While not against site rules, it is considered bad form to assist someone on a debate (see your comment 32). Debaters should succeed or fail on their own merits, and those debaters who do not receive assistance have a legitimate gripe against those who do, because it provides an unfair and one-sided advantage to their opponents. Really, it's just not appropriate to try to help debaters win specific debates.
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>Reported Vote: Ramshutu // Mod action: Not Removed
>Points Awarded: 3 points to Pro
>Reason for Mod Action: The vote was found to be sufficient per the site voting policy standards.
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The issue with Outplayz vote was that it never explained why winning the homeostasis argument was sufficient to win the debate. Sure, he said that it "was sufficient" but that doesn't tell me "why" it was sufficient. Outplayz goes on to explain why Con wins the homeostasis argument, but not why Con's winning that argument overrode all the other arguments in the debate.
I don't think you read my reply to your comment, which was: "RM explains why only that argument mattered, whereas I am not seeing that kind of analysis from Outplayz." If a voter indicates why it is not important to survey all the main arguments, then they are not required to do so.
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>Reported Vote: RationalMadman // Mod action: Not Removed
>Points Awarded: 3 points to Pro for arguments
>Reason for Mod Action: The vote was found to be sufficient per the site voting policy standards.
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>Reported Vote: Jamesgilbert // Mod action: Removed
>Points Awarded: 3 points to Pro for articles
>Reason for Decision: Con's main argument against pro was homeostasis. However, he never sufficiently proved why that determines right and wrong.
>Reason for Mod Action: The voter does not survey the main arguments, analyze those arguments to determine who won each, or weigh the main arguments to determine a winner. In order to cast a sufficient ballot, the voter should do all three of these things.
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>Reported Vote: Bifolkal // Mod action: Not Removed
>Points Awarded: 5 points to Con for arguments and sources
>Reason for Mod Action: The vote was found to be sufficient per the site voting policy standards.
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>Reported Vote: Logical-Master // Mod action: Not Removed
>Points Awarded: 3 points to Pro for arguments
>Reason for Mod Action: The vote was found to be sufficient per the site voting policy standards.
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Furthermore:
"I had said that actions that lead toward the homeostasis of those towards whom we are acting are considered more moral than those actions that don't."
With those he covered himself on perceived or immoral acts that don't directly harm someone. Which i was having a problem with too and agreeing with pro. Bc how is it homeostasis if i have sex with a dead body? What makes that wrong since there is no harm to the one that's dead. Surprised pro didn't use that example btw since it's a little stronger than the comatose person one. But still, con covered himself by saying homeostasis can also be perceived. That it doesn't have to be literal. One knows having sex with a dead body is a detriment to them due to all types of health issues. But not even that, since a dead body can't consent... you would know if the person was alive and didn't consent you would be going against that person's homeostasis. Since he defined homeostasis as being able to be defined as such... i feel he did his job in refuting that something else other than god can account for our morality. Very good debate. I don't have much time to go on so i hope this is sufficient. Good job in any case to both.
Very interesting debate. One of few i've actually read the whole thing and can now vote on. Con proved that homeostasis is sufficient enough to explain why there are objective moral facts. It seems to me pro was trying to trap him in paradoxes and/or fallacies by changing what con meant by homeostasis. Pro claimed it's like the harm principle and gave paradoxes that on hearing them i agreed until con cleared up what he meant by homeostasis. When con replied
"The homeostatic principle allows for aggression when the net homeostasis of those attempting to maintain everyone's homeostasis is preserved by the aggression.
Also if aggression were to eliminate a potential detriment to the homeostasis of those attempting to maintain everyone's homeostasis, i.e. self defense, then aggression is fine."
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>Reported Vote: Outplayz // Mod action: Removed
>Points Awarded: 3 points to Con for arguments
>Reason for Decision: See above.
>Reason for Mod Action: While the voter does an acceptable job of weighing arguments, it is not clear that the voter surveyed all or almost all of the main arguments of the debate--the voter talks with singular focus about the homeostasis argument (Con's case) while failing to address Pro's case. Since a comprehensive survey of the arguments is required to award argument points, the vote is insufficient.
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Ram, those were bogus arguments based on Virt totally misunderstanding the argument. The K says that "God is unreferenceable and therefore unknowable," while Virt's response is basically: "we can use referential knowledge to know God." Virt's response is the argumentative equivalent of two ships passing in the night. He never once disputes that God is unreferenceable, but instead appeals to referential knowledge to know God. That's totally illogical, because it fails to address the PRIOR objection that God is unreferenceable. Virt needed to establish God's referenceability BEFORE he could claim that pure logic and emipirical evidence could produce knowledge of God, since both such methods rely on God's referenceability.
