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Hi, hello, im glad to see y'all missed me.
Over years of development i've come to this website for a lotta' things, a way to "sharpen" my brain, a way to develop my argumentation- and in some ways it did do that, but in other ways it stunted me. This place is a cesspot of conspiracy theories, bigotry, and fierce anti-intellectualism(really ironic considering the website's supposed purpose). In some ways, it did help me learn to format my arguments and how to argue against some....real...... opinions- opinions are the very charitable version, but in others it made me so so defensive, always assuming people were arguing disengeniously or with such poor frameworks they needed to be deconstructed on the basic level.
The simple truth is that most regular people have better opinions than the vast majority of people here, and they don't need to justify it with increasingly less intelligible excuses. And, i think i've finally moved past the need for this website. Thanks for all the time i spent here, thanks to all the people who weren't bigoted and folk who really wanted to just learn and explore. I think the fact that I haven't participated in a debate in YEARS now and yet still sit in the Number 11 spot is really telling of whats happening to this website. I want people to remember that I moved between spots in the gap of a few months, and I was all the way down in the 20s for a while, its not like i was staying high up.
I hope the people who stay here get something out of this website. I hope you bigots learn empathy, for others and yourselves, i hope all of you who still believe all you need to do to stop bigotry is extend a hand and have a conversation learn to give yourselves more kindness.
Bye, i guess, have fun keepin' on.
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DebateArt.com
Circa 2004, born in a mid-sized city in southern Oklahoma, parents have a worrying gap between ages and a spotty military past- one me was born. Though they try their hardest, over the my siblings' and I's early years the parents separate and eventually divorce. My sense of self-worth ruptures and I believe myself to be a "bad-luck curse". My brother believes he has to be perfect or he isn't worth anything. My sister is 2. Luckily.
Over the years, I develop the idea that the only thing separating me from sucking is that I'm smart. I was told I was smart, expected to do well in school- not pressured necessarily, just expected. So as the years continue I use my supposed intelligence as a mask to hide feelings of inadequacy and depression, familiar enough no? As a result, I don't really explore my identity, I'm smart- thats all I need. Thats all I am.
Enter: Covid pandemic, Entirely too hot summer roommates, and Text roleplay (superhero to be specific)- and I discover more and more about myself. Develop a sense of self worth independent of my "intelligence", find a support network, develop my own identity. It takes years, incredible work, and a entirely too many break downs and stints of depression and sucidation.
But then...this year, less than a month ago- enter: The Owl House, a show from Disney Channel and created by Dana Terrace in early 2020 (woo) - about a girl that accidentally stumbles into a simultaneously horrifying and gorgeous magical world and chooses to stay. A show that, had I seen earlier, would have helped me dramatically. The show has themes of choice, self-expression, and familiar bonds (both blood and found) - and it has some of the best depictions of romantic relationships I've seen on TV.
One character, Raine Whispers, casually used they/them pronouns- no explanations- no forced trauma in regards to it, just- casually. This character is important to the plot, this character is a character-developed and nuanced. Them using these pronouns really isn't of much relevance- and that is quite a new phenomena. It also demonstrates some of the best representation we've had for us nonbinary folks in...forever! Just a character who happens to be x. A show which shows grief over one's own choices, how to rely on those you care about- how to provide support to them as well. A show that shows how one can overcome great obstacles by relying on others, how seemingly innocuous decisions can result in huge changes later on.
Really, its hard to explain how great it is- definitely would recommend- but what do I mean it would help so much? Well, as a fresh enby, having an example of causal enbies woulda helped me find comfort in the concept without all the long searches in my psyche. See, as I noted I have an issue with self-worth- and what i didn't say (explicitly) is my imposter syndrome. Even though I am clearly not straight, I've had looong hours of suffering in my mind-thinking "am i not-straight enough?? i haven't had as bad a life as others, do i deserve to call myself x, y, or z?" Obviously suffering isn't what makes someone somethin- but anxiety and imposter syndrome aren't exactly using syllogisms.
Getting to my point, representation is useful for establishing a concept or group of people who are underrepresented in popular media as a "norm" in some way or another. One of the most common ways people who were previously biggoted come to accept queer folk is by having family or friends who come out as queer. As it turns out, people tend to form parasocial relationships with characters on tv shows and in books they consume! So, when such things are more and more established in common media it creates more and more characters for people to care for and then shed their bigotry. Its not just that though! See, now I'm gonna have to discuss privilege- but hey you got this far so just stay with me for a sec'. Privilege, broadly, is what someone gets when they are treated as the norm. You see people like you everywhere, as every sort of role-model, in tv-shows as heroes and villains. Society expects you to succeed, because thats just what you do. Society helps you even.
By establishing more norms, you begin to break down that privilege into something that is more shared. By no means does it solve all the systemic issues within a lotta' institutions or even completely on a more personal level- but it certainly helps and establishes a foothold that can be used to fight from.
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Show business
Was this blatantly clickbait?
Maybe, you don't know.
You're here aren'tcha?
Ah, so nice to be back, can't believe this is where im starting-actually it makes perfect sense-aka -THE PREAMBLE
Anywho, its not unknown to most...*ahem* serious leftists that there's some serious hypocrisy within the democratic party and most who know themselves to be "liberals". See, the biggest differentiation between "leftists" and "liberals" tends to be (in my mind at least), that Liberals believe there to be a way to salvage capitalism and that our current system of governance is mostly fine with some hick ups (mostly conservatives). Leftists on the other hand, believe there to be a systemic issue starting at the very foundation of our government.
Now, leftism and liberalism are both extremely broad and varied- but this seems to be the primary difference. That being said, this post is not about liberals (you know who you are), no, this post is about Leftists proper. Ancom/soc's, communists, collectivists, etc, etc. This is necessary to point out because I really don't feel like digging through the pointless objections and generalizations.
Okay, but WHAT hypocrisies best friend Weakeredge?? aka -THE POINT
Simple, on our base level Leftists are people who want equality-we want to do so in a way where people don't get hurt- we want to do so in a way that betters society. And yet, soooo many of us advocate prison. Now; there are certainly situations where there is no other outcome, particularly when the individual is violent and is unable to be soothed. But that archetype makes up such a low percentage of such situations that its sad people would pretend otherwise.
Its not just prison though, fundamentally so many "solutions" offered by leftists buy into the idea of retributive justice. Really, if I were more organized, I woulda introduced the idea and talked about why i think its bad- but nah im not so here we are- thats the main point. We can't just default to the idea that people arbitrarily deserve x or y. There's a reason why so many of these moral quandary's are fundamentally flawed.
What if- and here me out here- it doesn't particularly matter what people deserve? The core principle of mercy is the idea of abandoning justice, ala, forgiveness OR the ability to let live. Now, Im not saying to embrace your abusers-have a chat and let bygones be bygones- not my point here. Abandoning retribution does not mean accepting abuse or evil. It means recognizing that retribution for nothing more than the sake of retribution is useless- less than useless considering prison usually creates MORE violent criminals.
Leftists need to abandon retribution as the answer, The Right tried that- it. did. not. work. We cannot preach equality and wanting to better society and then default to retribution as our answer to everything.
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Politics
Fascinating, utterly brain-denying, the positive effect on my mental health leaving the sight has given me. This isn't to say that the people here are intrinsically bad, or even that the art of constant debate and being intellectually challenged is unhealthy - no in fact I participate in forums where even more of my fundamental beliefs are challenged, fun. I think the reason why it can get a bit "eh" here is because it's quite toxic. But enough about that rant that was meant as a clever hook that turned into an actual tangent.
