Debate?

[Alliteration]

THE RULES


Quotes from outside sources will be allowed, but links will not.

Round 1: Each participant will prepare in advance an opening statement of no more than 3000 words. Opening statements will be posted at the same time, and each participant will have 15 minutes to read his opponent's opening statement.

Round 2: cross-examination - each participant will have an opportunity to ask his opponent a maximum of five questions pertaining to his opening statement.

Round 3: Each participant will have 20 minutes to write a response to his opponent's opening statement, and statements made in round 2. No word limits.

Round 4: Each participant will have 15 minutes to write a response to his opponent's opening statement, and statements made in rounds 2 and 3. No word limits.

Round 5: Closing statements, written live.

[Oda]

When i read your list, i would say the first point "existence of god" could be a good idea.

Edit: Hmm... maybe more chemical/biological topics... for example gene technology or something like that.^^

Do you mean as it pertains to ethics (ex. designer babies, human cloning)? That could work...

Not just that, but that would be a part of it. So when you haven´t problems with it... i would say that would be a good topic.

[DoxysTurtle]

I just want to make sure everyone else know, in case they are debating debating, that Alliteration and I jointly agreed and set the time date and rules and that I'm sure he'd be willing to do the same with you if you'd prefer a different format.

[les]

With more people responding to this thread
It seems its becoming a Mass Debate

[shell]

So, ya all know how I love to bring sex into the picture........................so...*giggling*.....

Should a vote be taken, after the debate.....as to whom the rest of us feel "won" the debate....and the loser gets a challenge/task/tease.....and the winner gets, oh I don't know.........oh yes I do!!! *wicked smile*...they winner gets to give the loser the challenge/task/tease. *grin*

I just can't help myself sometimes! *lol*

[les]

See I told you

[shell]

Spoiler: show

Putting my two cents worth in here......I don't think that would be fair to the rest of us, if you did the debate in the chat room. The whole idea of the thread was to do it here, so that we all could watch.

*steps away from the microphone....and blushes*

Um well hmm... Alliteration and I discussed that last night, actually amused ourselves with that you might wish to watch. Given this is his field, though I may have more formal debate experience, I wanted the edge of it being live. We were going to, if we got permission post the full transcripts of the debate. So you could more than watch it unfold either if we end up picking a convenient time and day, or afterwards. Live debate is a very different form than us debating in the forum as it changes tactics quite a bit.

As to the arguing something you don't believe, I find it easy. Without being able to look at the other side and try to understand it, you lack a foundation of knowing your side. Think of you switching. Even while in top mode, you can often see from the side of the bottom what is happening. Alliteration for a living does this sort of thing. My background in math, computer science and engineering, lead to my doing it in a very different way. However if you can't imagine choosing to argue for something you don't believe, how do you know your beliefs are correct? Could it not be that the other side lacks contradictions under closer inspection?

Perhaps on subjects that I do not believe with my heart and soul...but for instance, on the subject of God....there are no words, no arguments that anyone could ever say that would convince me that he is not real. *Smile*

It's possible that I simply do not know how to debate....growing up, Dad was right, the rest of us were wrong. Period! That way of thinking is very hard to break....very hard to speak my thoughts about something......very, very hard. I did so, on a thread with Allit, not to long ago....and I was sick to my stomach afterwards.

[les]

Take heart shell,
You don't have to be able to play to enjoy the spectacle

Remember the "World Cup"
You can't play "Soccer" either.

*Comforting Cuddles* *Happy Hugs* *Kindly Kisses*

[DoxysTurtle]

So, ya all know how I love to bring sex into the picture........................so...*giggling*.....

Should a vote be taken, after the debate.....as to whom the rest of us feel "won" the debate....and the loser gets a challenge/task/tease.....and the winner gets, oh I don't know.........oh yes I do!!! *wicked smile*...they winner gets to give the loser the challenge/task/tease. *grin*

I just can't help myself sometimes! *lol*

Unfortunately or possibly fortunately that would be completely outside my comfort zone, getting tasks from a man, or giving them as I don't do the switch thing at all. Alliteration and I are considering finding a few people to judge who won and lost however. Though I think we were more talking bragging rights and brownie points.

And he said no to my fun topic... I wanted to debate the constitutionality of laws restricting the interactions between consenting adults, mainly in terms of anti-sodomy and BDSM laws we see in the south. Which definitely would bring sex into the debate

And as for not debating personal issues I understand. But most of what Alliteration and I are talking about involves logic and reason proofs over personal feelings, so it's different. It's an acquired skill to debate the side opposite of how you feel. I am an agnostic Jew, so I understand what you mean on the God issue. If taking the side against his existence, rather than arguing points on my side, I would attack weaknesses in the opponents (like the use of faith, which although I understand, is not a strong case in terms of logic and reason...