As I said in the debate: "Pro fails to address the substance of the K, which is that: 'God, just by the very breadth of what such a being would be, is unreferenceable...We cannot think of God itself, and so we cannot talk sensically about God and its existence or nonexistence.' Not once does Pro offer us a non-referential way to conceive of God, nor does he argue that it is possible to do so." The fact that Virt drops the K in his subsequent remarks concedes to the fact that he failed to address it's substantive.
So, sure, he made an "argument" if by "argument" you mean a non-responsive bare assertion. He did not make an argument in the sense I mean it, which is "a substantive and topical reply which refutes the argument actually being made."
I don't think that's the norm. The norm varies wildly by debating genre, and so there is no norm for "debate" as a whole.
Ultimately, debaters should be held accountable only for the arguments that they do make. Since Virt made no arguments against the K, dismissing the K would be rewarding a debater for saying nothing, which is kind of perverse. Since one debater puts work into an argument (it wasn't just a shell; I took time to develop and defend it), it would be categorically unfair to reward the other debater for doing literally nothing to rebut it. That's like failing a student who took the test while passing a student who skipped school.
Judge intervention is justified when one side acts unethically or unfairly, but nothing about the K was unethical or unfair, as Virt could have made any number of responses to it--including theory arguments. That he chose to make no response whatsoever is his own fault, and should count against him.
Like, I get the dislike of pre-fiat Ks, but this K was pretty handleable. Virt did not even try to handle it. Is judge intervention justified when a debater doesn't make any arguments against it? Virt could have easily run some theory argument against it or called abuse, but he chose not to and instead dropped the whole thing. I don't think debaters should be awarded for doing nothing.
Thanks for your vote. I still strongly object to it, and believe that your methodology is flawed in a way which is unfair. But I do not believe you, as a person, voted with bias. I continue to believe you are a top tier user.
I was not objecting to your vote as a moderator, but as a debater. Your vote would likely pass standards, but Tej would probably be the judge of that.
That said, your error lies here: "I don’t consider argumenfs that are dropped to be truth." By taking that position, you actively disadvantage the debater benefiting from the drop, and instead benefit the dropper. By not weighing drops more heavily than contested arguments, you do the same. That's unfair.
But, as I said, I don't want to debate it further. I think your vote is incredibly poorly and I object to it in the strongest possible terms, but I am not going to comment further.
Your lack of reply indicates to me that I may have been a bit heavy-handed. I don't want to argue this further, and I urge you to vote however you feel best. I will just say, as a final note, that I strongly object to your RFD as it now stands. But, it is for you to decide how you will vote. I think that debaters have a right to challenge voter's RFDs, but only up to a point. I've reached that point, and so I'll hand the decision over to you now.
Your failure is one of weighing, but it is also one which involves a misunderstanding of how drops work. Drops make the argument ABSOLUTE TRUTH in the debate, whether or not you find the argument convincing. You can't weigh a drop against a contested argument for which you think is stronger--the drop ALWAYS wins. You can only weigh drops against a contested arguments in terms of impacts, but since this is not a debate which involves impacts, that kind of weighing cannot take place here.
I think I am winning in two ways. Off the K, which was dropped as were its impacts, making both the drop and the impacts ABSOLUTE TRUTH in the debate. Since the impact that was dropped was that "Con wins," is it ABSOLUTE TRUTH in the debate that Con wins.
I am also winning from an offense perspective, if for some inexplicable reason you did not vote Con off the first way I am winning. Because you fail to factor in Pro's wholesale drops of arguments throughout the debate--not just on the K--and because you insert your own views into the debate--not just on the K--you are misjudging who is winning most of the arguments throughout the debate itself, which is skewing your judgement. I am pretty clearly winning most of the arguments in the debate.
This is where you go wrong: "With this Kritik, I am injecting my opinion - NOT to determine the winner of that argument, but to determine whether this Kritik is more important in the context of this debate than the remainder of all the other arguments."
If the debaters TELL you how you should weigh that, then you have to accept that OVER you personal opinions because the goal is to minimize subjectivity. Since Pro DROPPED that the K REQUIRED a CON WIN, you as the voter have no room in which to insert your opinion. If an impact is conceded, the impact must be taken as truth as well. Since Con DROPPED the impact that the "K = Con wins," that is TRUTH for the debate.
That is EXTREMELY UNFAIR and UNREASONABLE because it is basically you picking a winner based on your arbitrary whims. Only what was said counts, not your own opinions of the merits of what was said. If I was debating you and you expressed your opinions, I could've rebutted them or explained why they were mistaken or wrong. But, when a voter uses their opinions to decide a winner, the debater doesn't get the opportunity to address those opinions in the debate, and so they get screwed by the voter who is critiquing them for apparent weaknesses that the debater never got the chance to defend or dispel.
I think I am winning most argument in the debate, because Pro just drops or misunderstands most of my arguments entirely. And those arguments Pro does offer are massively underexplained and poorly weighted.