Hello there, again, I don't even know if anybody will read this or care to read this - frankly I doubt people will - but if you do care, yes I am alive. This year I'm taking four college classes, so essentially, I'm doin the college thing but around people who don't care - so, ya know, more fun. Needless to say, it takes more time, and my free time isn't something I want to give... to here. Maybe in the future I'll return more permanently for arguments and stuff I dunno. I suppose I should go into how I've changed over the months since I've gone away.
I've turned my back on all the leftist, marxist, atheistic propaganda I used to spew!
Lmao, no, I've turned more in.
I'm actually pretty close to communist now, and even closer to anarchy - one might say - anarcho-communism. But regardless, I think that marxist have a pretty good point that hiring someone to do labor for you, then taking the profit for that labor and giving them a fraction of that while the profit increases, kinda sucks. Not to go on another rant. Another thing, I've kinda been swayed on - guys - governments are bad. Oh my god, so original, right? Right. So, beyond this barely-coherent tangent of things that make people enraged and annoy others, I'm back kinda-not really.
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Personal
Trump's financial manager was indited on fraud - maybe justice for the conman we let run a country for some reason? I guess we'll see.
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Current events
I say Wylted claim to be president of DART, and partially out of spite, partially cuz' it'd be cool - I wanted to see if anyone is actually interested in nominating themselves for an election to be president of the website... what would it entail? I have literally no idea, bragging points? Some weird mod position? Ask Debate.Art, I don't know.
Reply if you're interested
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DebateArt.com
For a time I was one of the most active people here, both in terms of debates and in posting on the forum. In my fairly short time here I've climbed all the way to number 5, pretty impressive I think - 'specially for some highschooler. If you've been following my debates you'd know that I've been forfeiting more than I ever have before, and that's mainly due to the college classes I'm taken this summer. I simply don't have the time to do that and this.
I've gotten what I wanted out of this website, its sharpened my mind exponentially, its made me explore other possibilities and improve my own ideas. I can't thank each and everyone of you enough for giving me the chance to get so much better. When I first came here I was awkward and relatively new at actual debating, now I can say I definitely have some experience. Just... I don't have any massive dialogue this time, just this, just me.
So...bye, for now at least. Maybe I'll check in and do a forum post every once in a while, but I'll no longer be posting debate rounds. See you guys later.
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People
FOR DEBATES WITH NO VOTES ONLY - RESPOND WITH THE DEBATE LINKED TAGGING EVERYONE WHO POSTED - "Voter"
- if you want to be tagged to vote reply to this post saying "voter", that way people know to tag you
- if you want to help vote on these debates you can subscribe to thread to be kept informed when people post here
- if your debate isn't voted on and has less than half of the voting time remaining feel free to re-post
- if your debate is voted on, delete from thread or edit your post to say "voted" and delete link
Thank you!
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DebateArt.com
Just an observation - um - interesting I suppose. What do you guys think?
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DebateArt.com
The dilemma poses a simple question:
- Is an action good because god commands it, or is does god command it because it's good
If the latter is true then good supersedes god, and god's morality is non-unique, open to critique same as any other interpreter - as well - any commands that god makes would inherently have to follow what is established as good, if god were to do things which contradict each other morally and claim both to be moral, then that god is not moral.
If the former is true then morality is relative and arbitrary, completely subject to the view of god at the time, morality is nothing more than obedience, and not actually effective in solving any moral problems, this would put into question the inherent authority often ascribed to Abrahamic gods, and would not make their actions "good" effectively.
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Philosophy
A while back I did an AMA, this was back when I had first started into the forum section, but now that I've been here for a while, and there are new usres here -I want to give people a new opportunity to question me
For ease of access - a list of my labels and positions:
- Progressivism
- Free-Utilities
- Free-Healthcare
- Free-Education
- Non-complex immigration
- Pro-Choice
- Increasing Age-of-Majority
- Anti-Mandatory Draft
- Police Abolishment
- De-Militarization of Martial departments
- Against Flat Tax - Tax leans Rich
- Pro-LGBTQIA
- Comprehensive Education including LGBTQIA topics
- Gender-Affirming Healthcare
- Allowing adoption services to all given other prerequisites are met
- Penalty for tangible discrimination against
- Standardizing Official documentation to include LGBTQIA identities
- Atheist
- Anti-Theist
- Separation of Church and State
- Freedom to and from Religion
- Taxing the Church
- Abolishing Religious exemptions that harm individuals
- Naturalist
- The natural world is all there is
- Supernatural is impossible
- souls don't exist
- The mind is an emergent property of the brain
- Moral Subjectivist
- Objective moral truths are impossible
- Sentientism
- Soft-Utilitarianism
- Personal Identities
- Pansexual - Am attracted to people regardless of gender, i.e, no physiological traits I find particularly attractive over another
- Cis-gendered - I identify as the gender I was assigned at birth
- High Schooler auditing several college classes
And that's all I can think of right now - ask away
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Personal
As I've discussed the idea of taxing the rich more, there has been some, well, pushback. That these people are paying more than their fair share, that they provide all of the income for the government, etc, etc. Here's the thing, the fundamental things - whenever a rich person it taxed almost any percentage of taxes, they will have more than enough income to live on, this is not always the case with poor people.
Let's take a 50% general income tax.
Furthermore, let's assume that Biden's 15 dollar an hour minimum wage passes - that's 15 dollars times an average workweek of 40 hours, multiplied by four for your gross monthly income. That's approximately $2400, so, to deduct that 50% income tax, you get 1,200 dollars. According to Statistica, in January of 2021 (the last recorded data point), that is an overall cost of $1,124... so - rent - costs nearly your entire gross monthly salary - and that's not even considering if you have kids, or any other bills you have to pay, like internet, car insurance, health insurance, utilities, etc, etc. And this is all presuming that the minimum wage is increased to 15 dollars an hour.
According to Pew. Research and Business Insider, the median interest of the group considered the "rich" is $187,872 - to be charitable, we'll round down to 185,000 dollars annually. So dividing that number in half, we get 92,500 annually, and 7,708 monthly.. which, is enough to pay what Statistica reports as the average rent for a house of more than 5 people, more than four times over - so- to say that a tax will affect each level of income earner the same is to not understand what fractions can do to different proportions. This is, fundamentally why, the rich ought to be taxed more than the poor. Not to make them also struggle, but to overcome this basic principle of proportionality.
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Economics
So, I'm not trying to say that 90% of people here are transphobic (because I haven't done any quantities and controllable studies into what people think of trans people), but I can say that a good deal of people exhibits implicit transphobia here. Now, I get where people are going to respond to this: "Implicit? Do you mean because we don't want people to be scarred because of 'gender-affirming treatment", or "Don't you see, I just care about these people!" and so on and so forth.
First of all - what? Transitioning harms trans people? Sure...:
"We conducted a systematic literature review of all peer-reviewed articles published in English between 1991 and June 2017 that assess the effect of gender transition on transgender well-being. We identified 55 studies that consist of primary research on this topic, of which 51 (93%) found that gender transition improves the overall well-being of transgender people, while 4 (7%) report mixed or null findings. We found no studies concluding that gender transition causes overall harm. As an added resource, we separately include 17 additional studies that consist of literature reviews and practitioner guidelines." [1]
Second of all, and to the actual point, implicitly being bigoted in any regard, is the outcome of a behavior imprinted onto you by society - for example - assuming a black person simply walking alone at night is "suspicious-looking" or supposing that women inherently "love to cook and clean", those sorts of things. Here we see another example of that, presuming that, the reason gender dysphoria is a mental illness, is because a person falsely believes that their gender isn't what they were borne with.