[Handcuffed]

Spoiler: show

Putting my two cents worth in here......I don't think that would be fair to the rest of us, if you did the debate in the chat room. The whole idea of the thread was to do it here, so that we all could watch.

*steps away from the microphone....and blushes*

Um well hmm... Alliteration and I discussed that last night, actually amused ourselves with that you might wish to watch. Given this is his field, though I may have more formal debate experience, I wanted the edge of it being live. We were going to, if we got permission post the full transcripts of the debate. So you could more than watch it unfold either if we end up picking a convenient time and day, or afterwards. Live debate is a very different form than us debating in the forum as it changes tactics quite a bit.

As to the arguing something you don't believe, I find it easy. Without being able to look at the other side and try to understand it, you lack a foundation of knowing your side. Think of you switching. Even while in top mode, you can often see from the side of the bottom what is happening. Alliteration for a living does this sort of thing. My background in math, computer science and engineering, lead to my doing it in a very different way. However if you can't imagine choosing to argue for something you don't believe, how do you know your beliefs are correct? Could it not be that the other side lacks contradictions under closer inspection?

Perhaps on subjects that I do not believe with my heart and soul...but for instance, on the subject of God....there are no words, no arguments that anyone could ever say that would convince me that he is not real. *Smile*

It's possible that I simply do not know how to debate....growing up, Dad was right, the rest of us were wrong. Period! That way of thinking is very hard to break....very hard to speak my thoughts about something......very, very hard. I did so, on a thread with Allit, not to long ago....and I was sick to my stomach afterwards.

The existence of gods is an inherently unfalsifiable claim; if we search the entire universe and do not find a god, theists could still argue that gods are invisible, that they transcend time and space, etc. However, if you were given sufficient logical evidence against a deity, would it overpower your faith? Do you have faith so complete that you would, for example, sacrifice Isaac if you were in Abraham's position, knowing that God would intervene?

[Alliteration]

Perhaps on subjects that I do not believe with my heart and soul...but for instance, on the subject of God....there are no words, no arguments that anyone could ever say that would convince me that he is not real. *Smile*

That's common with that sort of belief, as it's not *just* a belief, there's a personal/emotional component to it (for most people, anyway). I think most of us have subjects we won't defend, even as a thought exercise - me, for example, I will never defend genocide.

That way of thinking is very hard to break....very hard to speak my thoughts about something......very, very hard.

You're getting better at it :)

Should a vote be taken, after the debate.....as to whom the rest of us feel "won" the debate....and the loser gets a challenge/task/tease.....and the winner gets, oh I don't know.........oh yes I do!!! *wicked smile*...they winner gets to give the loser the challenge/task/tease. *grin*

This sounds fun, but...honestly, I think it might bias me. There's a chance I would subconsciously lose on purpose, so I get something to do :P

And he said no to my fun topic... I wanted to debate the constitutionality of laws restricting the interactions between consenting adults, mainly in terms of anti-sodomy and BDSM laws we see in the south. Which definitely would bring sex into the debate

Maybe someone else would debate you on that? Law isn't really my thing :P

I am an agnostic Jew, so I understand what you mean on the God issue. If taking the side against his existence, rather than arguing points on my side, I would attack weaknesses in the opponents (like the use of faith, which although I understand, is not a strong case in terms of logic and reason...

Actually, there is one sort of meta-argument involving "faith", kind of...Alvin Plantinga argues that belief in God is "properly basic", and is similar to belief that the external world exists. He says that we are thus justified in believing in God without evidence, at least so long as we don't have any reason *not* to believe it.

The existence of gods is an inherently unfalsifiable claim; if we search the entire universe and do not find a god, theists could still argue that gods are invisible, that they transcend time and space, etc. However, if you were given sufficient logical evidence against a deity, would it overpower your faith? Do you have faith so complete that you would, for example, sacrifice Isaac if you were in Abraham's position, knowing that God would intervene?

Whoa, hold on a second there...the existence of gods is an inherently unfalsifiable claim? If that's true, what are all these atheist philosophers of religion doing with their lives? I guess I should email them all and tell them they're wasting their time..they're going to be so disappointed

Anyway, searching the entire universe for God is futile anyway, as God is necessarily not spacetime-dependent.

As for the Abraham question, there's a lot of undue assumptions there. The most important one is thinking that faith includes blindly following commands which seem to come from God, no questions asked (it most certainly does not). Many would say that such a command could not possibly come from God (or if it did, God would not intend for it to actually be carried out).

Now you're probably going to bring up the Abraham/Isaac account in genesis again; however many christians (and jews, for that matter) view this simply as a parable, the point of it being that God is more important than anything else. Perhaps also this parable was inspired by God to be written as an intellectual test for the readers, with the correct answer being "No, I would not do such a thing. Such a command, although it may seem to come from God, never could. That's contrary to God's nature."