That said, the K should trump everything in the debate, because as I said in the debate, it is a prior question to the debate. The debate cannot take place meaningfully if the K is not resolved. Pro, by dropping the K, drops the implication that the K effectively makes everything else meaningless. Once the K is won, nothing else matters because it's all literal nonsense (which is the point of the K). To the extent you agree that the K is dropped, it is hard to understand how you grant Pro the win, because nothing Pro said "mattered" or "made sense" in light of the truth of the K. Again, once something is dropped, it is treated as truth within the debate for reasons of fairness.
You're assessment of the K as poor is YOUR OWN and not supported AT ALL by what happened in the debate. You can't just pretend something exists because you don't like it--which is exactly what you're doing. You have to judge what transpired in the debate WITHOUT inserting your own opinions of the merits of the arguments into the debate. This gets to the discussion I had with Guitar earlier in this comment sections. What you're doing is essentially saying "f*ck what happened in the debate, I think this argument is trash even though Pro never showed it to be trash, so I am just gonna pretend like it doesn't exist." But that's not fair to me, because I, as a debater, don't get to defend my K against YOUR opinions; I only get the chance to defend it against what Pro says, and Pro said NOTHING.
Yeah, I'm not going to raise too many objection to the omniscience-omnipresent thing. I think I clearly explained it, but I can see where you're coming from.
The problem is that Pro did not really say ANYTHING about the K itself. You're essentially writing off entirely an argument that was never rebutted at all. It's one thing to have a philosophical object to a K, it's another to disregard an argument which Pro did not make any effort to rebut. It's not a technicality; it's lazy debating from Pro. You cannot refuse to count the K without admitting that you are doing ONLY because you don't want to count it, and not for any reasons related to the debate, and that's troubling. I made a good faith effort to make arguments, and one of those was the K. It was not as if I just dropped it there as some cheap out to win the debate; I clearly put effort into debating and justifying it. For you to toss it out wholesale in light of Pro not addressing it's substance AT ALL is deeply problematic and offensive to the effort I invested in it. Pro could have easily said that K's were nonsensical, that the K backfired on me, or any number of any other things, but he didn't. You should not, as a judge, be rewarding Pro for SAYING NOTHING, which is what you're doing here.
That arguments were dropped means that they weren't rebutted, so you make a false claim when you say: "While it’s true that pro did drop a number of points, I felt that many of these were already refuted." What you're basically saying is that there were certain arguments you found stronger for REASONS NOT GIVEN IN THE DEBATE, and you are choosing to prioritize those reasons over the drops (which must be treated as true FOR FAIRNESS'S SAKE, not merely as a technicality).
By injecting your own arguments into the debate, you are doing more than analyzing. You are in fact making Pro's arguments for him.
I'd appreciate it if you address each drop in turn and how that impacted you evaluation of each argument.
On the omnipresent-omniscient issue, I would urge you to revisit and closely read the following: "Truths are often indexical, meaning that they are indexed or linked to certain temporal states. It is 'now' the case that I am writing this argument, so the fact 'I am writing this argument' is only true 'now.' The fact is indexed to the temporal state of 'now,' and will cease to be true when 'now' is over and was not true before 'now' began."
I then wrote: "It is not possible to know indexical truths as facts when their indices are in conflict. It is not possible to know as fact that 'I have written this argument,' *at the same time as* you know that 'I am writing this argument,' as these facts contradict."
In other words, it cannot NOW be the case that "I am writing X" and that "I have written X" because the latter can only be true after "now" has passed. But, for God, is always NOW the case that I am writing, I have written, and I will write X.
I cannot say, "I have written X at the same time I will write X." That is logically nonsensical, but that is the case for God.
The explanation of the infinite regress argument is incorrect. I wrote: "Even if it were infinitely regressive (it's not), why is that impossible? With a question as complex as existence itself, how can we presume to apply our limited understanding to it? Because Pro's comment here is non-responsive, this argument provides sufficient cause to vote Con--God is not the creator of existence." Pro DROPPED this point several times in the debate, and never once responded to it, making it true within the debate itself. This means, that we must take infinite regression to be theoretically possible within the debate. At that point, Pro's objection to my counter-syllogism (which was that it resulted in an impossible infinite regression) is defeated, and my counter-syllogism's plausibility is reaffirmed.
On the force, you write: "it wasn’t intuitive how it applied, and your application of omnipresence vs a maximally great being wasn’t clear to me from your argument." The problem--as I noted several times--was that God was NOT DEFINED as a maximally great being. Recall what I said here: "Moreover, it seems that the property which would allow God to be in all possible universes is omnipresence, since we have not defined God as 'maximally great.'" In other words, the only one of the 4 properties which constitute God that could affirm the ontological argument is omnipresence, which is a trait the force shares, meaning that the ontological argument could prove the existence of the force.
You write: "Con is right, that he refuted the idea of omnipotence as he defines it, but as pro presents a philosophical definition (diet omnipotence - now with less paradox), I view pros argument on the meaning of omnipotence as better."
