Speedrace

Please see the comments. This turned out to be 1048 words (wow!).

Concession

I'm evaluating this premise by premise. I'll start with Pro's and then do Con's.

Pro's C's:

C1: Plea bargaining prevents justice

Pro argued that plea bargaining forced innocent's into a sentence that they did not deserve and the guilty to get lighter sentences. Con's only rebuttal is that the alternative would be public defenders entering into trials with barely any preparation for the case at all. Pro's only defense is that Con did not respond to the many statistics that he cited.

This was a very disappointing contention. Pro started it out very well, but Con barely rebutted it. Furthermore, Pro didn't even address what Con said, instead resorting to simply point out what Con didn't do.

Overall, defenders not being able to be prepared is a safe reason for them to get plea bargains for their clients, so I have to award this point to Con because Pro did not respond to it.

C2: Plea bargains are unnecessary

Pro argues that guilty pleas are still going to be used, and cites Alaska as an example. Con rebutted quite a bit by showing how plea bargains still continued in Alaska, plus the fact that Alaska barely had any felony convictions. He also gave an example of El Paso, where plea bargains were banned and courts were clogged. Pro did not even attempt to defend his source, so because of that, this point goes to Con as well.

Now I will do Con's contentions.

C1: Increased Reliance on Public Defenders

Con argues that public defenders are currently being swamped and that plea bargains help them lift the load a bit better. Pro rebuts by saying that guilty plea rates will still stay the same, so defenders won't be that swamped. Con defended by pointing back to his El Paso source which showed that the caseload doubled when plea bargains were abolished. Pro didn't respond, so this point goes to Con.

C2: Worsens Prison Conditions Due to Overcrowding

Con argues that prisons become worse because they are more crowded since there are more trials due to a lack of plea bargaining. Pro rebuts by saying that various reforms through the government would nullify this. Con then correctly points out that Pro gave no evidence that the government would make those reforms. Because of this, he gets this contention.

C3: Court Clog

Con argues that courts would be clogged with trials if there were no plea bargains. Pro's rebuttal is that the government will make reforms that nullify this, but Con defends extensively by showing how the government has an incentive not to make these reforms and also by showing sources that say that not all of America is on board with those reforms. Pro didn't respond, so Con gets this point.

Overall, this was a disappointing debate. It started out amazing (I didn't even know this was a topic up for discussion), but after each party rebutted once, they defended just a little and ended. I expected a lot more clashing and defending.

That said, Con did a better job of critiquing Pro's points, as well as of defending his own, so I'm giving Con arguments.

Sources:

Con uses a ridiculous amount of statistics to back up his points. Although Pro did use some too, Con critiqued them very well, and Pro never disputed Con's. Pro also cited whole passages from his sources, which I consider to be wrong. Sources should be used for verification of facts, not for whole arguments. I'm giving sources to Con.

Good job to both debaters. :)

*Tied In All Other Categories

Concession

Concession

I'm deciding on a point by meme basis.
Pro R1
1: Meh, didn't really get it, no point
Con R1
1: I don't get it, no point
Pro R2
1: I don't get it, no point
2: It's alright, a point
3: Hilarious, a point
Con R2
1: It's ok, a point
2: Alright, a point
3: Nice, a point
Pro R3
1: Nice, a point
2: Nice, but you misspelled vegan -_-, a point
3: Awesome, a point
4: Jabbing at theists + not funny, no point >.>
Con R3
1: Not bad, a point
2: Meh, a point
3: Ok, a point
4: I don't get it, no point
Pro R4
1: Not too bad, a point
2: LOL Nice, a point
3: Lol understandable, a point
4: I don't really get it, no point
Con R4
1: I don't really get it + you misspelled "stars," no point
2: Lol nice, a point
3: Not funny -_-, no point
4: Meh, a point
Pro R5
1: It's ok, a point
2: Ehhhhhhh it's ok, a point
3: LOL Me every day, a point
4: Nice lol, a point
5: Lol this was a good one, a point
Con R5
1: LOL Niiiiiiiice dude, a point
2: Meh, it's ok, a point
3: Not bad, a point
4: Nice, a point
5: LOL Nice photoshop on there, dude, a point
So overall, Pro got 14 points and Con got 13. This was super close, but Pro won out. Good job to both!

I can't see Con's memes, so Pro automatically wins.

Con conceded.

I’m basing this off of each premise set forth by Pro and who I think argued for/against it better. I love how short and concise this was.

Arguments

Premise 1:

Pro claims that we must assume a lot of things in order for a God to exist (he argues specifically against the Christian God it seek some here). Con rebuts by saying that we must assume everything, because we have no firm foundation to believe anything if atheism is true. Pro responds by showing how each of the assumptions in an atheistic worldview are likely based on the past and their lack of failure so far. This was sufficient, so premise 1 goes to Pro.