To equate this perception to another mental illness for clarity, people who are depressed have a false sense that they are worthless - and to the people I am referring to (implicitly transphobic people) that is the same sort of false sense that people who have gender dysphoria have, except, no - not quite. Gender dysphoria is not seen as a mental illness of "delusion", but of extreme discomfort. It is the fact that their body does not match up with their gender that causes dysphoria, not the other way around.
"Gender dysphoria is the feeling of discomfort or distress that might occur in people whose gender identity differs from their sex assigned at birth or sex-related physical characteristics. Transgender and gender-nonconforming people might experience gender dysphoria at some point in their lives. But not everyone is affected. Some transgender and gender-nonconforming people feel at ease with their bodies, either with or without medical intervention." [2]
You see - gender dysphoria is not inherent to transgender people - the fact that they have a different gender identity is not the necessary cause of this mental illness, it is the discomfort that some feel as a result that their body doesn't match with their gender. For further evidence that the fact that you can't take a DSM to be automatically correct in some of the specifics of its diagnoses (as research is always growing) - let's all recall the DSM's view on homosexuality in edition three, shall we?
"In 1973 homosexuality per se was removed from the DSM-II classification of mental disorders and replaced by the category Sexual Orientation Disturbance. This represented a compromise between the view that preferential homosexuality is invariably a mental disorder and the view that it is merely a normal sexual variant. While the 1973 DSM-II controversy was highly public, more recently a related but less public controversy involved what became the DSM-III category of Ego-dystonic Homosexuality. The author presents the DSM-III controversy and a reformulation of the issues involved in the diagnostic status of homosexuality. He argues that what is at issue is a value judgment about heterosexuality, rather than a factual dispute about homosexuality." [3]
Please always take the time to go beyond the general description of a diagnosis, especially before applying that to your own, unprofessional, interpretation of what that means for an entire population of people who aren't even necessarily related.
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Philosophy
I find myself at a crossroads - speaking from a libertarian framework - drafts are literally the enemy of everything one would stand for - but speaking from a collectivists framework - do drafts do enough good to counteract this freedom abuse (and I mean actual abuse of freedom - not like... forcing people to not be bigots)
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Philosophy
Perhaps most famously (or infamously I suppose) touted by Athais in the DART discussion, but to be honest I know very little about the ideology aside from the very basics, so I'm doing what I always do when I'm curious about something - ask - what is Individualism? What makes it consistent? What makes it inconsistent? How is it pragmatically helpful? How is it better than x or y? Etc, etc..
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You know - I like mafia plenty, I've played a lot of it in the past - but its kinda annoying that its the only forum game here -so- going to the people here: what are some games you'd like to see here in this category - aside from Mafia?
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Forum games
So that people understand - "sexual" as a root toom is referring to one's sexuality - so to say "a" and "sexual" means to not have a sexuality. That means that you are not attracted to any person sexually -for some, sex does indeed feel good - just because you aren't attracted to other people doesn't necessarily mean that the act itself doesn't feel pleasurable. (That's not how things work) Some asexual people still have sex, because A) It feels good, and B) because it makes their partners happy. However, some asexual people just.. don't feel good when they have sex - through a combination of neurological and sometimes biological factors.
This is just mopping up some misunderstandings.
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People
My time here at Dart has led me to meet a smattering of believers in the above, though I grew up surrounded by Christians, no one really ever talked about ordinary spirits much. So even as a Christian I only believed in spirits like the Holy Spirit or a spirit that only left the body when god came to judge us. Nothing more, nothing less - people who believed more were pretty rare. To the point that when I read that Jesus exorcised evil spirits from pigs I excitedly told people that Jesus could do that. (Don't judge 12 year old me). Now, as an atheist and a hard naturalists, I find more and more people who do believe in spirits, and its not that there are actually more people that belive in spirits now - its that there are some things I just accepted axiomatically that require a spirit to be a thing.
For example; soulmates, they kinda.. well assume that you accept spirits to exist or superstitions regarding grave sights. All kinds of things, a lot of things about ethics, in general - when I stopped believing in spirits I stopped believing in a lot of other stuff - though I was only ever lightly aligned with the position. My point is - spirits are such a widely accepted thing, and they propagate so many other assumptions, I wanted to know some other examples of things that you find are dependent on the existence of spirits, whether you disagree or agree with their existence. For me, the biggest thing that I changed in my framework was how I viewed conception, birth, babies in general - after I stopped believing in spirits was the first time I considered that abortion might not be bad.
What are some examples from you guys?
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Science and Nature
For the murder of one George Floyd Derek Chauvin was found guilty on all three accounts that he was charged on: second-degree manslaughter, third-degree murder, and second-degree murder.
Though a part of me wants to celebrate that a part of our system is finally taking accountability to our police forces, the victory is hollow, the decision could be appealed, or (more likely) this will happen all over again and the guy won't be charged. It's also, absolutely ridiculous how this farce could go on this long, why are so many people so insistent that this person killed another person, most likely because of racism? But we can't even get their can we, because we can't even agree that George Floyd was murdered - and that's really the ridiculous part.
How are such intelligent people so dismayed by the thought that their role models might just not be as good as they thought they were, that they completely preclude the idea of murder even being an option. Before the doctor's testified that Floyd died because of the knee, people were all too happy to accept the Coroner's report to get the drug levels in his system. Before the police chief came out and testified that what Derek did was completely out of line with their training, people were more than happy to use the police manuals as a guide.
Why is it that every time something contradicts their views, they suddenly lose all of their self-awareness?
Again, I would like this to be a victory of accountability, but truly - its not - its another step in a long and grueling journey to equality, an equality that not everybody believes that people deserve, and, just to be blunt, let's stop pretending that its anything else. Some people, just don't want black people to have the same justice wrought for them as white people, I really hate to paint such a broad brush, but given the preponderance of evidence, that is the only reasonable interpretation to make here. I'm sure most people disagree, that's fine - you can prove me right - right here.
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Current events
MisterChris has officially usurped Ragnar as the number two debater, congrats on this achievement despite your relative inactivity on the site! So, to field a couple of questions to MisterChris, what do you feel about the accomplishment? Do you feel like you could one day achieve the number one spot? Finally, do you think you'll stay at number two?
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People
While we have a leaderboard regarding the top 10, not all of them are very active, a good amount of the top spots are extremely careful about which debates they take - as far as I'm aware - Undefeatable, Fauxlaw, and myself are the most active of the top 10 - what do you guys, the top 10 and in general, think about this strategy? What do you guys think of this form of ranking debaters in general? I would argue that Fauxlaw should be higher on the board by his raw abilities in rhetoric, and Athias should be on it for his deductive prowess, but neither are. What do you guys think about this?
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DebateArt.com
In correlation with our divide in which president we prefer is the traits that we value, so - what 5 presidential traits do you believe to be most important?
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Society
I've been debating here since... around last September, or around 7 months. Throughout my time here, I've seen a plethora of different debating styles, voting styles, and even different styles of communicating a rebuttal. I've seen people with much greater rhetoric ability than mine, I've seen people with much better reasoning ability than mine, but throughout my time here - I'd like to think I've improved those aspects of myself, but I still find myself coming up short, at least to my standard of progress I hold myself too. So I am throwing my pride to the wolves, what would you guys suggest to improve myself further? What areas do I need to improve in? What areas do I need to shore up? What are my weaknesses, my strengths? Generally, how convincing am I? All of that.
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Personal
Wooo - almost to MisterChris. Yee
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DebateArt.com
I've come across so many different people here, even when positions overlap there have always been minor separations in how people view things. Because of this, I'd like to learn more about each individual and their positions regarding various things. Below will be the questions that inform my "survey" including a question if you would like to be further interviewed. The survey will be separated into 5 general categories - Politics, Social, Religion, Science, and Misc.
