Actually when I had COVID 5 weeks ago my temp was 104 degrees and I was sweating so much I didn't pee for 2 days. I was drinking 20fl. oz per hour for days and my clothes and sheets would be completely soaked but I just never had to pee. My brain was so broken that I really just couldn't think past a few basic ideas.
Perhaps this is evident but "no log of this ban appears in the Public Moderation Log" is a point relevant to Airmaxfan2000 and not Airmaxgoon1994 as listed.
My experience is that whiteflame is a man of his word and he has already tentatively accepted, albeit with reservations.
"if you want to have this, we can do it, even if it isn't what I'd like to do. I won't be able to start yet (thanks for the 2 week acceptance period), but I should be able to accept next week."
Well, I'm just looking to establish election negligence as an objective fact regarding the First DART Presidential election. I think that can be done just using SupaDudz's own testimony and I don't think we need to dive deep into personalities or the semantics of fairness. I just want a chance to speak one truth to power: that the powers that be fucked up their responsibilities to oversee this election and their assertion that they can correct those fuckups by disregarding and indeed abusing the majority will of DART with the misuse of their authority as moderators is both moderation in bad faith and an offense to the democratic spirit necessary to any worthwhile debate site.
and is this debate only for Whiteflame?
Whiteflame reserved my 100th debate but I'd be happy to debate the topic with others in future, sure.
The bad guys have always followed the laws and the good guys decided they were better than the laws.
That's pretty child-like thinking. So Stephen Paddock must be a good guy because he broke the rules against machine-gunning down a musical festival.
Nazis followed the rules.
That's quite ignorant of history. The NAZIs tried to overthrow the established rule of law in the Beer Hall Putsch. When the NAZIs took over, they made their own rule of law, that stripped millions of humans of the right to life or liberty. Kristallnacht was a legal, government endorsed enterprise but was there any rational or constitutional basis? The NAZI's fucked the established rule of law in the neck after beheading it. The NAZI's trashed the Treaty of Versailles and every international agreement promised by Germany as a condition of ending WWI. The NAZI's reneged on billions of dollars of US loans, essentially making America the payer of Germany's war reparations. The truth is that NAZI Germany was probably the most outlaw state in Europe since the chaos of the 13th Century.
Picard was a bitch
You're entitled to your opinion but I'll assume you didn't really get much from the show if this is your take away.
The ideal is when I think of the "great man" in philosophical terms,
whiteflame asked to be my opponent for my 100th debate more than two years ago. Ramshutu asked to be my 101st. SupaDudz still owes me a debate on Roman mythology vs. Greek Mythology that he had to stop halfway through, but if Sup is willing to wait until those obligations are fulfilled I'd be happy to debate him on his conduct here. Obviously, I am not impressed with Dudz' conduct in this election or his sense of what constitutes a free and fair election. Free and fair elections never change the rules on the last day of the campaign, period.
How can I be dissatisfied with activity levels when I was not even on the site. Oro, if you do not believe, I will literally send a screenshot of my finals schedule to prove to you
Since your absence during the election is an important part of my argument that you neglected your duty to run that election, I will take those snapshots of evidence of your neglect, with thanks.
that I was not dissatisfied with activity, but had other commitments that took priority
FIrst you say in "no one was a legitimate candidate until the announcement was made and they made the official announcement and contacted with me" in POST #10"
now you say you wish somebody had carried on with this election in your absence.
FIrst you say in POST #10 "The process of delaying gave everyone the opportunity to see their was an opportunity to run for an election coming up, versus being blindsided"
now you say weren't dissatisfied with the way the legitimate campaign had been run.
You can't even keep your story straight in these comments.
I would've hoped that during my absence, someone would start the campaign right and help manage it while I was under finals, but that didn't occur and as a result, the times were changed.
This is false. We did start the campaign on Dec 1st and were conducting that campaign in accordance with the rules set out by MIsterChris and were on the FINAL DAY of that correctly conducted campaign when you and mods decided with zero democratic consultation that you didn't like the results of our work during your absence and decided to wipe out those results with haste.
