination'?
Con keeps at the goal-post-moved angle by saying that Pro justified the discrimination and has conceded it occurred but this is where it comes down to what the debate is about. The debate includes its description in my eyes. I will always hold sacred what is written in a debate's description unlike many on this site who think it can go 'too far'. You will see my first loss on the site was me completely conceding to someone who wrongly defined free will as I realised I'd trapped myself and hold debate description absolutely sacred. Thus, I am not committing a fallacy of double-standard or situational preference for Raltar (Pro) here when I say that for me it comes down to respect for the debate-desc. In the description, there is a stated scope of debate in two different parts that completely defend Pro from the angle that Con takes:
1) The Mohamed family subsequently brought several lawsuits in regards to this matter. All lawsuits were dismissed and the Mohamed family was forced to pay all associated costs.
2) As 'Pro' for this debate, I allege that Ahmed Mohamed was not a victim of "discrimination" or "Islamophobia" in this incident, and that reports of the in incident were wildly exaggerated by the media before all the facts were known. I also deny the media perspectives that "Islamophobia" was to blame or that Ahmed deserves to be defended on the grounds of scientific advancement.
If you do the slightest background research (which Pro directly links you to and makes explicit from R1 onward), you'd understand that 'discrimination' was about unfair discrimination and not non-discriminatory level OF NECESSARY discrimination.
I also would like to note that Con forfeits the last Round implying that even Con either felt too guilty or too out-charmed to keep taking his dirty-play lateral angle on the debate matter. There's no nice way to put it, Con played too dirty to win this given the scope of the debate.
Full Forfeit.
"All people on the left don't hate the Constitution. This is the problem with making a particular side a monolith. We all fall on a spectrum and saying everyone on one side agrees on something is ridiculous. "
- Con R1 (identifies as male on profile for now)
Con's funny wording causes confusion here and could have turned his semantic play brutally back onto himself, had Pro been here and been proficient at debating. Con meant to say 'not all on the left hate' as opposed to 'all on the left don't hate'. This was an extreme, extreme flaw because it directly contradicted the entire remainder of the R1 and is not a joke of a grammar mistake to make.
I don't understand how forfeiting every Round is bad conduct. It gives the opponent the easiest path to victory possible and thus is severely kind to them.
Con wins arguments because Con states a simple idea; the "Leftists" don't, as a whole, hate the Constitution, as a whole. It was a combined 'reduction-Kritik' whereby Con made his burden fo proof infinitesimally small but not negative (not actually proving anything or needing to).
No case made by the Instigator.
FF. Con can't win because NASA have ruined the world but that's fine with me.
FF with good sourcing by Pro and zero from Con.
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