Politics:
1. Generally, how do you identify politically?
2. Given the following 6 political identities, which do you most closely relate to? (Anarchist, Liberal, Centrist, Libertarian, Conservative, Authoratarian)
3. If you were to choose 4 political identities as the most common - which four would they be?
4. If you were to briefly describe your general political identity - how would you?
5. If you were to briefly describe your closest-relative political identity - how would you?
6. If you were to briefly describe the political identity which is directly opposed to yours - how would you?
7. If you were to list the positions most integral to your political identity - what would they be? (listed from least to most important)
8. If you were to list the top 4 positions which you most agree with, what four would they be?
9. Do you consider your political identity widely represented in your respective government?
10. What questions, if any, would you add to this section of the survey?
Social:
1. What do you believe to be the biggest social problem of today's era?
2. How do you think this problem could be solved generally?
3. What do you think of these sexual/gender identities; Homosexual, Bisexual, Transgender, or Asexual?
4. What do you think of cultural labels such as "cultural marxists" or "TERFs"? (though not limited to those labels specifically)
5. Which, if any, circumstances do you believe justifies abortion?
6. What do you believe to be the ideal home environment?
7. What do you believe to be the most important value to instill in young individuals?
8. What do you think of cultural movements such as BLM or Feminism?
9. Should taxpayer money be used to support policies such as Universal Healthcare and Universal Secondary Education?
10. What questions, if any, would you add to this section of the survey?
Religion:
1. Generally, which religion do you identify with?
2. Generally, do you believe religion to be important to society - how so or how not?
3. Do you believe the religion you identify with is being persucted or bigoted against?
4. Do you believe that its important for education to instill relgious values into children?
5. Aside from the god of your religion, do you believe that religion is the most important aspect of life?
6. Do you believe that everyone else, or the majority of people, should be of your religion?
7. What do you think of indivudals who do not affilate with your religion?
8. Do you believe that the church and government should be seperated?
9. Do you believe that individuals have a freedom from religion as well as a freedom to religion?
10. What questions, if any, would you add to this section of the survey?
Science:
1. Generally, do you believe science to be an accurate way of interpreting and describing our reality?
2. Do you believe that the theory of natural selection and evolution is how the current species of the earth developed?
3. Do you believe that creationism is how the current species of the earth developed?
4. Do you believe that the big bang and cosmologic evolution is how our current universe "began"?
5. Do you believe that the oblate spheroid model of the earth is accurate in regards to the shape of the earth?
6. Do you believe that climate change is happening at an increased rate?
7. Do you believe that there are genetic differences between different ethnicities aside from melalin content?
8. Do you believe that IQ tests are accurate ways of measuring an individual's intelligence?
9. Do you believe that the current scientific consensus is accurate in regards to the description of reality?
10. What questions, if any, would you add to this section of the survey
Misc.
1. Would you be interested in a general interview, conducted by Theweakeredge?
2. Would you be interested in a specific interview, conducted by Theweakeedge?
3. Do you think the questions presented above are effective in collecting the general positions of individuals?
4. What categories, if any, would you add or take away from the survey above?
5. On a scale of 1-10 (1 being lowest, 10 being highest) how would you rate the bias of this test?
Thank you for your participation
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DebateArt.com
A question has been popping into my head recently, why do I get so angry? Sometimes I thought that anger was entirely deserved on the part of whoever pissed me off, other times I don't. Now some, like RMM, have only pissed me off in this regard - but I realize that even if RMM has no ground to stand on here, and perhaps I do have legitimate reasons for being mad, that doesn't mean that I should be mad. I've taken a step back, and decided to ask it - why do I get so angry whenever someone speaks to me with condescension?
Well - foremost - because I'm insecure. There's a part of me that tells me that I'm wrong about everything that I talk about, no matter how well-researched, and unlike my skepticism, it isn't satisfied whenever I see if I can debunk my positions and fail - it appeals to nothing about my logic or rationality, only my raw anxiety. Sometimes a voice doubting your conclusions, actually always, is necessary, but those voices which attack your character as a reason for your arguments being wrong is no help at all. It fundamentally hinders my ability to reason, as I have to take the time to address inherently irrational rebuttals. People like RMM appeal to that part of me, or even Coal talking to me like a 12-year-old. So, I get angry, I lash out with my words - in my youth I probably would have punched something or had a breakdown. I've always been overly emotional, but I thought I had mitigated that part of me, and while perhaps I have - not to the total extent.
So, even when people like Fauxlaw and I fundamentally disagree, he still shows me respect, he acknowledges that I have something worthwhile, which allows me to discuss sensitive issues without much anger being involved. So take this as an apology to people who've I've upset with this, and I will attempt to curb this kind of stuff, but that doesn't mean that I will accept condescension without batting an eye, it means I'll acknowledge it and move on. Thanks to anyone who's reading, you actually decided to read my little rant.
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Personal
Im sure everyone is aware of former President Trump's famous laws about reducing the number of immigrants allowed into America. This was because he wanted to reduce the rate of Corona Virus! What a great guy! Stand-up president- really looking out for the citizen's health. I'm sure he was also interested in increasing lockdown and mask mandates - you know - to reduce the transmission of the virus!
Wait... what's that? He publically mocked people wearing masks and didn't wear them much himself? And he also continuously held GIANT RALLIES.... The hypocrisy is so blatant it literally stings.
Guys - no - Trump was not a good president. Even if we were to accept (and I'm not) that he helped our economy - that would not mitigate his disastrous response to Corona. Let's remember that disease which was WORSE - you guys remember that? Ebola? And how Obama crushed it before it could hit double digits in America? That's called competency - and now - the fact that America got Corona is not Trump's fault - but the fact that we are one of the countries who responded to it the least effectively definitely is.
This is here to remind us that no - Donal Trump was not a good president - and this only a single example of that not-goodness. It was also a rant.
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Current events
Woo then - did some LD, and lemme tell ya - you guys are much harder to debate, I don't wanna say better, but.... well all of you are better than they were, it was interesting though.
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Just submitting that first of all - though - before we get into the criticism - I find it interesting that most left"est" and conservatives dislike Biden, it comes down to what degree and why you dislike him - for example - conservatives are more likely to dislike his rather high number of executive orders, while liberals are more likely to dislike how.... moderate he is on a number of issues.
Essentially Conservatives dislike him for not being conservative like most other democrats (yay Overton window), and Liberals dislike that he's only moderate and not actually left wing.
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I made my own game, kinda, its not very well developed - and I was only playing with a website I found.
I thought it would be nice to ask for feedback, its not complete by any means, but its bare bones are laid.
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Gaming
So... woo boy, its only been since September that I've joined the site - that's 6 months - and I've already seen this site radically change, I've seen multiple users come and go, etc, etc.. I saw some worry that this site was going downhill, and I think I disagree, I wasn't around for the "golden age of DDO" so I don't know how it compares. I would also just like to thank this entire site, it helped sharpen me from a kid with some decent ideas and no direction into an, at least, competent debater. The community, the engagement, and the wide variety of ideas.
If one was simply content to stay where nobody disagreed with them, there would be no intelligent growth, the key of developing is challenging yourself! So thanks, even the people I've come to dislike, because our many hundreds of back and forth have helped develop me into who I am today, and I like that person. It's also taught me quite a lot of things about people on the internet, things I thought I knew... well, they were reinforced. Anyway, its been a ride and I intend to keep on, though my activity may wax and wane, I'm at least trying to keep a presence.