Asking people to please check in, to make your job easier, is different than commanding them to check in.
I have no reason to care whether candidates checked in with SupaDudz or not. He is using that process as one reason that the election had not yet legitimately started and as you say, that was a nothing requirement that people were free to ignore. Therefore, Supa may not use the lack of such action as a reason to re-write the election rules on the last day of campaigning.
Regular DARTers were totally aware that the election was in progress. We had voted on it in September, after all, and talked about it on Dec 1st and some of us even had announced candidacies and endorsements. You did not offer any correction to all of this activity (as we've established, you weren't around much) but let it all proceed without any amendment or explanation until the last day of campaigning, when the outcome of the election appeared to be essentially determined. Only the, a not during the quiet weeks of the entire campaign does SupaDudz's personal sense of dissatisfaction with the activity levels of the campaign overrule the lawful conduct of the many MEEP-abiding campaigners. I call stinky bullshit, SupaDudz. You missed weeks of opportunities to correct the activity levels of the campaign and neglected the responsibilities you suddenly assert on the final day of campaigning. You screwed up but that no reason to change the outcome of the election.
If candidates are interested in running please shoot a DM about it.
Why? The MEEP said nothing about checking in with Mods
"During the designated campaigning period, users may advocate election for themselves or others by doing any of the following:
Within any three day window, creating at most ONE non-spam campaign-related forum thread or debate. Offering non-spam contributions to the campaign-related forum threads or debates of others. Changing their profile picture or user biography."
This brand new "check in with SupaDudz first" rule is not within the scope of the MEEP and is a new authority over the election asserted only by you. Why?
On Dec 6th, when you re-published the rules of the election including the rule that the election began on Dec 1st, if you really believed then that some kind of announcement was needed to start the election than you should have noticed that you were publishing conflicting information when you re-asserted that the election began on Dec. 1st, right? This means that you changed your mind about when the election started sometime between Dec 6th and Dec 24th. You did not feel the need to make an announcement on Dec. 1st through Dec 6th. And then you didn't feel the need to post at all for nine days. Only on the last day of campaigning and just before voting began did you decide that the voting process needed a whole bunch of correction. Ask yourself objectively, isn't such a last second change inherently so subject to corrupt action that such a practice is avoided everywhere by everyone that cares that elections be free and fair? You could only make that last minute change because you did not care whether this election was free or fair. And that should be a disqualifying trait in any election official.
"I specifically stated that this is not the case. No official announcement was made to start campaigning, therefore NO ONE should have made that assumption. "
Why? Why should I care that you made no official announcement? I don't care what announcement you wish to make because the MEEP did not specify that the start of the election was dependent on any mod activity. The MEEP did specify that the start of the election was Dec. 1st. You re-affirmed the start of the election as late as Dec 6th, when you republished the election rules including theses rules:
"The President shall be elected for a yearly term each December, to be formally instated January 1st of the following year. The first three weeks of December will be dedicated to optional campaigning, and the rest of the month will be dedicated to the election process, all of which will be overseen and managed by moderation."
If you thought there should be some kind of Mod Announcement to start the thing, then the established rule of law was that you were obligated to make that Mod Announcement on Dec. 1. The fact that you don't understand that is disqualifying.
You were already deep into the election and still re-affirming the timeline of that election as late as Dec 6th. Then you there are no posts from you from 9 days. Well, of course people get busy but you were clearly way beyond any reasonable point in the electoral process where you were should not feel constrained from re-writing the rules, especially re-writing rules enforced by democratic MEEPs. Any mod qualified to do the job would recognize your last-minute re-writes as a desperate violation of the democratic spirit of debate and of this website. We want mods who feel constrained by our MEEPs.