But Pro's new definition was NEW IN THE LAST SPEECH AND IS THUS UNFAIR. Remember what I said in my last speech: "These new arguments in the last round should be entirely disregarded. New arguments are unfair because they should have been made earlier (but were dropped) and because they deny their opponent any chance to fulsomely respond." New arguments are--as a rule--always unfair in debates. Pro had literally no right to offer that new definition, and so it should be entirely disregarded.
5. The K
You write: "The inherent nature argument, I feel is moot - as this debate is inherently focused on specific referencable definitions, and thus I feel doesn’t merit awarding of arguments on the basis of the Kritik." This would have been a great argument IF PRO HAD MADE IT. By you as the voter making it, you're inserting your own arguments into the debate and skewing the outcome.
What happened in the debate was that Pro DROPPED that God was unreferenceable and DROPPED that if God was unreferenceable, Con should win. Since drops are considered truth within the debate, it is established truth that Con should win.
You wrote: " I did not find this compelling due to the issue of infinite regress pointed out by pro - it doesn’t seem logical that there can somehow be no stop of causes - which is where the strength of the KCA is rooted." But you ignore that Pro DROPPED my argument that an infinite regress was possible. Because it is DROPPED, you must treat it as true within the debate; Virt would agree with that dropped points must be treated as true because they are dropped. Because it was dropped, it is true within the debate that infinite regresses are possible, overriding your objection.
3. Omniniscience
You wrote: "Con mentions the free will/omniscient issue. To me as a start this was not convincing as I don’t think any terms or definitions in the debate were contingent on free will existing. So in this vein the only thing being refuted is the moral argument - not God."
Again, you fail to take into account that Pro CONCEDED that free will was necessary in order for God to exist. In fact, Pro HAD to maintain that in order to have his objective morals argument. That he CONCEDED free will as necessary meant that by disproving it, I could negate Pro's case.
On the Force, you say you buy Pro's argument, but Pro never made an argument about the Force. As I pointed out: "On my fourth argument, Pro says his parody reply defeats it, but never explains why (again, Pro's argument was overbroad, and he never explains how it is responsive to my argument." In other words, Pro ONLY uses his parody argument against the Force, but NEVER explains how that argument actually addresses the force argument specifically.
You also did not seem to understand the force argument. You write in your RFD: "The omnipotence of God is intuitive, whereas the force isn’t quite so." But, first, I was talking about the force as OMNIPRESENT not omnipotent, and, second, the force is defined as omnipresent, and, third, this argument was NEVER made by Pro during the debate, and so you seem to be injecting your own arguments into the round.
You also don't appear to factor in the dropped arguments.
I do want to raise a few objections, since you're offering us the opportunity for us to do so. I think you are inserting your own views into the RFD in a way which is impacting your result
=======
1. Ontological Argument
You write: "Pros support for 1 and 3 is fairly minimal - in my view he doesn’t fully define the MGB, nor provides an cohesive set of reasons why I should presume such a being could exist." Then you also say: "I don’t believe cons second point that this begs the question is strong in its own right."
But this doesn't seem to make sense. If Pro offers no reasons why it is possible that a MGB exists, then Pro is begging the question that it is possible a MGB exists, which was the entire point of my argument. On the one hand, you are agreeing with the crux of my point while denying the only logical conclusion flowing from that point. Recall what I said in the round: "Pro is begging the question because he doesn't do any work to demonstrate that God is possible. He just assumes God is possible and then uses that assumption as proof of God's existence, which is a baseless assertion and begs the question."
You then write: "As with shared burden of proof - it feels like the mere possibility must be granted at least until shown otherwise." This is not an argument which came up in the debate, and so should not factor into your RFD. But, more than that, s shared burden of proof would require Pro to offer evidence of the assumption because just granting it gives Pro a leg up on Con, making the burdens unequal because then Con has to do far more work than Pro. So, the shared BOP would actually result in the exact opposite of what you say it would--the mere possibility would NOT be granted.
Then he would recuse himself and a trusted third party would be assigned to adjudicate the vote. But yeah, that's a head-scratcher. Whether he votes or not, I'd still appreciate his feedback.
Thanks, but the white bars don't really bother me that much. I appreciate the offer.
While not against site rules, it is considered bad form to assist someone on a debate (see your comment 32). Debaters should succeed or fail on their own merits, and those debaters who do not receive assistance have a legitimate gripe against those who do, because it provides an unfair and one-sided advantage to their opponents. Really, it's just not appropriate to try to help debaters win specific debates.
Got that done with only 20 minutes to spare. Whew.
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>Reported Vote: Ramshutu // Mod action: Not Removed
>Points Awarded: 3 points to Pro
>Reason for Mod Action: The vote was found to be sufficient per the site voting policy standards.
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I'll look at all this sometime tonight.