Despite that rambling thanks, I want to know what people think: do you think this site is more alive than it's been? Dying? Or just in the middle?
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DebateArt.com
As most know, or at least some, I'm still in high school and I still do high school stuff on the regular. What I don't think a lot of people know is that I regularly take anti-depressants, no no not because I'm suicidal or anything (though there could be an argument for me being depressed), its mostly because of my extreme anxiety. It allows me to function without having attacks where I pass out because of hyperventilation. I've come to live with the fact that I am extremely anxious, anywho, I did not take it this morning. I'm not quite sure why, probably because of a mix of being in a rush and oversleeping, but I wasn't able to take it.
I had an awful day, though I managed to avoid passing out on someone, yay, and as soon as my mother was available I asked if she could bring me the medicine (I most certainly don't trust myself to drive in the state), and my mother quickly brought it to me, much to my gratefulness. I excused myself from class and settled on in a corner so that I could take the pill (again, very anxious in general, but even more so about taking pills in public), but as I brought the small capsule to my lips a thought crossed my mind. Why? It would be of the utmost arrogance to assume that such a question was original or even pertinent, but it stuck all the same.
Why?
Why was I taking this pill? To curb my anxiety? Why was it necessary? Because I could barely function without it... what about the people with a lack of medication and similar shortcomings? I knew them to exist, did they just weather on? Did they just die of a heart attack one day? Why did I want to function? The answer seems obvious, but for the life of me, I couldn't think of an answer that wasn't inherently axiomatic or circular. Perhaps I was being exceedingly silly, but I resolved to not take that medicine until I could think of an answer. So, I went to the restroom and did a small amount of mediation, tried to center my breathing, and calm myself, I wobbly, but surely, returned to class.
My college arithmetics professor was going on about solving systems of inequalities and graphing them, but I was far from attentive. My mind was on the questions I had provided to myself. Why? Why did I want to avoid suffering? Because it was evolutionarily instilled in me? That was perhaps an answer, and it fit my naturalistic worldview quite well. That did, of course, lead to another question, well why then did I evolve to avoid suffering, that answer was even more obvious because if my ancestors hadn't then they wouldn't have lived. The answer was not new, it was not revolutionary, I had known it beforehand; however, it did not satisfy me.
I was not looking for some metaphysical understanding or explanation, nor some appeal to a god or great figure, I simply wanted a philosophic reason of why I avoid pain. I've argued at length with other debaters on the site about subjective morality, but my answers were usually all scientific in nature. I wanted to go further, to think deeper. Before I knew it I was hyperventilating, I laughed, in my pursuit to find out why I was suffering, I had perpetuated my suffering. That reminded me of the phrase, "ignorance is bliss", which of course made me think, "And knowledge is cursed", and despite the, frankly, biblical undertones of such a message it still resonated inside of me.
Would the answer to why I wanted to avoid suffering bound to cause me endless suffering. That thought, that realization, sparked another question. Why did I care? Why did I care that I wanted to avoid pain and suffering - it should be enough to know that I want to, no? Well, no, not if I want to explain why you ought to others. That made me realize that the question came from external sources, not internal ones. I was asking myself the question, not in response to my suffering, but in my attempt to explain the concept of suffering to others. I would not call myself an altruist by any means, though I attempt to help others all I can, it is certainly not all I can.
That made the realization surprising. I cared about my own suffering because other people suffered. Ah, when its put like that, I suppose its just empathy huh? Let's tie it allll up, bring it back to the very beginning. Why did I want to avoid suffering? Because I wanted other people to avoid suffering. Although it doesn't seem quite a sequitur yet, it is where I am currently. Thanks for reading this long rambling post, if you did. I'm marking this my journal of sorts. All of you get to be subject to my inner thoughts during the day, whipee, I need to cope with stress somehow.
PS: I did end up taking the pill like an hour later
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We'll see how long it lasts, but as of right now: March 5th, 2021 - 5:36 am CST I've made it to the top 10 debaters on the site, yipee.
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Personal
Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury - some of the most popular boxers from the UK today - apparently scheduled to have a match this December. I'm curious about what people think of this fight, I'll go into the basic styles of both boxer's and their records:
Anthony Joshua "AJ"
Total Bouts: 25
Wins: 24
KOs: 22
Losses: 1
Stance: Orthodox
Height: 6'6"
Reach: 82"
Basic Style:
AJ is a master at the fundamentals - he uses jabs with textbook efficiency, for offense (applying pressure) and for defense (creating distance). He's a patient fighter who waits for openings and goes in with extremely powerful hooks. Especially with his progressively lower weights in his most recent fights, he is able to bob and weave most punches, and he can effectively cut off the ring. AJ uses textbook offence to dominate the rounds, and his patient but ferocious power to finish his opponents.
Tyson Fury "The Gypsie King"
Total Bouts: 31
Wins: 30
KOS: 21
Losses: 0
Draws: 1
Stance: Orthodox
Height: 6'9"
Reach: 85"
Basic Style:
Tyson is... unpredictable, that's the best way to describe the heavyweight; however, one can pin down his best features - that most certainly being his defensive fighting. He has masterful leg movement and is a master feinter, that along with his huge reach and height advantage makes him one of the hardest boxers to hit consistently. He uses his unpredictable nature to keep his opponent on the backfoot, keep them thinking and not fighting - using his signature unpredictable nature he takes advantage and wins.
What do people think about this potential megafight? I'm very curious
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Sports
OK, so how do we know — scientifically — that the Earth is a sphere?At a very basic level, we can see the Earth’s curvature through satellites that we’ve launched into space. Additionally, through the use of high-powered telescopes, we’ve been able to examine planets both in our solar system and beyond, and all of them are spherical in shape.There is a very deep, fundamental reason why the Earth is round: the force of gravity depends upon the distance between two interacting objects, and the only three-dimensional object you can make with a single distance is a sphere. We can measure the behavior of gravity in the laboratory with a variety of highly sensitive experiments. Each of these experiments shows that the force of gravity depends only on the mass of the two objects and the distance between them. If, on the other hand, you wanted to form a flattened object using gravity alone, the force of gravity would have to depend upon two, perpendicular distances in two perpendicular directions.Now, let’s backtrack to the time before satellites and telescopes. Why did people once think that the Earth was flat?The primary reason that ancient people believed that the Earth was flat was that it looks flat from our vantage point on the ground. Most people throughout history never traveled more than a few miles from their place of birth, so the horizon that they saw was always the same. Moreover, most people were more worried about meeting the necessities of life than they were about the shape of the Earth.The misconception that the Earth must be flat because it looks flat to us arises simply because the Earth is big. The height of an adult is much less than one millionth of the Earth's radius. In order to see the curvature of the Earth in a single field of view, you would need to be perched above the surface a sizable fraction of that radius, and one millionth wouldn't be considered "sizable.”What clues changed their thinking?This state of affairs started to change about 2,500 years ago during the Iron Age, especially with the Greeks. There are two primary reasons that the Greeks knew the Earth was round:
- Lunar eclipses. First, they saw that during a lunar eclipse the shadow of the Earth always had a round profile. This happened regardless of the time of night that the eclipse occurred, the season, or the direction that the shadow crept across the Moon's surface. The only object that casts a circular shadow no matter how you shine a light across it is a sphere. Any other shape would not be able to cast a round shadow under this variety of circumstances.