"I believe the fact you are holding the MEEP more sacred that holy text is foolish IMO, as situations call for certain actions to be taken"
No, Supadudz, I'm just holding the MEEP as more sacred than you. The only situation on Dec 24th was that you returned from checking out for a couple of weeks and suddenly felt that the election needed more supervision by you and less voting time for us. But the Election MEEP does not specify how closely Mods must monitor the election (let's assume it would more closely than nine day gaps, considering that our home page boasts that "moderators work day and night.)" The MEEP does specify that voting takes place on the last week of December. Why didn't you feel constrained by DART to preserve the agreed upon time of voting? You are the one who checked out- it shouldn't be the folks who were following the rules for the whole campaign to pay the penalty for your neglect of duty.
Thx, RM. That's fix'd. If either of you feel I have any other facts wrong be sure to let me know. This an honest inquiry into whether or not the actions you took during this election as you describe them don't clearly qualify as neglect of your mod and electoral duties. Your actions as you describe them seem entirely unacceptable to me on a website that describes itself as "community driven" but then nullifies the well documented majority will of that community late in the electoral process- the last day of campaigning, if fact. I think you seem to not understand why that is neglect well demonstrated.
I finally found a subject about which we are likely to disagree. Please help me to complete my 100th debate on this site with this timely and relevant topic. Let me know if you'd like me to make any adjustments to the the terms of the debate. I look forward to your acceptance!
CONSTANTINE the GREAT should not be CONSIDERED a MAINSTREAM CHRISTIAN, BECAUSE he was ACTUALLY a HERETIC
Fascinating, complex topic intelligently argued on both fronts. Congratulations to both participants on a top notch debate.
By default and without objection by either side, the BURDEN of PROOF rests heavily on PRO's shoulders here.
PRO's case ought to have been much simpler then the wide range of arguments provided.
PRO wisely asks us to use a modern definition of MAINSTREAM CHRISTIANITY and apply that definition as a desirable standard- SHOULD NOT BE rather than WAS NOT. I say wise because it is clear CONSTANTINE defined MAINSTREAM CHRISTIANITY during his reign and for his generation and can't be responsibly considered as apart from that MAINSTREAM.
PRO unwisely fails to lock down a likewise modern definition of HERESY because his whole argument depends on whether CONSTANTINE WAS (not IS NOW in hindsight but WAS as in, during his lifetime) a heretic.
I'm afraid that this VOTER considers most of the rest of PRO's R1 non-sequitur- Helen's Nicenism, Constantine's religious tolerance in his secular role as Emperor, Constantine's secular reliance on the Imperial cult, lattter clergymen's embarrassment regarding the baptism of Constantine and conspiracy to alter that history, Constantine's preservation of the secular and pagan title Pontifex Maximus, Constantius II's Arianism all seem pretty irrelevant to the question of Constantine's heresy. Constantine only became a Christian in the final hours of his life and therefore was only a potential heretic within those hours. CON might have been a lot more forthright in the rejection of these irrelevencies but this VOTER understands that merely dismissing the irrelevant is often misinterpreted as lack of engagement and penalized. Certainly, PRO felt these arguments demanded even more engagement from CON, so I can't really blame CON for giving a lot of space to these non-sequiturs but this VOTER does think CON argued irrelevance, from Helena to anti-pope, sufficiently to allow me to set aside these arguments.
CON wins this debate by defining HERESY for us, more by his second OED definition than his R1 Britannica definition.
"One who maintains theological or religious opinions at variance with the ‘catholic’ or orthodox doctrine of the Christian Church, or, by extension, that of any church or religious system, considered as orthodox."
Using this definition, CON successfully distances Constantine from the label heretic.
XII.b CON argues that a modern standard of heresy does not apply- WAS a HERETIC is the standard of proof.
XII.c No contemporary authority declared Constantine heretical
XII.d CON argues that the contemporary standard of heresy is the applicable
XII.f CON successfully contradicts PRO's assertion that the definition of heresy lacks any semantic variety and therefore need not be defined. CON has shown that 4th century Christianity and heresy and sufficiently different from modern Christianity and heresy to demand a definition up front. CON's definition of heresy get to prevail here and nobody can honestly argue that Constantine maintained some theological or religious opinions at variance with orthodoxy in those final hours of death.