The rationale for the decisions was explained. The decisions stand as previously indicated.
The issue with Outplayz vote was that it never explained why winning the homeostasis argument was sufficient to win the debate. Sure, he said that it "was sufficient" but that doesn't tell me "why" it was sufficient. Outplayz goes on to explain why Con wins the homeostasis argument, but not why Con's winning that argument overrode all the other arguments in the debate.
I don't think you read my reply to your comment, which was: "RM explains why only that argument mattered, whereas I am not seeing that kind of analysis from Outplayz." If a voter indicates why it is not important to survey all the main arguments, then they are not required to do so.
RM explains why only that argument mattered, whereas I am not seeing that kind of analysis from Outplayz.
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>Reported Vote: RationalMadman // Mod action: Not Removed
>Points Awarded: 3 points to Pro for arguments
>Reason for Mod Action: The vote was found to be sufficient per the site voting policy standards.
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>Reported Vote: Jamesgilbert // Mod action: Removed
>Points Awarded: 3 points to Pro for articles
>Reason for Decision: Con's main argument against pro was homeostasis. However, he never sufficiently proved why that determines right and wrong.
>Reason for Mod Action: The voter does not survey the main arguments, analyze those arguments to determine who won each, or weigh the main arguments to determine a winner. In order to cast a sufficient ballot, the voter should do all three of these things.
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>Reported Vote: Bifolkal // Mod action: Not Removed
>Points Awarded: 5 points to Con for arguments and sources
>Reason for Mod Action: The vote was found to be sufficient per the site voting policy standards.
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>Reported Vote: Logical-Master // Mod action: Not Removed
>Points Awarded: 3 points to Pro for arguments
>Reason for Mod Action: The vote was found to be sufficient per the site voting policy standards.
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Outplayz RFD, Part 2:
Furthermore:
"I had said that actions that lead toward the homeostasis of those towards whom we are acting are considered more moral than those actions that don't."
With those he covered himself on perceived or immoral acts that don't directly harm someone. Which i was having a problem with too and agreeing with pro. Bc how is it homeostasis if i have sex with a dead body? What makes that wrong since there is no harm to the one that's dead. Surprised pro didn't use that example btw since it's a little stronger than the comatose person one. But still, con covered himself by saying homeostasis can also be perceived. That it doesn't have to be literal. One knows having sex with a dead body is a detriment to them due to all types of health issues. But not even that, since a dead body can't consent... you would know if the person was alive and didn't consent you would be going against that person's homeostasis. Since he defined homeostasis as being able to be defined as such... i feel he did his job in refuting that something else other than god can account for our morality. Very good debate. I don't have much time to go on so i hope this is sufficient. Good job in any case to both.
Outplayz' RFD, Part 1:
Very interesting debate. One of few i've actually read the whole thing and can now vote on. Con proved that homeostasis is sufficient enough to explain why there are objective moral facts. It seems to me pro was trying to trap him in paradoxes and/or fallacies by changing what con meant by homeostasis. Pro claimed it's like the harm principle and gave paradoxes that on hearing them i agreed until con cleared up what he meant by homeostasis. When con replied
"The homeostatic principle allows for aggression when the net homeostasis of those attempting to maintain everyone's homeostasis is preserved by the aggression.
Also if aggression were to eliminate a potential detriment to the homeostasis of those attempting to maintain everyone's homeostasis, i.e. self defense, then aggression is fine."
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>Reported Vote: Outplayz // Mod action: Removed
>Points Awarded: 3 points to Con for arguments
>Reason for Decision: See above.
>Reason for Mod Action: While the voter does an acceptable job of weighing arguments, it is not clear that the voter surveyed all or almost all of the main arguments of the debate--the voter talks with singular focus about the homeostasis argument (Con's case) while failing to address Pro's case. Since a comprehensive survey of the arguments is required to award argument points, the vote is insufficient.
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Look, I'm getting salty, and I don't want to be salty. I like and respect you.
Can we agree to disagree and just leave it at that (as regards this conversation, at least)?
Ram, those were bogus arguments based on Virt totally misunderstanding the argument. The K says that "God is unreferenceable and therefore unknowable," while Virt's response is basically: "we can use referential knowledge to know God." Virt's response is the argumentative equivalent of two ships passing in the night. He never once disputes that God is unreferenceable, but instead appeals to referential knowledge to know God. That's totally illogical, because it fails to address the PRIOR objection that God is unreferenceable. Virt needed to establish God's referenceability BEFORE he could claim that pure logic and emipirical evidence could produce knowledge of God, since both such methods rely on God's referenceability.
As I said in the debate: "Pro fails to address the substance of the K, which is that: 'God, just by the very breadth of what such a being would be, is unreferenceable...We cannot think of God itself, and so we cannot talk sensically about God and its existence or nonexistence.' Not once does Pro offer us a non-referential way to conceive of God, nor does he argue that it is possible to do so." The fact that Virt drops the K in his subsequent remarks concedes to the fact that he failed to address it's substantive.