- Star patterns. The second observation is how the pattern of stars changes as you move north and south. If you were to stand at the North Pole, Polaris (the North Star), would be directly overhead. On a flat Earth, Polaris would always be visible — no matter how far away from the North Pole you moved, it would still be above the horizon. However, by the time you reach the equator, Polaris is on the northern horizon, and it disappears entirely once you move into the southern hemisphere. You can't see Polaris from Australia. In fact, the ancient Greeks calculated the circumference of the Earth using this effect and produced an answer that was strikingly close to what we measure today.
If you want to prove that the Earth is a sphere, here’s an experiment you can do today:Quito, Ecuador and Nairobi, Kenya are two cities on the equator. Fly to either and you'll see Polaris on the northern horizon. Cape Town, South Africa and Melbourne, Australia are well south of the equator. Fly to either and you won't see Polaris at all. A few minutes drawing the predictions of the two competing models on a piece of paper is sufficient to exclude one of those models. And, this isn't the only demonstration you can do from the ground.
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Science and Nature
Quite simply - gender, in general, is a construct, like currency, but slips of money also do objectively exist. Similarly, gender identity is an inherent thing, whereas gender itself is a construct. How? A good question, there are inherent bits of gender that makeup someone's identity, and we can only really identify that with brain states and self-identification. In contrast, gender roles and things like that are constructed thrust ontop of a particular gender. Gender typically aligns with someone's sex; however, that isn't always the case, such as with Transgender people. A transgender woman's, though women's would be more accurate, the brain is more accurate to cis women than with a cis man. That is just an example - in contrast - men don't have to be inherently aggressive, etc.
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Philosophy
As anybody who lives in Texas is aware, over the past 4 or 5 days there has been a freak snowstorm that has put half of Texas under boil water advisory. Where I live, my hot water is gone, and though my power did cut out, our power company fixed it relatively quickly. Half of the town had the same problems though, except some houses have no water or power.
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Current events
Should they or shouldn't they? Curious what we have as opinions. I'll jump in once I get a few responses.
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Education
Throughout my time here I've interacted with a wealth of different people, with different views on things; people of different religions, different politics, different standards of evidence, etc, etc. There are some people who are very similar to me, with very similar beliefs, and only a very minute difference in ideology separates us. Similarly, there are people who are quite literally the opposite of me, and they have one or two things that we might agree on. However, there is one thing that I think dictates the biggest difference in how people think. This is a question of epistemology rather than one of ideology, which is to say, how we process and comprehend information is fundamentally opposed, separate.
I think the clearest example of this would be Individualistic versus Systemic thinking. This isn't just in regards to things like racism and sexism, which are two of the most obvious examples of such differences in thinking, it also affects something as simple as how we understand definitions. I'll go into an example of something which highlights this contrast in knowledge with one of the more obscure instances of this thinking. Election! Not the actual act of electing officials, though it is influenced by this thinking, I'm specifically referring to how we view elected officials. The individualistic minded among us would view each politician as uniquely responsible for each bill they pass, disavow, or even ignore. Whereas systematically minded people would think that a particular bill being passed is more or less due to a system of people.
Let's do a classic one, Trump versus Biden. The more conservatively minded will typically disavow Biden at every turn, take any excuse to rip into him. Conversely, they will typically defend or uphold Trump, even with apparent lies by Trump, but to get to the heart of the matter - the most typically defended point of Trump is that he was good for the economy (less so after Covid). Whereas most left-minded people would see that as a product of Obama's pre-established laws. What I'm trying to point out is that individualists typically care more about what a person has achieved, and more systemic-minded people typically care more about how something has been achieved. This explains why most conservatives find Biden so unfit to hold office. In their minds, Biden already had his chance and achieved nothing, and now he's stumbling over his words.
With this understanding let's take a look at the case of systemic racism and sexism, starting with sexism just to separate ourselves from more controversial topics at first. I typically see people arguing along these lines, "Sexism was abolished, females have the same rights as you and I," then the Systemicist might respond, "There are several ways that females are still disadvantaged by the society around them". If my theory holds up, then the first response should be based on achievement, which it is, they point out that there are laws in place that make females legally equal to men. But... on first look, the Systemicist doesn't really care about how achievement was made, but how it hasn't been made. You see, just as Individualists care about what an individual hasn't accomplished, Systemicist care about how the system hasn't accomplished.
It is a very thin line, and it can cross just like that. This isn't just a party line, sometimes liberals argue individualistically and sometimes conservatives argue systematically. For example; Cancel culture and freedom of speech. More liberal-minded people who would cancel an individual are specifically worried about what that person has accomplished and typically less concerned about how that person affects others. Conversely, Conservatives think that free speech should always be allowed because of how it accomplishes freedom. It's not exactly intuitive, because some liberals do care about how it affects things, and some conservatives do care that that individual person is being "repressed." I'm just giving an example of when the terms can be switched.
Ultimately the divide is means versus ends. One side cares about how something is accomplished, whereas the other cares about something being accomplished.
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Society
Any time you have discourse between conservatives and liberals or anyone from an extremely right camp and somebody from an extremely left camp, the term: Political Correctness is thrown in there. But why? I've typically seen it used by conservatives who don't like... trans, gay, or racial equality, throw it at people who say things like: "Gender and Sex are different things", or even, "Gay people should be allowed to adopt same as straight people", etc, etc... but why? Do they assume that left-leaning people just... don't actually believe those things? What do these people think to motivates left-leaning people to lie to people on the internet over things like this?
Anyway, that is a little bit off-topic, who actually uses political correctness? Well.... typically conservative and alt-right people.... there called EUPHAMISMS. They've been a term forever... because people have used them... for a long time. Old conservative presidents used the euphemism of "job security" to be racist, or "family values" to be homophobic, and so and so forth. Let's talk about the alt-right though, they use euphemisms such as: "The Jewish question", to be super anti-semantic, "The great replacement" to be xenophobic, etc, etc, my point? Traditionally speaking, it has always been the right to hide things behind a political facade, not the left, the problem with the left is that its typically TOO honest for people to like it. You know.. like calling for Medicare for all and being called socialist? That type of thing.
So... why?
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Politics
You cannot derive an is from an ought, and you cannot derive an ought from an is
What do I mean by that?
Is - is referring to the state of reality, we live on planet Earth, writers write, jumping off of buildings is dangerous, etc, etc.. These are all descriptions of reality. They are telling us what reality is.
Ought - is referring to the state or reality we would prefer, you should be good, you should not lie, you should help others etc, etc.. These are prescriptions of reality. They are telling you what reality should be.
To distinguish one from another is to distinguish fact from value, the fact-value difference in epistemology.
Essentially - you cannot claim that you should do something because something is the case. Why? Well, because that would assume the goal. Or the direction of the morals, there is no link between the specific moral claim and the claim of reality except for your own subjective take. However, if you were to include another ought in there, well, perhaps I should explain in an example.
P1: Biting another person hurts
Con: Therefore you should not bite other people
That is a non-sequitur, the conclusion does not necessarily lead from the premise, what if someone finds pain enjoyable? Therefore the accurate syllogism would be as follows:
P1: Biting another person hurts
P2: people should avoid pain
Con: Therefore people should not bite other people
Do you see the difference? The second premise is something that changes the validity of the conclusion.
While it could still be the case that some people don't avoid pain, or shouldn't avoid pain, it makes the argument a sequitur, where the conclusion follows from the premises.
But how does that lead us to morality being subjective?
Simply put, that second premise simply cannot be based on a fact of reality, there is no link, and the conclusion can also not be based on a fact of reality, at every level there is a preference, or a goal inserted to make the syllogism valid. It is literally impossible for a moral ought to be based on entirely factual things, there has to be a prescription of which facts are preferrable and which aren't. This is the subjective nature of morality.