I wish either PRO or CON had addressed the question of Eusebius of Nicomedia's own status as heretic more directly. Eusebius was NOT declared a heretic at Nicea, quite the opposite, he was given an opportunity to confess his sins and accept the creed which Eusebius did, arguing that Arianism and the Creed were not in contradiction (we don't know what those arguments were but the important fact is Eusebius escaped any formal declaration of heretic. When Eusebius baptized Constantine he was Bishop in good standing. To the extent that he had managed to discredit and exile his important accusers from Nicaea, Eusebius was even the heart of contemporary MAINSTREAM CHRISTIANITY at the time of Constantine's baptism, however much his heart still embraced ideas modern Christians would call heretical.
Still, CON's XVII 5 makes the point well enough to win the day- PRO has not shown that Eusebius was unqualified to baptize Constantine or that any creed except the Nicaean was operative during that ceremony. Since Constantine's whole life as a Christian is judged by those few hours between baptism and death and we have no reports of heresy from either the Emperor of his cousin the Bishop, heresy is not proved, heretic is not proved and so modern standards of MAINSTREAM CHRISTIANITY are not offended.
PRO failed to meet his BURDEN of PROOF, the CONTENDER wins 3 points for ARGUMENTS.
Conduct and English excellent, even commendable all around.
I was tempted to give SOURCES to CON as well for PRO's underwhelming supports- Wikipedia notes where original sources were just a click away, giving Jerome the expert voice on heresy for no apparent reason, etc. However, CON's mistake regarding "the Lybian," while not so important to overall arguments, balances out any outright superiority in considerations of SOURCES.
I'd hardly call Mall a noob by the time he initiated this debate- he'd been submitting a bunch of debates over the previous 8 months- he'd had more than 40 debates by this time. This was our fifth debate together and was specifically re-litigating a point that he'd lost on in two prior debates. Mall was specifically requesting another debate with me and it can't be said he didn't know exactly what kind of treatment he was asking for.
For context, in a previous debate Mall had argued that there was nothing wrong with promoting "white power" because words mean whatever individuals want them to mean and he might simply redefine "white power" as meaning something non-racist, clean energy for example. Here, Mall is trying to defend the principle that words mean whatever people want them to mean, which I call a return to the Tower of Babel.
Congratulations, Whiteflame! Well argued.
I will debate this with you with your permission.
Thanks for voting!
Thx, boss!
I would advise against laying any money down but I'm glad you liked my argument.
That was rough! I had less than 90 minutes to compose and submitted with 15 seconds seconds left.
PRO's ROUND 2 CITATIONS:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/proof
https://www.debateart.com/debates/proof%20of%20concept
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/binding
https://www.debateart.com/forum/topics/7092/post-links/304330
https://www.debateart.com/forum/topics/7057-bsh1-memorial-profile-pic-pick-of-the-week-no-37-rationalmadman-for-president
https://info.debateart.com/terms-of-service/moderation
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PIsh9UDic938MMM3YX-H1nn15H7OriOvfOSFigXXsX0/edit
https://www.debateart.com/forum/topics/7208/post-links/308763
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/goon
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/goon
Kritik is an objection to assumptions made in the prior arg. By def, the instigator’s thesis and opening arg are not kritik.
Why women and not parents? Why women and not mothers?
Without street racing, we would have no Fast & Furious franchise which harm far outweighs the risks.
THBT: CON picks topic (CON)
ROUND 1 ARGUMENT:
No, I don't.
Actually when I had COVID 5 weeks ago my temp was 104 degrees and I was sweating so much I didn't pee for 2 days. I was drinking 20fl. oz per hour for days and my clothes and sheets would be completely soaked but I just never had to pee. My brain was so broken that I really just couldn't think past a few basic ideas.
Your information on such questions is usually pretty good. I don’t think I can comment without furthering my argument.
Perhaps this is evident but "no log of this ban appears in the Public Moderation Log" is a point relevant to Airmaxfan2000 and not Airmaxgoon1994 as listed.