So, sure, he made an "argument" if by "argument" you mean a non-responsive bare assertion. He did not make an argument in the sense I mean it, which is "a substantive and topical reply which refutes the argument actually being made."
I mean, I'd still like you're vote even if you disregard the K, I would just urge you not to.
You're free to vote as you wish.
I don't think that's the norm. The norm varies wildly by debating genre, and so there is no norm for "debate" as a whole.
Ultimately, debaters should be held accountable only for the arguments that they do make. Since Virt made no arguments against the K, dismissing the K would be rewarding a debater for saying nothing, which is kind of perverse. Since one debater puts work into an argument (it wasn't just a shell; I took time to develop and defend it), it would be categorically unfair to reward the other debater for doing literally nothing to rebut it. That's like failing a student who took the test while passing a student who skipped school.
Judge intervention is justified when one side acts unethically or unfairly, but nothing about the K was unethical or unfair, as Virt could have made any number of responses to it--including theory arguments. That he chose to make no response whatsoever is his own fault, and should count against him.
Like, I get the dislike of pre-fiat Ks, but this K was pretty handleable. Virt did not even try to handle it. Is judge intervention justified when a debater doesn't make any arguments against it? Virt could have easily run some theory argument against it or called abuse, but he chose not to and instead dropped the whole thing. I don't think debaters should be awarded for doing nothing.
Thanks for the vote.
Thanks for the vote.
Thanks for the vote, man. Honestly glad not all my lines sucked.
Love your RFD, omfg :)
PS - Greek Gods are BAMF. They always get a mark up.
Thanks for your vote. I still strongly object to it, and believe that your methodology is flawed in a way which is unfair. But I do not believe you, as a person, voted with bias. I continue to believe you are a top tier user.
Yup. Haven't forfeited yet on DART :)
Supa, I know, lol. That's what I was critiquing. That you needed to offer explanations.
I think your second rap was your best so far.
I was not objecting to your vote as a moderator, but as a debater. Your vote would likely pass standards, but Tej would probably be the judge of that.
That said, your error lies here: "I don’t consider argumenfs that are dropped to be truth." By taking that position, you actively disadvantage the debater benefiting from the drop, and instead benefit the dropper. By not weighing drops more heavily than contested arguments, you do the same. That's unfair.
But, as I said, I don't want to debate it further. I think your vote is incredibly poorly and I object to it in the strongest possible terms, but I am not going to comment further.
I might take this over the weekend if it hasn't been accepted by someone else.
I posted.
Your lack of reply indicates to me that I may have been a bit heavy-handed. I don't want to argue this further, and I urge you to vote however you feel best. I will just say, as a final note, that I strongly object to your RFD as it now stands. But, it is for you to decide how you will vote. I think that debaters have a right to challenge voter's RFDs, but only up to a point. I've reached that point, and so I'll hand the decision over to you now.
Posted.
Your failure is one of weighing, but it is also one which involves a misunderstanding of how drops work. Drops make the argument ABSOLUTE TRUTH in the debate, whether or not you find the argument convincing. You can't weigh a drop against a contested argument for which you think is stronger--the drop ALWAYS wins. You can only weigh drops against a contested arguments in terms of impacts, but since this is not a debate which involves impacts, that kind of weighing cannot take place here.
I think I am winning in two ways. Off the K, which was dropped as were its impacts, making both the drop and the impacts ABSOLUTE TRUTH in the debate. Since the impact that was dropped was that "Con wins," is it ABSOLUTE TRUTH in the debate that Con wins.
I am also winning from an offense perspective, if for some inexplicable reason you did not vote Con off the first way I am winning. Because you fail to factor in Pro's wholesale drops of arguments throughout the debate--not just on the K--and because you insert your own views into the debate--not just on the K--you are misjudging who is winning most of the arguments throughout the debate itself, which is skewing your judgement. I am pretty clearly winning most of the arguments in the debate.
This is where you go wrong: "With this Kritik, I am injecting my opinion - NOT to determine the winner of that argument, but to determine whether this Kritik is more important in the context of this debate than the remainder of all the other arguments."
If the debaters TELL you how you should weigh that, then you have to accept that OVER you personal opinions because the goal is to minimize subjectivity. Since Pro DROPPED that the K REQUIRED a CON WIN, you as the voter have no room in which to insert your opinion. If an impact is conceded, the impact must be taken as truth as well. Since Con DROPPED the impact that the "K = Con wins," that is TRUTH for the debate.
Indeed, lol.