Premise 2:

Pro says that God doesn’t adhere to our model of the universe. Con responds by saying that God is the only cause that could cause our universe. Pro rebuts by saying that other models have more science behind them and that’s the God model hasn’t sufficiently prove do itself. The difficulty with this isn’t that neither responses actually address the original contention: whether or not God adheres to our model of the universe. Because both parties swayed, I’m tying this point.

Premise 3:

Pro says that God is contradictory because of all of the definitions that he has. Con says that it’s unreasonable to use all of the definitions of God from all religions at once, and instead offers a different one. Pro claims that all of the definitions came from the Bible, but he doesn’t actually show where. It shouldn’t be the voter’s job to look that up. He also agrees to Con’s definition. Because of that, Con gets this point.

Premise 4:

Pro offers the modern version of Pascal’s wager and says that atheists are more likely to go to heaven because God is probably nice enough to send them there without them believing. However, he offers no backup evidence of this, so I’m not sure where he got that evaluation from. Con responds by incorrectly rebutting the original Pascal’s wager, and Pro points that out. Because Pro offered no real reasons as to his contentions here, I’m tying this point as well.

Premise 5:

This one is irrelevant.

Each debater got one point, so arguments is tied.

*Tied In All Other Categories*

This debate was just sad. Con barely tried to refute anything, and Pro’s points were not well articulated and he ended up repeating himself a lot.

R1

Pro shows examples of fine tuned creatures that look as if they were intelligently designed. Con refutes this by showing evolution as a counter theory. My problem firstly is that Con is relying on copy-pasted quotes for almost the whole entirety of his arguments. That’s lazy debating. Secondly, he doesn’t elaborate on evolution at all.

R2

Pro uses a hilarious housevolution example that I thought was very clever. It was clearly hypothetical, but Con responds by explaining how houses are actually built. He ignores the underlying message of the hypothetical situation and doesn’t address what Pro is actually trying to say. He then shows how ID works and falls back on natural selection some more. Once again, he doesn’t explain the evolution point fully in its relation to the debate. This was very annoying.

R3

This was much better for Con. Pro essentially reiterated the same arguments, but Con elaborated on the evolution theory and showed experiments where new genes popped up in a gene pool. This was a much better counter to Pro.

R4

There’s nothing to judge here because Pro accidentally posted a different debate argument into it.

R5

Pro reiterates more arguments and also addresses some of Con’s points. Con doesn’t even bother to respond, so I have to give this round to Pro. You must respond to as many points as possible.

Conduct

Con relied too heavily on quotes for the majority of his argument, he frequently was a little rude to Pro, and he cursed. This was very annoying to me. In addition, he didn’t bother to write arguments for the last two rounds. On the other hand, Pro accidentally posted the wrong debate argument.

Grammar

Pro’s grammar and spelling was horrible. Con would get this point if the voting system was regular.

So, overall, I have to give arguments to Pro. Con simply failed to rebut them enough, and he relied on quotes way too much. This was a very disappointing debate, and I think that Con could have easily won had he tried to rebut in all of the rounds and explained his pointe in his own words. In addition, his conduct was worse, but Pro’s grammar was worse. These cancel out, leaving just arguments, so because of that, Pro wins.

You guys write so much that it’s so hard to vote on it, haha, but here I go

Arguments

I found nothing wrong with either of the opening statements, so I am focusing on each of the rebuttals and rejoinders. I am ignoring the interrogation questions because they didn’t really pertain to the debate and I have a life I need to get back to.

Ok, so Pro hinged a lot of his arguments on tautologies, mathematics, and things that are objectively true. His main one was that a bachelor is unmarried. Con’s main rebuttals to this was that we cannot always know everything to be 100% because human reasoning is flawed, and also that reality itself could be flawed. The former was completely rebutted when Pro said “Ahh, but you said SOMETIMES we're mistaken. This implies that sometimes we're not. I only have to know one thing to break into the rest of reality.” He only needed to prove at least 1 thing to be 100% true, so he invalidated the flawed knowledge argument with this statement.

The latter rebuttal from Con would have proved sufficient if the argument depended on reality being reliable. However, this position was never established by either side. Because everyone of that, Pro was able to fall back on simply the definitions and terms “man” and “unmarried” being true, and “bachelor” being logically equivalent to “unmarried.”

The only other contention was that we can’t know mathematics to be 100% true. However, Pro’s main truth (that a bachelor is an unmarried man) did not rely on mathematics at all, but rather just logical equivalency.