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First of all - I personally feel gratitude to the mods - Debate.org used to be a prime example of everything a website about debating should be, but a lack of moderation has made the once great site nothing but a shell of its former self. It is the moderation that keeps DebateArt.com from joining Debate.org in its fate. It has also come to my attention that many people either find the mod team incompetent with their job or inherently biased.
First things first - obviously.
Every single person is biased, this isn't something people don't know, it isn't something new. No judges in the court of law aren't biased; however, as long as you recognize those biases you can mitigate them.
For example: Ragnar voted on a debate of mine recently; On average, a bear would beat a gorilla in a fight. Despite perferring my argument with my sources he did not award me any points to me for my sources. Why? Because even if he didn't buy Intelligence's argument, he recognized that his sources did provide impact for his arguments! That's a prime example of: recognizing bias in yourself, acknowledging it, and making a decision despite it. Judges do it all the time.
That is what the mods mean by objective. The fact that this has to be explained to a bunch of people this intelligent is sad.
Maybe I'm completely wrong though! Maybe other people think they could do better? Make your arguments - btw - this isn't trying to call the mods out, more thank them, and acknowledge the controversey happening and trying to open a more topical discussion forum for better orginization.
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DebateArt.com
So... this is an old paper of mine, about 3 or 4 years old. This came up whenever Benjamin, yes him, decided to use a specific web page to prove that Jesus was "historically true" funny stuff, so now I'm transferring this old piece of work here.
The Jesus Claim.
Jesus is a popular figure in today’s world, from a symbol of the church to his infancy representing Christmas for the popular Christian family. Overall Evangelical Christianity has seen a rise in recent years in America directly leading to the increase of Jesus as a historical figure.’ This is my attempt to explore that claim. Did Jesus actually exist back during Nero’s time, or was he a myth brought up to start a new sect of Christianity?
How do historians actually evaluate someone’s existence? They primarily gather first-hand testimonies, primary sources, documents that validate and confirm each other, and several different sources mentioning the person. Note that I myself am NOT a historian and am simply an aspiring philosopher who is sifting through the evidence, researching, and making an argument for the truth. Let’s go over each source, or at least the main sources, that claim Jesus’s existence and see if there are any flaws, or if each account is true.
Before we can investigate separate claims we must prosecute the main source of evidence for Jesus’s existence. The bible. According to Atheist and former Christian studying to be a priest Matt Dillahunty, the bible has over 80 books in total with several Jewish and Roman Catholic sources confirming this fact. However the popular protestant bible has 66 books, the Roman Catholic have 73, and the Jews have 23 books. Why such a big disparity? Well, it's speculation that a majority of books were cut from the bible due to an unpopular view of the books by the society of the time.
Based on how most priests and religious scholars treat the Bible as a perfect book, the fact that other sources of the bible were found suggest that the books were cut by religious sources. Based on this fact we can deduce that whenever the protestant or catholic church doesn’t like a book they can simply discard it leading us to mistrust the rest of the book. You see, if the book is god's word then there are two reasons for people cutting books, A) They didn’t like what the books say, or B) they didn’t feel like they were inspired by God. However, 3 different churches claim three different book amounts. So even if it were true that the church didn’t believe the books were inspired by God, which church is right? I mean they all operate on the same book with differences of translation and which books are in it.
Now let’s talk about the disparity of time. Basically, most sources conflate and confuse when the bible was written. Some say even 4000 years before the roman empire for the old testament while others claim it's as new as 100 years after Nero. Not to mention some sources claim as few as 5 authors collected and wrote the bible while others cite 40. Almost no one can seem to agree WHEN the bible was written, who it was written by, how many books are in it, or how many people actually wrote the thing. All of these by themselves would throw heavy doubt on the historic veracity of the Bible, but all of them has to lead me to throw it out as a source of historical claims altogether.
Based on these facts we can conclude the bible to be an unreliable source at the very least. As history has shown this collection of texts has been heavily edited and changed, entire books shaved away or added in order to fit the religion. So only relying on the bible as a source to prove Jesus’s existence won’t work. We’ll need extraocular sources to conclude Jesus's existence. Some popularly cited work that has been used to prove Jesus’s existence is Jewish Antiquities by Flavius Josephus. In XX, Chapter 11 there are a handful of mentions to a character named Jesus.
Both of them mention Jesus as someone with a different father. There is Jesus, the son of Damneus, and Jesus, the son of Josadek. As opposed to the bible in which he is referred to as the son of Joseph. He is also referred to as a high priest of the Jewish religion even though the Bible specifically refers to how most of the Jews were opposed to Jesus. This would lead to me to again suppose one of two things. One, there were at least three different Jesus’s gallivanting around, though the Jewish Antiquities do mark out how he is ‘christ’, or the source of Flavius’s information on Jesus was unreliable or a myth. Along with Flavius's accounts, there are several other historians who are cited as mentioning Jesus.
Tacitus is one of these historians. He records and writes on the times around when Jesus would have been alive and kicking; however, much of his work was lost including around the time when Jesus would have been supposedly tried. However, his later works mention him once as ‘Christos’. These works are dated to about 1000 years after Jesus would have been born indicating none of these of a direct account and therefore debunking these as primary sources. Also barely any of his ‘works’ are referenced just as in Flavius’s writing indicating a lack of information that the bible supposedly drew from. Not to mention a large group of historians bring into contention the translation ‘Christos’ as it is often mistranslated and confused with ‘Chrestos.’ Leading me to believe that the record of ‘Christos’ is nothing speculative rumor.
Another popular one is Suetonius; however, he is the source of the ‘Christos’ ‘Chrestos’ conflation. Not only that, but his works do not indicate any of Chrestos’s actual life instead of seemingly describing a god on earth as most generally broad myths would describe. Again no mentioning of his works would not only not connect the source with the bible but at this point actively discredit the bible as most of these are historically valid sources for the most part. Beyond the translations issue, several Historians and philosophers debate about the timing of this too dated to about 150 years after his supposed death more than enough time for rumors to start and myths to conflate.
The last historian I would like to talk about would be Thallus who addressed several of Christians's prominent arguments. For example, he contested the claim of the world’s supposed darkening during Jesus’s execution. He never confirmed his existence nor did he ever even actually claim he had valid sources for thinking Jesus was real. Instead, he simply confuted popular protestant and even catholic opinions of what happened. The thallus is typically misrepresented in most Theological talks about Jesus as a historical figure.
None of these historians have linked a solid or coherent valid proof for Jesus’s existence. Not only are none of this good evidence, but some of them decently imply that Jesus was nothing but a myth. For example Flavius’s ponderings and listing of different Fathers of Jesus in his own work not to mention against the bible. Thallus, Suetonius, and Tacitus's failure to mention Jesus as anything more than a vague idea with barely any reference to what he did. To claim someone is anything more than a rumor you have to have accredited sources agreeing he existed with at least some first-hand testimony backing up said sources.
For these reasons, I see no reason to treat Jesus as a historical figure instead he was most likely a mythical figure made up to inspire Jews to rise up out of systemic Roman and Jewish oppression of the time. The myth taking inspiration from other beings like Buhda or Muhamad. Using Secular and Theistical Historical and philosophical sources I’ve deduced this much. This paper also further destroys the bible as a historical document even without scientific claims the book likes to violate. As Jesus is a central idea to the new testament and if I was indeed correct in concluding he was false then the entire book would be discredited. Upon this evidence I have concluded that Jesus is a myth please join me in questioning the seemingly unquestionable.
