ethang5

Speed better tied his arguments to what we find in reality. Most people behave as if altruism is a better philosophy than hedonism as con notes when he says, "This is essentially what the average person does daily."

Pro argued that hedonism was profitable for the individual, but failed to show how it is better for society.

But cpro's greatest failing is when he says, about the contradiction in his argument,

"Can it not be? Can you not be interested in both your own well-being and that of others at the same time? I don’t see why not. Human beings are absolutely capable of holding conflicting, contradictory thoughts and emotions at the same time."

But the debate is not about whether people can hold contradictory beliefs, but whether such beliefs are better/more rational than noncontradictory beliefs.

Pro admits the contradiction, but still insists hedonism is better. Con has demonstrated to my satisfaction that Pro's argument is internally contradictory, and does not as accurately represent reality as altruism.

"Pro seems to have based his argument on his assumptions of how God should be. That is not grounds for a logical case against God. Pro's foundational claim is that the existence of evil is impossible if God exists. But his reason for this belief is based on his personal taste, not logic.
Con makes a convincing argument that there is no inherent contradiction between the existence of evil and the existence of God, and he offers several examples of such a situation when he says...

"My stance is that there is no contradiction. A good god may logically make 2 choices: 1. Free will, the result of which was moral evil. And 2. A knowable reality that is stable, with knowable rules, which resulted in natural evil."

Pro never overcomes these credible possibilities and thus con's argument does establish that a good God can be compatible with the existence of evil.

Con argued his points well, but suffered two problems. First, his argument was ad hoc. For example, he simply calls an embryo an "intruder" and then builds this entire argument off that ad hoc definition. Even if his conclusions followed, his premise was illogical. He never was convincing on why an embryo should be viewed as an intruder and never addressed Pro's rebut of that idea. If the embryo is not an intruder, his argument fails.

Second, his argument itself was not logical. Calling every pregnancy a "threat" that enables the mother to kill the embryo at will is patiently absurd. He says that willingly engaging in sex is not accepting a pregnancy. But, what IS accepting a pregnancy if not engaging in sex? His position is basically illogical.

Pro did a good job addressing each of his claims. Listing them out in bold and systematically showing why they logically failed. And he was able to site secular sources for his argument, which was logically consistent throughout.

Virt ff one round and misposted an argument. Though those were not malicious, it showed poorer conduct.

But Con killed himself by contradicting his entire argument when he insisted that God must be able to do illogical things. If he affirms illogic, not only do all his premises fail, but all his rebuttals fail too.

For example, con says God cannot fly unless God is subject to natural law, thus nullifying His omnipotence. But that is logic, and he has just affirmed that God should not be limited to the logical. So if he is right, his argument is wrong!

Disallowing logic simply dealt a fatal blow to his argument for almost all of his rebuts depended on logic. I say almost all because, some of his rebuts were just semantics, not logical. When he spoke about immovable objects and irresistible forces, universal qualities cannot exist in a universe with the opposite quality, that is the definition of "universal", so all he is doing is playing with words. There is no logic there at all.

Virts arguments (when he did post them) were neat and concise. His conclusions followed from his premises and his argument was consistent in its use of logic and the expectations thereof.

He also had better citations.