The rest of the debate descended into a lot of unnecessary rambling about the exact same subjects.

I’m awarding arguments to Pro because he did a spectacular job of defending his points.

Sources

I’m giving Con sources because he was able to show real world examples of the concepts he was explaining, such as the king of France is bald one and the survey that showed human reasoning is flawed. They really helped to further his points and show how we’ve done some of the things that he mentioned in real life.

Good job to both debaters. :)

*Tied In All Other Categories*

Full forfeit

Pro forfeited. That's bad conduct. He was also using bad and derogatory language.

Arguments:

Con only provided one piece of evidence that Trump was racist. This was extremely disappointing to me, as there are many examples. However, I'm not the one debating.

Pro clearly said in the description "provide BoP that Trump has said or done racist things." "Things" is plural, and Con only provided one. That's the first red flag. Secondly, Pro easily beat down the one example Con gave by saying that we're discussing if Trump IS racist, not WAS. Him pointing out that the example that Con gave was 50 years old was completely valid. Had Con given both recent and old examples, it would have been fine, but that was not the case.

This is why I'm giving the point to Pro.

Conduct:

Pro forfeited. That's bad conduct.

Con forfeited.

Argument:

Pro showed why we need the extra layer of policing. Con barely said anything in response and Pro easily beat it down.

Conduct:

Con forfeited. That's bad conduct.

Sources:

Ooh look at the noob, typing crowd-reactions in his fantasy,
This Gung Ho Dumbo (elephant avatar) debating proud with the fallacies,
Like he's a new age boy up against Adam, see I gobbled on that apple tree;

Conduct:

I'll break you cannot overcome my hurdles without a Hip or a Hop. (Person with injured leg and hip pun. Allegory for my Opponent.)
I'll break you down so completely, they'll clean you up with a Mop.

I'm not good at making funny comments :(

But @Pro, I love the allusion to Schrodinger's cat :D

I'm voting on argument based on the first two rounds only. Please let me know if you think this is unfair.

Argument:

This was interesting. Both of the first two rounds were comprehensive, so there's not much to say there. Pro ruled out why he thinks that none of the gods that he mentioned can exist, and Con went the logical route as to why a god must exist. Because of the forfeit, the essentially boils down to who critiqued the other's opening argument better.

Omni-Gods:

I would have given this to Con had he fully explained why the universe can't be infinitely old, but because he put this off for the next round, this point falls and I am giving the point to Pro.

Evil:

Con did a good job here of showing his point on evil, and how it must be objective to work in the scenario he describes. I'm giving this point to him.

Maximally Powerful Beings:

Con doesn't really give a rebuttal here, instead using the watchmaker argument. Without sufficient backup, it falls and this point goes to Pro.

Ontological:

Pro wrote a very long rebuttal to this, but my problem with it is that it argues purely over semantics. He never critiques the underlying argument and only the words on top, so this point is tied.

Kalaam:

Pro sufficiently ruled this out by saying that it doesn't relate to a god, so he gets this point.

All-in-all, Pro got more points, so I am giving argument to him. I hope both parties will redo this so that I can see the full debate. Good job. :)

Conduct:

Pro gets conduct because Con forfeited.

*Tied In All Othes*

Before I start, I just want to say that I am trying my hardest to approach this from a non-biased viewpoint. Please feel free to message me if you think I let bias seep into my vote and I will delete it.

Argument:

So we start out with Tacitus and Josephus, the common people used in these debates. Pro presented these and why they should be used as evidence for Jesus' existence. Con's main argument was that these accounts were written a long time after Jesus has been said to have lived. I would have given the argument point to him based on this alone, but Pro responded by showing how we say other figures exist who have the same standard or less of a standard of proof towards their life. Con responded simply by saying:

"I agree that any potential historical figure that has the same level of evidence as Jesus should not be accepted. As for other historical figures, they meet a standard of evidence that Jesus did not."

The problem I find with this is that it doesn't respond directly to what Pro says. He said that the people we as a society generally agree as having existed have the same or less of a standard for their life as Jesus, yet he is the one being brought into question and not them. If I am operating from a standpoint that takes into account societal norms (of accepting these people's existence), then Con simply saying that their existence should be taken into question as well is not sufficient. If I don't take that standpoint, then Con's rebuttal goes through. However, after deliberating, I personally think that the former is a better stance, because we are talking about the way historians operate and the process through which Jesus' existence should be established, a process which already exists and therefore must be taken into account by voters.

As to providing an alternative for the origins of Christianity, I agree with Con that it was unnecessary. My only confusion is why he gave one at first and then backtracked later, but I'll still count this point towards him.