[Handcuffed]

Whoa, hold on a second there...the existence of gods is an inherently unfalsifiable claim? If that's true, what are all these atheist philosophers of religion doing with their lives? I guess I should email them all and tell them they're wasting their time..they're going to be so disappointed

It is not empirically falsifiable (capable of being tested by experiment or observation[http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/we ... alsifiable]), no. That does not mean the existence of gods cannot be argued.

As for the Abraham question, there's a lot of undue assumptions there. The most important one is thinking that faith includes blindly following commands which seem to come from God, no questions asked (it most certainly does not). Many would say that such a command could not possibly come from God (or if it did, God would not intend for it to actually be carried out).

The way I meant it was that she somehow knew for certain (it's a theoretical, not a pragmatic, question) that God would interfere if she sacrificed Isaac. The question is, then, if she has enough faith in the existence of God. I know the Abraham and Isaac narrative may not have been the best narrative, since the question there seems to be whether God is just enough to stop the sacrifice. But I'm not arguing semantics or Biblical interpretation.

[Alliteration]

It is not empirically falsifiable

That's not what you said before. I agree that God is not empirically falsifiable - but so what? That seems a bit irrelevant.

The way I meant it was that she somehow knew for certain (it's a theoretical, not a pragmatic, question) that God would interfere if she sacrificed Isaac. The question is, then, if she has enough faith in the existence of God.

In that case, it's an even sillier question, as our beliefs are not the only things that motivate us to act.

For an example, imagine you're in a gas station and 3 men come in armed with AK-47s. One of them proceeds to aim at a small child, and says he'll shoot unless someone physicslly stops him. Now, even if you are completely, 100% confident that trying to stop him is the right thing to do, your fear and self-preservation instincts might still stop you. Does this mean that you're not so sure of your position after all? Of course not! It just means that there are factors other than your beliefs driving your actions.

[Handcuffed]

It is not empirically falsifiable

That's not what you said before. I agree that God is not empirically falsifiable - but so what? That seems a bit irrelevant.

What did you think I meant? That's always the definition I've heard.

The point I was making implicitly was that there is no certain way for Shell to ever discard her faith, because it is an unfalsifiable claim. On the other hand, show an atheist a god, and, assuming he/she believes that it is real, atheism has been falsified.

The way I meant it was that she somehow knew for certain (it's a theoretical, not a pragmatic, question) that God would interfere if she sacrificed Isaac. The question is, then, if she has enough faith in the existence of God.

In that case, it's an even sillier question, as our beliefs are not the only things that motivate us to act.

For an example, imagine you're in a gas station and 3 men come in armed with AK-47s. One of them proceeds to aim at a small child, and says he'll shoot unless someone physicslly stops him. Now, even if you are completely, 100% confident that trying to stop him is the right thing to do, your fear and self-preservation instincts might still stop you. Does this mean that you're not so sure of your position after all? Of course not! It just means that there are factors other than your beliefs driving your actions.

That's a completely irrelevant analogy. A more fitting one would be whether you'd be willing to gamble the child's life on the assumption that the sun will rise the next day. If Shell's belief in God is as unwavering as she claims, she should not hesitate to sacrifice Isaac, just as I would not hesitate to risk the child's life on the assumption that the sun will rise.

[Alliteration]

The point I was making implicitly was that there is no certain way for Shell to ever discard her faith, because it is an unfalsifiable claim.

"Unfalsifiable" and "empirically unfalsifiable" are not the same thing. There are other ways of falsifying propositions. Here's an example:

Spoiler: show

Code: Select all

Example 1: Prove the following statement by Contradiction. There is no greatest even integer. Proof: Suppose not. [We take the negation of the theorem and suppose it to be true.] Suppose there is greatest even integer N. [We must deduce a contradiction.] Then For every even integer n, N ≥ n. Now suppose M = N + 2. Then, M is an even integer. [Because it is a sum of even integers.] Also, M > N [since M = N + 2]. Therefore, M is an integer that is greater than the greatest integer. This contradicts the supposition that N ≥ n for every even integer n. [Hence, the supposition is false and the statement is true.] And this completes the proof. (source: http://www.personal.kent.edu/~rmuhamma/ ... amples.htm  

In this example, the supposition "For every even integer n, N ≥ n." is falsified. Nothing empirical here.

That's a completely irrelevant analogy. A more fitting one would be whether you'd be willing to gamble the child's life on the assumption that the sun will rise the next day. If Shell's belief in God is as unwavering as she claims, she should not hesitate to sacrifice Isaac, just as I would not hesitate to risk the child's life on the assumption that the sun will rise.

Now that's just silly. Abraham wasn't "gambling" Isaac's life in any way. My analogy works better because it more directly addresses the issue of what someone would or should do in the situation.