PRO's ROUND 1 CITATIONS:
https://info.debateart.com/terms-of-service/moderation
https://www.debateart.com/forum/topics/6725-meep-reformed-ban-policy-and-debateart-president
https://www.debateart.com/forum/topics/7205-happy-election-day-good-luck-to-both-candidates-may-the-best-man-win
https://www.debateart.com/forum/topics/7208/post-links/309974
https://www.debateart.com/forum/topics/7054/post-links/302459
https://www.debateart.com/forum/topics/7054/post-links/302459
https://www.debateart.com/forum/topics/7092/post-links/304330
https://www.debateart.com/forum/topics/7208/post-links/308763
https://www.debateart.com/profiles/Airmaxfan2000
https://www.debateart.com/profiles/AirmaxGoon1994
https://info.debateart.com/terms-of-service/rules
thx, boss. I do appreciate that acceptance.
Just the fact that we're discussing rules for a website with a few dozen of participants should serve to keep us humble
well said
My experience is that whiteflame is a man of his word and he has already tentatively accepted, albeit with reservations.
"if you want to have this, we can do it, even if it isn't what I'd like to do. I won't be able to start yet (thanks for the 2 week acceptance period), but I should be able to accept next week."
Why is the max character per Round so low
Well, I'm just looking to establish election negligence as an objective fact regarding the First DART Presidential election. I think that can be done just using SupaDudz's own testimony and I don't think we need to dive deep into personalities or the semantics of fairness. I just want a chance to speak one truth to power: that the powers that be fucked up their responsibilities to oversee this election and their assertion that they can correct those fuckups by disregarding and indeed abusing the majority will of DART with the misuse of their authority as moderators is both moderation in bad faith and an offense to the democratic spirit necessary to any worthwhile debate site.
and is this debate only for Whiteflame?
Whiteflame reserved my 100th debate but I'd be happy to debate the topic with others in future, sure.
The bad guys have always followed the laws and the good guys decided they were better than the laws.
That's pretty child-like thinking. So Stephen Paddock must be a good guy because he broke the rules against machine-gunning down a musical festival.
Nazis followed the rules.
That's quite ignorant of history. The NAZIs tried to overthrow the established rule of law in the Beer Hall Putsch. When the NAZIs took over, they made their own rule of law, that stripped millions of humans of the right to life or liberty. Kristallnacht was a legal, government endorsed enterprise but was there any rational or constitutional basis? The NAZI's fucked the established rule of law in the neck after beheading it. The NAZI's trashed the Treaty of Versailles and every international agreement promised by Germany as a condition of ending WWI. The NAZI's reneged on billions of dollars of US loans, essentially making America the payer of Germany's war reparations. The truth is that NAZI Germany was probably the most outlaw state in Europe since the chaos of the 13th Century.
Picard was a bitch
You're entitled to your opinion but I'll assume you didn't really get much from the show if this is your take away.
The ideal is when I think of the "great man" in philosophical terms,
Yeah, I'm an American. Fuck your Great Man.
whiteflame asked to be my opponent for my 100th debate more than two years ago. Ramshutu asked to be my 101st. SupaDudz still owes me a debate on Roman mythology vs. Greek Mythology that he had to stop halfway through, but if Sup is willing to wait until those obligations are fulfilled I'd be happy to debate him on his conduct here. Obviously, I am not impressed with Dudz' conduct in this election or his sense of what constitutes a free and fair election. Free and fair elections never change the rules on the last day of the campaign, period.
How can I be dissatisfied with activity levels when I was not even on the site. Oro, if you do not believe, I will literally send a screenshot of my finals schedule to prove to you
Since your absence during the election is an important part of my argument that you neglected your duty to run that election, I will take those snapshots of evidence of your neglect, with thanks.
that I was not dissatisfied with activity, but had other commitments that took priority
FIrst you say in "no one was a legitimate candidate until the announcement was made and they made the official announcement and contacted with me" in POST #10"
now you say you wish somebody had carried on with this election in your absence.
FIrst you say in POST #10 "The process of delaying gave everyone the opportunity to see their was an opportunity to run for an election coming up, versus being blindsided"
now you say weren't dissatisfied with the way the legitimate campaign had been run.