That is EXTREMELY UNFAIR and UNREASONABLE because it is basically you picking a winner based on your arbitrary whims. Only what was said counts, not your own opinions of the merits of what was said. If I was debating you and you expressed your opinions, I could've rebutted them or explained why they were mistaken or wrong. But, when a voter uses their opinions to decide a winner, the debater doesn't get the opportunity to address those opinions in the debate, and so they get screwed by the voter who is critiquing them for apparent weaknesses that the debater never got the chance to defend or dispel.
I think I am winning most argument in the debate, because Pro just drops or misunderstands most of my arguments entirely. And those arguments Pro does offer are massively underexplained and poorly weighted.
That said, the K should trump everything in the debate, because as I said in the debate, it is a prior question to the debate. The debate cannot take place meaningfully if the K is not resolved. Pro, by dropping the K, drops the implication that the K effectively makes everything else meaningless. Once the K is won, nothing else matters because it's all literal nonsense (which is the point of the K). To the extent you agree that the K is dropped, it is hard to understand how you grant Pro the win, because nothing Pro said "mattered" or "made sense" in light of the truth of the K. Again, once something is dropped, it is treated as truth within the debate for reasons of fairness.
You're assessment of the K as poor is YOUR OWN and not supported AT ALL by what happened in the debate. You can't just pretend something exists because you don't like it--which is exactly what you're doing. You have to judge what transpired in the debate WITHOUT inserting your own opinions of the merits of the arguments into the debate. This gets to the discussion I had with Guitar earlier in this comment sections. What you're doing is essentially saying "f*ck what happened in the debate, I think this argument is trash even though Pro never showed it to be trash, so I am just gonna pretend like it doesn't exist." But that's not fair to me, because I, as a debater, don't get to defend my K against YOUR opinions; I only get the chance to defend it against what Pro says, and Pro said NOTHING.
Yeah, I'm not going to raise too many objection to the omniscience-omnipresent thing. I think I clearly explained it, but I can see where you're coming from.
The problem is that Pro did not really say ANYTHING about the K itself. You're essentially writing off entirely an argument that was never rebutted at all. It's one thing to have a philosophical object to a K, it's another to disregard an argument which Pro did not make any effort to rebut. It's not a technicality; it's lazy debating from Pro. You cannot refuse to count the K without admitting that you are doing ONLY because you don't want to count it, and not for any reasons related to the debate, and that's troubling. I made a good faith effort to make arguments, and one of those was the K. It was not as if I just dropped it there as some cheap out to win the debate; I clearly put effort into debating and justifying it. For you to toss it out wholesale in light of Pro not addressing it's substance AT ALL is deeply problematic and offensive to the effort I invested in it. Pro could have easily said that K's were nonsensical, that the K backfired on me, or any number of any other things, but he didn't. You should not, as a judge, be rewarding Pro for SAYING NOTHING, which is what you're doing here.
That arguments were dropped means that they weren't rebutted, so you make a false claim when you say: "While it’s true that pro did drop a number of points, I felt that many of these were already refuted." What you're basically saying is that there were certain arguments you found stronger for REASONS NOT GIVEN IN THE DEBATE, and you are choosing to prioritize those reasons over the drops (which must be treated as true FOR FAIRNESS'S SAKE, not merely as a technicality).
By injecting your own arguments into the debate, you are doing more than analyzing. You are in fact making Pro's arguments for him.
I'd appreciate it if you address each drop in turn and how that impacted you evaluation of each argument.
On the omnipresent-omniscient issue, I would urge you to revisit and closely read the following: "Truths are often indexical, meaning that they are indexed or linked to certain temporal states. It is 'now' the case that I am writing this argument, so the fact 'I am writing this argument' is only true 'now.' The fact is indexed to the temporal state of 'now,' and will cease to be true when 'now' is over and was not true before 'now' began."
I then wrote: "It is not possible to know indexical truths as facts when their indices are in conflict. It is not possible to know as fact that 'I have written this argument,' *at the same time as* you know that 'I am writing this argument,' as these facts contradict."
In other words, it cannot NOW be the case that "I am writing X" and that "I have written X" because the latter can only be true after "now" has passed. But, for God, is always NOW the case that I am writing, I have written, and I will write X.
I cannot say, "I have written X at the same time I will write X." That is logically nonsensical, but that is the case for God.
The explanation of the infinite regress argument is incorrect. I wrote: "Even if it were infinitely regressive (it's not), why is that impossible? With a question as complex as existence itself, how can we presume to apply our limited understanding to it? Because Pro's comment here is non-responsive, this argument provides sufficient cause to vote Con--God is not the creator of existence." Pro DROPPED this point several times in the debate, and never once responded to it, making it true within the debate itself. This means, that we must take infinite regression to be theoretically possible within the debate. At that point, Pro's objection to my counter-syllogism (which was that it resulted in an impossible infinite regression) is defeated, and my counter-syllogism's plausibility is reaffirmed.
