Is Faith a Reliable Pathway to Truth?

Argument from ignorance

Pros argument appears to be that all paths lead to truth: because when you die you get to determine the truth. On its face it seems that pro makes a semantic kritik of the term truth.

I may have been okay with this, but my problem is that Truth pro is talking about appears to substantially conflicts with the one intimated in the resolution - while pro sort of indicates a general intimated meaning of what this truth is; pro doesn’t link this back in to the resolution, or provide a definition that ties in with what con defined. If pro had added this, it may have been okay; but without it, pros argument appears ok it’s dave to be a kritik on its face - and somewhat unclear whether its definition affirms the resolution or not. As a result, I have to award this to con on this grounds.

Gist:
Ultimately a concession, but before that it was frustratingly unclear. This feels a little bit like the warm up ponderings we get in our heads before a debate starts.

1. Opposing Views
It really should not have been pro who brought up “cognitive dissonance,” but once it was mentioned con should have capitalized on it (potentially making a whole point of contention around it)... For con this only really got under way in R2 with the mention of contradicting belief systems introduced by monotheism.

2. Death and Taxes
Pro executed a decent Epistemological argument, that faith leads to death, and in death His Name Is Robert Paulson (this is a Fight Club refence pro did not actually make; he also did not mention taxes, but I suspect that old saying is what he based this K on). Con attempts to dismiss that as not an argument, and claim it included the common Christian torture dungeon threat (which it did not). ... Con then uses short term untruths (he likely should have focused on the destruction factor, that if that’s what’s waiting for us, which we can’t know to be wrong, then in death we will not know anything to include if we were right or wrong).

Regarding the No K rule... Honestly, I’m conflicted if I would call pro’s argument a K or not given that knowledge was the subject of the debate (I kind of think of K’s as out of left field, and this was very much the type of argument to be expected on this topic). Then again, one definition for K I am toying with is arguments which avoid the other person’s argument, so...

3. Reliability
This is what pro conceded on in the end (not that they were wrong, but that their case failed to wholly address this part of the resolution).

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Arguments:
See above review of key points.

Conduct:
Given for concession.

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If doing this again...

Advice to Con:
I would make this argument on two fronts. First religion (front load that popular modern religions contradict each other; such as only 10,000 Mormons get into heaven). Second would be government, as 2+2 should equal 4, but 1984 taught us that in politics it can equal a different number every day if you have faith in the party. The second front is important to make things easy for judges, as grounds the debate in knowable truths. On both, focus on the paths of faith leading to more untruths. ... Also never be afraid to Google a term someone uses.

Advice to Pro:
Before your final sentence concession, I was conflicted as to who won (I would have reread the debate as it was short). I hate ever telling someone not to concede (as way more people should), but don’t make it your first instinct, you’ve got a lot of potential to become a strong debater.

For your arguments, work on expanding things out more.

On this more references to where we could go (IDK, the great bubblegum forest?). Big thing on the current argument would be the time of false beliefs, we might live a hundred years on Earth, but if there’s an afterlife, it can be assumed an average of a million years there knowing truth (against eternity there’s reincarnation which might be fast, and annihilation would be 0 time knowing truth).

Conduct:
I've considered this as a tie, even though I would lean slightly towards Pro. I thought Con was passive-aggressive, but there was nothing particularly unconductful said.

Arguments:
If Kritiks were allowed I could understand Pro's argument. He positions it as no matter what faith you have, it will lead you, reliably, to the ultimate truth (what is actually correct in the end -- be it hell, annihilation, void etc.). However, Con forbade kritiks and I would have to consider this argument as such, because Con provided an example in the description:

Person A: "I believe God exists."
Person B: "Do you have any evidence that God exists?"
Person A: "No, I believe based on faith.

This leads me to believe that truth refers to the veracity of the particular religion; not 'The Truth' conveyed by Pro. Pro ended up conceding the key premise of Con's case in the final round. I would urge Pro to not concede too quickly; if you feel like you are losing continue debating -- it isn't all about who's objectively right, but rather who provided an argument with greater efficacy. Thus, I award arguments to Con.

Sources weren't used, hence tied. S&G is even, hence tied.

Both exhibited poor conduct by lobbing passive-aggressive insults at each other and neither had better arguments than the other.

Therefore I must award a tie.