You can't even keep your story straight in these comments.
I would've hoped that during my absence, someone would start the campaign right and help manage it while I was under finals, but that didn't occur and as a result, the times were changed.
This is false. We did start the campaign on Dec 1st and were conducting that campaign in accordance with the rules set out by MIsterChris and were on the FINAL DAY of that correctly conducted campaign when you and mods decided with zero democratic consultation that you didn't like the results of our work during your absence and decided to wipe out those results with haste.
Kirk would have actually given a shit about the prime directive, he would have had very little positive impact.
Picard cared deeply about the Prime Directive and his galactic impact far outstripped Kirk’s.
Asking people to please check in, to make your job easier, is different than commanding them to check in.
I have no reason to care whether candidates checked in with SupaDudz or not. He is using that process as one reason that the election had not yet legitimately started and as you say, that was a nothing requirement that people were free to ignore. Therefore, Supa may not use the lack of such action as a reason to re-write the election rules on the last day of campaigning.
Regular DARTers were totally aware that the election was in progress. We had voted on it in September, after all, and talked about it on Dec 1st and some of us even had announced candidacies and endorsements. You did not offer any correction to all of this activity (as we've established, you weren't around much) but let it all proceed without any amendment or explanation until the last day of campaigning, when the outcome of the election appeared to be essentially determined. Only the, a not during the quiet weeks of the entire campaign does SupaDudz's personal sense of dissatisfaction with the activity levels of the campaign overrule the lawful conduct of the many MEEP-abiding campaigners. I call stinky bullshit, SupaDudz. You missed weeks of opportunities to correct the activity levels of the campaign and neglected the responsibilities you suddenly assert on the final day of campaigning. You screwed up but that no reason to change the outcome of the election.
If candidates are interested in running please shoot a DM about it.
Why? The MEEP said nothing about checking in with Mods
"During the designated campaigning period, users may advocate election for themselves or others by doing any of the following:
Within any three day window, creating at most ONE non-spam campaign-related forum thread or debate. Offering non-spam contributions to the campaign-related forum threads or debates of others. Changing their profile picture or user biography."
This brand new "check in with SupaDudz first" rule is not within the scope of the MEEP and is a new authority over the election asserted only by you. Why?
This goes back to the philosophical disagreement.
That's correct: democracy vs.autocracy. Is SupaDudz greater than DART or is DART greater than SupaDudz?
On Dec 6th, when you re-published the rules of the election including the rule that the election began on Dec 1st, if you really believed then that some kind of announcement was needed to start the election than you should have noticed that you were publishing conflicting information when you re-asserted that the election began on Dec. 1st, right? This means that you changed your mind about when the election started sometime between Dec 6th and Dec 24th. You did not feel the need to make an announcement on Dec. 1st through Dec 6th. And then you didn't feel the need to post at all for nine days. Only on the last day of campaigning and just before voting began did you decide that the voting process needed a whole bunch of correction. Ask yourself objectively, isn't such a last second change inherently so subject to corrupt action that such a practice is avoided everywhere by everyone that cares that elections be free and fair? You could only make that last minute change because you did not care whether this election was free or fair. And that should be a disqualifying trait in any election official.
"I specifically stated that this is not the case. No official announcement was made to start campaigning, therefore NO ONE should have made that assumption. "
Why? Why should I care that you made no official announcement? I don't care what announcement you wish to make because the MEEP did not specify that the start of the election was dependent on any mod activity. The MEEP did specify that the start of the election was Dec. 1st. You re-affirmed the start of the election as late as Dec 6th, when you republished the election rules including theses rules:
"The President shall be elected for a yearly term each December, to be formally instated January 1st of the following year. The first three weeks of December will be dedicated to optional campaigning, and the rest of the month will be dedicated to the election process, all of which will be overseen and managed by moderation."
If you thought there should be some kind of Mod Announcement to start the thing, then the established rule of law was that you were obligated to make that Mod Announcement on Dec. 1. The fact that you don't understand that is disqualifying.
