Instigator / Con
9
1702
rating
574
debates
67.86%
won
Topic
#471

Islam is a religion of peace. (I am against)

Status
Finished

The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.

Winner & statistics
Better arguments
3
3
Better sources
4
4
Better legibility
2
2
Better conduct
0
2

After 2 votes and with 2 points ahead, the winner is...

Moeology
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
4
Time for argument
Three days
Max argument characters
30,000
Voting period
One month
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Open
Contender / Pro
11
1511
rating
3
debates
50.0%
won
Description

No information

Criterion
Con
Tie
Pro
Points
Better arguments
3 point(s)
Better sources
2 point(s)
Better legibility
1 point(s)
Better conduct
1 point(s)
Reason:

RFD in comments:

https://www.debateart.com/debates/471?open_tab=comments&comments_page=1&comment_number=80

Criterion
Con
Tie
Pro
Points
Better arguments
3 point(s)
Better sources
2 point(s)
Better legibility
1 point(s)
Better conduct
1 point(s)
Reason:

"War will exist as long as any community desires to impose its will on another community more than it desires peace. Coercive men see only slaves and rivals in the world. If the meek refuse war to defend themselves against coercion, then they deserve to be slaves. Peace-lovers can only have what they love by being better at what they hate than those who love war. There is no road to peace that does not pass through war." -Orson Scott Card, Hidden Empire
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First off, I would have preferred a better setup (description). For example, who has BoP is something worthy of debates itself, so clarifying in the debate setup would have (hopefully) avoided the debaters needing to spend so long off topic on it. Or both debaters pulling the same dictionary for the same word, somehow in disagreement...

Regarding what counts as the true religion, I will take a side. For anyone to judge this at all, a side must be picked. As of now I am at the start of R2, and since Nazis have been mentioned by both debaters, I'll use them as an example: The person who claims true Nazidom is unrealized, and we should give real Nazidom a try, is clearly up to no good. ... This debate defines Islam as a religion, not as a hypothetical book wholly separate from its followers. Those followers are not solely the result of its teachings, but their lives (and for peace to exist, the lives of those around them) are impacted for better or worse by said teachings.

Rat's example of Christianity's inspirations was a nice double-edged sword. It sets a point of contrast. If inspiring such men of peace is accepted as evidence of a religion of peace, then similar men from Islam would in by the same standard count as evidence of a religion of peace (Moe could have won the debate on this, but chose to drop it).

Similarly Moe's examples of "give zakah" and " pay the prescribed alms" and " until they give the jizya" could have given Rat easy victory (had he picked up the points), as extortion backed with the threat of violence is not peace. With a sword to the throat, the victim certainly won't feel harmony/tranquility, and if the aggressor feels such, they are an inhuman monster.

4:90 (yes, Rat initially used the wrong link). It leading in to a rule against making alliances with non-Muslims was pretty bad (doubly so with frequent use of the word kill). But of course, peace and pacifism are not always the same thing (the crux of Moe's case). What 4:34's opinion of women, was certainly not peaceful (meet mere arrogance with violence...).

Accidental Concessions: I should note that Moe took a huge risk in stating "If Con can prove the existence of any non-peaceful Quranic verse or sahih hadith, then he will successfully negate the resolution" given what had already transpired in the debate. At the same time, Moe caught a pretty damning line in one of Rat's sources (a few more like this would have claimed the source point). Weirdly Moe then went on to outright agree with the crux of Rat's case that Muslims seek fake peace for the sake of oppression... I am befuddled as to why he thought this was victory. Rat wisely countered with Moe's own bit about the Nazis.

"Recall that Muslims are required to emulate and follow the conduct of the Islamic Prophet." While this was used well by showing times Mohammad spared lives, it also opened the door to some really sickening information, but the topic is warfare, not child rape.
"Claims are cheap" under this R2 heading from Moe, he did exactly what was predicted by Rat. It goes back to points such as "like ISIS or justify war with Israel" (which Rat really should have expanded upon more directly. Same with the single mention of the Ottoman Empire). If Sharia law countries (experts at obeying the Koran) are secretly "false Muslims," then true Islam exists no more than true communism, making the resolution false.

Overall this debate strongly implied Islam is more opposed to peace than in favor of it.
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Conduct is not something I thought would play into this, particularly as debaters getting worked on on a topic like this is to be expected, but the line was crossed too many times. Comparing Islam to female genital mutilations was out of nowhere and trying to make the audience queasy with talk of circumcised males harming themselves; it was a very cheap appeal. Just consider the low moment of the debate "Hmm, can't just hurt them, someone offends you via insulting Muhammad or Allah? AYOOOOOOOOOO BEAT THAT BOY 'til he screams for mercy and then slice his head as you do goats for Lols as their body squirms on an annual basis." It left the final round feeling like something other than a continuation of a logic based debate, but instead something I'd expect to see in one of those rap battles.