Sources
https://davidmiano.net/blog/2018/06/10/how-historians-determine-the-historicity-of-people-and-events/ June 10, 2018 by David Miano
https://www.everystudent.com/forum/historical.html - Author Not Listed
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2848/2848-h/2848 -h.htm Author: Flavius Josephus/Translator: William Whiston/Release Date: January 4, 2009/Last Updated: August 9, 2017
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Flavius-Josephus November 12th, 2019 by Gary William Poole
https://jewsforjudaism.org/knowledge/articles/jesus-in-the-talmud/ 2000 by Gil Student
http://www.josephus.org/testimonium.htm Jewish Antiquities, 18.3.3 §63 (Based on the translation of Louis H. Feldman, The Loeb Classical Library.)
http://www.truthbeknown.com/suetoniuschresto.html by D.M. Murdock/Acharya S
http://bib.irr.org/tacitus-suetonius-and-historical-jesus Febuary 20th, 2017 by Robert M. Bowman Jr.
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/suetonius.html Archive (Author: Not Listed)
https://freethoughtnation.com/does-suetonius-refer-to-Arjesus/ October 16, 2012 by Acharya S/D.M. Murdock
https://www.reasonablefaith.org/question-answer/P70/thallus-on-the-darkness-at-noon May 10, 2010 Transcript of a question from emailer ‘Steve’ response by ‘Dr.Craig’
https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/texts/bible.shtml John Drane Last updated 2011-07-12
https://www.biblestudy.org/beginner/when-was-old-testament-written.html Author Not Listed
https://www.biblestudytools.com/bible-study/topical-studies/when-was-the-bible-written.html Dr. Michael A. Milton
https://www.everystudent.com/features/bible.html Author Not listed
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Philosophy
I've compiled a lot of research for a potential debate, but now I want to see what people think in general, and this isn't just "should we defund the police" but also potential solutions that would replace defunding it? What would we do if we did defund the police, etc, etc.
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Society
It took me like 4 years but I finally watched it the other day, whenever I finally got Disney Plus, I quite liked it - and though the musical wasn't perfect - I think it did an overall pretty good job at summing up his life's major points. I'm just curious what other people thought? Not just on that either, I also really liked the performances in general, and from what I can tell Lin-Manual Miranda did an excellent job at writing this.
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Artistic expressions
I'm not only an atheist, but an antitheist, I do see a lot of geniune misunderstanding about what this is, and I'll use Christopher Hitchens (A rather famous Antitheist) as the definition for myself, I feel this most accurately depicts how I see myself.
"...My view is not just that there is no reason to believe that there is a deity, but that it is a good thing that is not the case."
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Philosophy
I'll admit that was a cheap tactic to get as many people here as possible, the naming, so just sit back, enjoy the show, I don't know how many people still care.
From:
"NO. 22O155, ORIGINALIn the Supreme Court of the United StatesSTATE OF TEXAS,Plaintiff,v.COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA,STATE OF GEORGIA, STATE OF MICHIGAN,AND STATE OF WISCONSIN,Defendants.MOTION OF DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OFTHE UNITED STATES, TO INTERVENE IN HISPERSONAL CAPACITY AS CANDIDATE FORRE-ELECTION, PROPOSED BILL OF COMPLAINTIN INTERVENTION, AND BRIEF IN SUPPORT OFMOTION TO INTERVENE"
"Despite the chaos of election night and the dayswhich followed, the media has consistently proclaimedthat no widespread voter fraud has been proven. Butthis observation misses the point. The constitutionalissue is not whether voters committed fraud butwhether state officials violated the law by systematically loosening the measures for ballot integrity sothat fraud becomes undetectable."
Misses the point does it? The observation - the state that is suing for voter fraud just admitted that no voter fraud had been proven, they instead object that the voter fraud is being made "undetectable" by loosening voter options?
I'm sorry, MAIL IN VOTING HAS BEEN A THING SINCE THE CIVIL WAR:
"What we in the U.S. now call absentee voting first arose during the Civil War, when both Union and Confederate soldiers were given the opportunity to cast ballots from their battlefield units and have them be counted back home."
Not only that, but the entire case was dismissed for lack of standing on the Supreme Court, just like a few other ones:
"The U.S. Supreme Court last night rejected a lawsuit that tried yet again to overturn the election results. This one was brought by Texas and 17 other Republican-run states alleging election fraud in four states won by Joe Biden. It was another reverse to Republican attempts to change what happened, which, to be clear, is that Joe Biden won 306 electoral votes to Donald Trump's 232. President-elect Biden also won the popular vote by more than seven million. We're joined now by NPR voting reporter Miles Parks. Miles, thanks so much for being with us."
The actual facts of the matter seem pretty dealt with to me.
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Politics
What if?
Its a popular question in all regards - whether that be historic, fictional, fantastic, or any other category of life. The question of what if things were different, if this was true, if this wasn't true, are often discussed and debated among people.
What if Hilary Clinton won the 2016 election?
Hilary Clinton was the democrat's chosen nominee to go up versus Trump, barely beating out Bernie Sanders in the primaries, but she was expected to actually defeat Trump in the election. However, the electoral college vote was clearly Trump. Thus she lost the vote, what if that wasn't the case though? What if Hilary won both the popular and the electoral college vote against Donald Trump in the 2016 election? Let's explain a little bit more of what I'm talking about for those unfamiliar.
Not only after but during the election there were cries everywhere of "Hilary would have been a worse president!" and "She is actually evil!" People essentially saying that the country would have gone down an even worse path if Hilary was elected in 2016, do people think this is true? Do you think she would have done some of the things that Trump did that were wrong (i.e a lot of border stuff), if you think Trump was great, what do you think Hilary would have failed to do that Trump did?
The specific conditions of this would be as follows: The winner of the 2016 election would have Hilary Clinton as the 45th president of the United States of America, she would have been inaugurated as such on January 20th, 2017, at the West Front of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. The Vice President would have been Hilary Clinton's choice of Senator Tim Kaine. As well as her cabinet being reportedly half filled with women, unfortunately we don't know the specifics, but feel free to guess below.
A couple of basic questions:
How would you have reacted to Hilary Clinton winning?
How do you think general America would react?
Would she be a good or a bad president, why?
How would her presidency affect America?
How would her presidency affect the world?
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Politics
What if?
Its a popular question in all regards - whether that be historic, fictional, fantastic, or any other category of life. The question of what if things were different, if this was true, if this wasn't true, are often discussed and debated among people.
What if the Purge was real?
First of all, let's just take the movie's logic, that some homicidal party took over the government and started the purge, the first one happening March 21st, 2021 at 7pm. What would you do? What do you think people would do in general? Do you think that the movie have an at all accurate interpretation of what would happen if people had no law to answer to? Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself, I should explain what the purge is exactly, maybe someone hasn't heard of it?
The purge is one night where all crime is legal except for killing politicians. The focus of the purge is to let everyone rampage and have a feel of catharsis that way crime is lowered the rest of the year, or at least that's the justification the government tells the people in the movies. A hidden goal of the purge is to kill off poorer people to save the government money in caring for people. Now, I don't even think these would necessarily work, but its more about what if, then if it's true or not.
So the rules officially for this little scenario: Starting at March 21st, 2021 - 7 pm all crimes are legal, except for killing governmental politicians, the movie happens in America, but substitute that for whatever country you live in. The purge ends at 7 am on March 22nd 2021, so 12 hours. A secret rule is that their are roaming bands of the military barging into apartments and mowing people down, usually in the poorer parts of towns first.
A couple of basic questions:
What would you do if you were in this situation?
How do you thin People in general would act here?
How accurate or inaccurate do you think the movies were at judging people's behaviors during the purge?
How do you think this would affect America (substitute America with the country you live in) in general?
How do you think this would affect the world in general?
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Society