This was extremely close for me and I was definitely editing a lot of this as I decided. In the end, I think that if Con had given a good explanation as to why we should dismiss the existence of those other figures as well as Jesus', I would have given him the point. Because he didn't, I am giving it to Pro.

I hope that this was detailed enough and that both parties are satisfied with my evaluation of the debate. Great job to both of you! :)

Sources:

My instinct is to give sources to Pro, because his obviously helped his position quite a bit. However, Con's critiques of them were very good, and I ended up giving the point to Pro because of his points about other figures, not because of his original arguments. Because of this, I am making sources a tie. I just wanted to explain why.

*Tied In All Others*

I'm deciding based off of who debate better, not my personal opinion. I don't want to be called names in the comments. -_-

Argument:

I really liked this debate, and I wish Con hadn't forfeited so I could see his rebuttal. Pro started with focusing on public spaces, which I liked. Con, in that area, failed to show why women being topless is bad. What I didn't like is that Pro tried to use existing laws as a main argument. I don't like that because it gives him an inherent advantage, so I'd rather that both parties argued from a stance that a decision on the debate topic has not yet been decided in the real world. Regardless, Pro did an amazing job of backing up his points. He showed how shame is not a reason to take a right away from these women, which pretty much obliterated Con's arguments. Con really had no other critiques. However, I think that he still did a great job anyway.

Conduct:

Con forfeited, which is bad conduct.

*Tied In All Others*

Argument (Con):

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

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

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

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

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

Sources (Con):

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

Spelling & Grammar (Tie):

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

Conduct (Tie):

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

Arguments:

I am operating from the stance that Pro has the burden of proof. That means that he has to lay his claims and then back them up. He says "Men provide food, find and create shelter, defend territory, and protect children. They tutor children in sports, hunting, fishing, hierarchy negotiation, friendship, and social influence. They transfer status, aiding offspring in forming social alliances later in life. Women look for behavioral, physical, and material cues from a man to determine if he can meet these criteria."

I won't quote his whole thing because that would take too long, but he sufficiently laid out his points. He showed how, from an evolutionary standpoint, women are attracted to certain people and how, from a scientific standpoint, that is also true, and he gave sources for all of these. However, when he gets to the autistic savants, I feel as if he digressed a bit. Thankfully, Con points this out.

Con, without a burden of proof, is only supposed to point out flaws in his opponent's arguments, and he did not have to argue specifically for "specifically attractive men." His first response was that one cannot know what is going on in the mind of a woman, but Pro showed with studies that we can reasonably assume to know what they want. That first critique was not sufficient. This is what the rest of his rounds boiled down to, so because of that I have to give argument to Pro. Con said that women like a guy within several minutes of meeting him, but doesn't provide studies for this. Pro stayed on task with his points, so he gets argument.

Sources (Pro):

As Pro made his arguments, he specifically used studies done by professionals to make his points. An example is when he said "[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2693767/]" as a source for his point on smells that women are attracted to. This shows me that a lot of women (the ones tested) agreed with the point made by Pro. The only problem I then find is that this is the only link that he cited. This might be because he was citing books, but I still would have liked to see them in a list, because otherwise it was very confusing to view. Nonetheless, the sources show evidence of his points. Con did not use sources at all. I am not trying to do the appeal to quantity here, but there's nothing else to say about Con's sources. Because of that, Pro gets sources.

Spelling & Grammar (Tie):

Con had bad grammar. For example, he said "I could go as far as the to say that proving a," which should instead read as "I could go as far as to say that proving a." He consistently made mistakes such as these. However, none of those mistakes made it hard to understand his points, so this is a tie.

Conduct (Con):

There are four examples where Pro had bad conduct. First, in the description he said "I have the burden of proof." However, in the rounds, he says "Shared burden of proof." This is a direct contradiction, but to a voter, what is in the description trumps what is in the rounds. Because of that, Pro dishonestly debated by trying to shift the burden of proof. He did this multiple times throughout the debate. He then corrected Con's grammar by saying "This should be: There are* problems." This is inappropriate in a debate, as one does not have any business correcting one's opponent's grammar. Finally, he cussed twice in his rounds. I cannot give examples of this for personal reasons, so you can discount that if you want to, but I feel that the other two reasons are sufficient to give conduct to Con.

Con did say one thing "Yeah I guess I would do that too if I had weak arguments." This is bad conduct, but it is the only one that I saw, and Pro's bad conduct far outweighs this. Trying to shift the burden of proof multitple times definitely impeded the debate and made it harder to follow.

Pro made it clear that this was from a biblical perspective. Con did not meet the rules.

Con barely pulled this off for me. He defined his terms and definitions better and I think that his scenario comparisons were better as well.