On the force, you write: "it wasn’t intuitive how it applied, and your application of omnipresence vs a maximally great being wasn’t clear to me from your argument." The problem--as I noted several times--was that God was NOT DEFINED as a maximally great being. Recall what I said here: "Moreover, it seems that the property which would allow God to be in all possible universes is omnipresence, since we have not defined God as 'maximally great.'" In other words, the only one of the 4 properties which constitute God that could affirm the ontological argument is omnipresence, which is a trait the force shares, meaning that the ontological argument could prove the existence of the force.
But, however you vote, I do appreciate that you took the time to read the debate and to make an effort to vote well.
4. Omnipotence
You write: "Con is right, that he refuted the idea of omnipotence as he defines it, but as pro presents a philosophical definition (diet omnipotence - now with less paradox), I view pros argument on the meaning of omnipotence as better."
But Pro's new definition was NEW IN THE LAST SPEECH AND IS THUS UNFAIR. Remember what I said in my last speech: "These new arguments in the last round should be entirely disregarded. New arguments are unfair because they should have been made earlier (but were dropped) and because they deny their opponent any chance to fulsomely respond." New arguments are--as a rule--always unfair in debates. Pro had literally no right to offer that new definition, and so it should be entirely disregarded.
5. The K
You write: "The inherent nature argument, I feel is moot - as this debate is inherently focused on specific referencable definitions, and thus I feel doesn’t merit awarding of arguments on the basis of the Kritik." This would have been a great argument IF PRO HAD MADE IT. By you as the voter making it, you're inserting your own arguments into the debate and skewing the outcome.
What happened in the debate was that Pro DROPPED that God was unreferenceable and DROPPED that if God was unreferenceable, Con should win. Since drops are considered truth within the debate, it is established truth that Con should win.
2. The KCA
You wrote: " I did not find this compelling due to the issue of infinite regress pointed out by pro - it doesn’t seem logical that there can somehow be no stop of causes - which is where the strength of the KCA is rooted." But you ignore that Pro DROPPED my argument that an infinite regress was possible. Because it is DROPPED, you must treat it as true within the debate; Virt would agree with that dropped points must be treated as true because they are dropped. Because it was dropped, it is true within the debate that infinite regresses are possible, overriding your objection.
3. Omniniscience
You wrote: "Con mentions the free will/omniscient issue. To me as a start this was not convincing as I don’t think any terms or definitions in the debate were contingent on free will existing. So in this vein the only thing being refuted is the moral argument - not God."
Again, you fail to take into account that Pro CONCEDED that free will was necessary in order for God to exist. In fact, Pro HAD to maintain that in order to have his objective morals argument. That he CONCEDED free will as necessary meant that by disproving it, I could negate Pro's case.
1. Continued
On the Force, you say you buy Pro's argument, but Pro never made an argument about the Force. As I pointed out: "On my fourth argument, Pro says his parody reply defeats it, but never explains why (again, Pro's argument was overbroad, and he never explains how it is responsive to my argument." In other words, Pro ONLY uses his parody argument against the Force, but NEVER explains how that argument actually addresses the force argument specifically.
You also did not seem to understand the force argument. You write in your RFD: "The omnipotence of God is intuitive, whereas the force isn’t quite so." But, first, I was talking about the force as OMNIPRESENT not omnipotent, and, second, the force is defined as omnipresent, and, third, this argument was NEVER made by Pro during the debate, and so you seem to be injecting your own arguments into the round.
You also don't appear to factor in the dropped arguments.
I do want to raise a few objections, since you're offering us the opportunity for us to do so. I think you are inserting your own views into the RFD in a way which is impacting your result
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1. Ontological Argument
You write: "Pros support for 1 and 3 is fairly minimal - in my view he doesn’t fully define the MGB, nor provides an cohesive set of reasons why I should presume such a being could exist." Then you also say: "I don’t believe cons second point that this begs the question is strong in its own right."
But this doesn't seem to make sense. If Pro offers no reasons why it is possible that a MGB exists, then Pro is begging the question that it is possible a MGB exists, which was the entire point of my argument. On the one hand, you are agreeing with the crux of my point while denying the only logical conclusion flowing from that point. Recall what I said in the round: "Pro is begging the question because he doesn't do any work to demonstrate that God is possible. He just assumes God is possible and then uses that assumption as proof of God's existence, which is a baseless assertion and begs the question."
You then write: "As with shared burden of proof - it feels like the mere possibility must be granted at least until shown otherwise." This is not an argument which came up in the debate, and so should not factor into your RFD. But, more than that, s shared burden of proof would require Pro to offer evidence of the assumption because just granting it gives Pro a leg up on Con, making the burdens unequal because then Con has to do far more work than Pro. So, the shared BOP would actually result in the exact opposite of what you say it would--the mere possibility would NOT be granted.
Thanks :)
Then he would recuse himself and a trusted third party would be assigned to adjudicate the vote. But yeah, that's a head-scratcher. Whether he votes or not, I'd still appreciate his feedback.