You were already deep into the election and still re-affirming the timeline of that election as late as Dec 6th. Then you there are no posts from you from 9 days. Well, of course people get busy but you were clearly way beyond any reasonable point in the electoral process where you were should not feel constrained from re-writing the rules, especially re-writing rules enforced by democratic MEEPs. Any mod qualified to do the job would recognize your last-minute re-writes as a desperate violation of the democratic spirit of debate and of this website. We want mods who feel constrained by our MEEPs.
"I believe the fact you are holding the MEEP more sacred that holy text is foolish IMO, as situations call for certain actions to be taken"
No, Supadudz, I'm just holding the MEEP as more sacred than you. The only situation on Dec 24th was that you returned from checking out for a couple of weeks and suddenly felt that the election needed more supervision by you and less voting time for us. But the Election MEEP does not specify how closely Mods must monitor the election (let's assume it would more closely than nine day gaps, considering that our home page boasts that "moderators work day and night.)" The MEEP does specify that voting takes place on the last week of December. Why didn't you feel constrained by DART to preserve the agreed upon time of voting? You are the one who checked out- it shouldn't be the folks who were following the rules for the whole campaign to pay the penalty for your neglect of duty.
Thx, RM. That's fix'd. If either of you feel I have any other facts wrong be sure to let me know. This an honest inquiry into whether or not the actions you took during this election as you describe them don't clearly qualify as neglect of your mod and electoral duties. Your actions as you describe them seem entirely unacceptable to me on a website that describes itself as "community driven" but then nullifies the well documented majority will of that community late in the electoral process- the last day of campaigning, if fact. I think you seem to not understand why that is neglect well demonstrated.
I finally found a subject about which we are likely to disagree. Please help me to complete my 100th debate on this site with this timely and relevant topic. Let me know if you'd like me to make any adjustments to the the terms of the debate. I look forward to your acceptance!
....and debateart corrupts absolutely
Terrifically original topic!
That BoP is begging for a solid kritik.
Antarctica is drier than the Sahara and a little larger. We'll probably need to figure out how to live in the Sahara first.
RFD PART 1
CONSTANTINE the GREAT should not be CONSIDERED a MAINSTREAM CHRISTIAN, BECAUSE he was ACTUALLY a HERETIC
Fascinating, complex topic intelligently argued on both fronts. Congratulations to both participants on a top notch debate.
By default and without objection by either side, the BURDEN of PROOF rests heavily on PRO's shoulders here.
PRO's case ought to have been much simpler then the wide range of arguments provided.
PRO wisely asks us to use a modern definition of MAINSTREAM CHRISTIANITY and apply that definition as a desirable standard- SHOULD NOT BE rather than WAS NOT. I say wise because it is clear CONSTANTINE defined MAINSTREAM CHRISTIANITY during his reign and for his generation and can't be responsibly considered as apart from that MAINSTREAM.
PRO unwisely fails to lock down a likewise modern definition of HERESY because his whole argument depends on whether CONSTANTINE WAS (not IS NOW in hindsight but WAS as in, during his lifetime) a heretic.
I'm afraid that this VOTER considers most of the rest of PRO's R1 non-sequitur- Helen's Nicenism, Constantine's religious tolerance in his secular role as Emperor, Constantine's secular reliance on the Imperial cult, lattter clergymen's embarrassment regarding the baptism of Constantine and conspiracy to alter that history, Constantine's preservation of the secular and pagan title Pontifex Maximus, Constantius II's Arianism all seem pretty irrelevant to the question of Constantine's heresy. Constantine only became a Christian in the final hours of his life and therefore was only a potential heretic within those hours. CON might have been a lot more forthright in the rejection of these irrelevencies but this VOTER understands that merely dismissing the irrelevant is often misinterpreted as lack of engagement and penalized. Certainly, PRO felt these arguments demanded even more engagement from CON, so I can't really blame CON for giving a lot of space to these non-sequiturs but this VOTER does think CON argued irrelevance, from Helena to anti-pope, sufficiently to allow me to set aside these arguments.
CON wins this debate by defining HERESY for us, more by his second OED definition than his R1 Britannica definition.
"One who maintains theological or religious opinions at variance with the ‘catholic’ or orthodox doctrine of the Christian Church, or, by extension, that of any church or religious system, considered as orthodox."
Using this definition, CON successfully distances Constantine from the label heretic.
XII.b CON argues that a modern standard of heresy does not apply- WAS a HERETIC is the standard of proof.
XII.c No contemporary authority declared Constantine heretical
XII.d CON argues that the contemporary standard of heresy is the applicable
XII.f CON successfully contradicts PRO's assertion that the definition of heresy lacks any semantic variety and therefore need not be defined. CON has shown that 4th century Christianity and heresy and sufficiently different from modern Christianity and heresy to demand a definition up front. CON's definition of heresy get to prevail here and nobody can honestly argue that Constantine maintained some theological or religious opinions at variance with orthodoxy in those final hours of death.
I wish either PRO or CON had addressed the question of Eusebius of Nicomedia's own status as heretic more directly. Eusebius was NOT declared a heretic at Nicea, quite the opposite, he was given an opportunity to confess his sins and accept the creed which Eusebius did, arguing that Arianism and the Creed were not in contradiction (we don't know what those arguments were but the important fact is Eusebius escaped any formal declaration of heretic. When Eusebius baptized Constantine he was Bishop in good standing. To the extent that he had managed to discredit and exile his important accusers from Nicaea, Eusebius was even the heart of contemporary MAINSTREAM CHRISTIANITY at the time of Constantine's baptism, however much his heart still embraced ideas modern Christians would call heretical.
Still, CON's XVII 5 makes the point well enough to win the day- PRO has not shown that Eusebius was unqualified to baptize Constantine or that any creed except the Nicaean was operative during that ceremony. Since Constantine's whole life as a Christian is judged by those few hours between baptism and death and we have no reports of heresy from either the Emperor of his cousin the Bishop, heresy is not proved, heretic is not proved and so modern standards of MAINSTREAM CHRISTIANITY are not offended.
RFD PART 2
PRO failed to meet his BURDEN of PROOF, the CONTENDER wins 3 points for ARGUMENTS.
Conduct and English excellent, even commendable all around.
I was tempted to give SOURCES to CON as well for PRO's underwhelming supports- Wikipedia notes where original sources were just a click away, giving Jerome the expert voice on heresy for no apparent reason, etc. However, CON's mistake regarding "the Lybian," while not so important to overall arguments, balances out any outright superiority in considerations of SOURCES.
Again, nice job fellows.
I'd hardly call Mall a noob by the time he initiated this debate- he'd been submitting a bunch of debates over the previous 8 months- he'd had more than 40 debates by this time. This was our fifth debate together and was specifically re-litigating a point that he'd lost on in two prior debates. Mall was specifically requesting another debate with me and it can't be said he didn't know exactly what kind of treatment he was asking for.
For context, in a previous debate Mall had argued that there was nothing wrong with promoting "white power" because words mean whatever individuals want them to mean and he might simply redefine "white power" as meaning something non-racist, clean energy for example. Here, Mall is trying to defend the principle that words mean whatever people want them to mean, which I call a return to the Tower of Babel.
1) How do you do 99 debates and win 98 of them?
No idea, man. I was totally convinced I lost twenty of them. Just something that happened.
2) Are you trans? Your bio says your gender is "Other"?
Nope. I am a gay man but I say other for the same reason I say I live in Antarctica- pay no mind to the labels, especially unverifiable labels.
rationalmadman was the top rated debater on site at the time. I think TheUnderdog was #2 in another incarnation at the time.
5 dead
at least 143 injured
$30 million dollars in structural damage
undetermined millions in property theft
I strongly advocate forfeit=auto loss. No real world debate would move on after one debater has failed to show.
which in no way precludes raps in swahili
WIll you rap in Swahili?
TOPIC: which language is less useful for teaching quantum mechanics- Mandarin or Swahili?
Here's that debate.
Nice to see you debating again, RM. It has been a been a while.