Instigator / Con

vsp2019

1575

rating

debates

100.0%

won

Topic

#790

God is real

Status

Finished

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

Winner & statistics

Better arguments

Better sources

Better legibility

Better conduct

After 3 votes and with 4 points ahead, the winner is...

vsp2019

Tags

Religion

Parameters

Publication date: 04.22.2019 04:27PM
Last updated date: 05.01.2019 04:19PM
Type: Standard
Number of rounds: 5
Time for argument: Twelve hours
Max argument characters: 10,000
Voting period: One week
Point system: Multiple criterions
Voting system: Open

Contender / Pro

Speedrace

1641

rating

debates

65.08%

won

Description

In the first round, I would like you to state which God/Gods you believe in and what are the main reasons for why you believe.

Round 1

vsp2019

04.22.2019 05:30PM

Con

My personal position is that I believe there is no god. Some people would call me atheist, strong atheist, antitheist. I don't care about labels. I am fine with each one of them. I would like to know which God you believe in and what are the main reasons you believe.

Speedrace

04.22.2019 05:42PM

Pro

I believe in the Christian God.

This is mainly because the New Testament is reliable. It has more copies than other historical documents, and every single verse except 11 has been quoted. [1]

Jesus fulfilled over 300 prophecies. [2] If this is true, then it’s quite obviously true that he is divine. If he is divine, then he is God, so why then wouldn’t I follow him?

i also believe simply because it makes sense. With a God, there are no more questions about reality or why stuff happens that doesn’t make sense.

Source:

[1] https://www.focusonthefamily.com/faith/the-study-of-god/how-do-we-know-the-bible-is-true/is-the-bible-reliable

[2] http://www1.cbn.com/biblestudy/biblical-prophecies-fulfilled-by-jesus

Round 2

vsp2019

04.22.2019 07:29PM

Con

I will try and summarise your views here before responding to them

>You believe in the Christian God

because

>The New Testament is reliable. (It has more copies than other historical documents, and every single verse except 11 has been quoted. )

You provide, as evidence, an article[1]. I will summarise the article here.

The article defines reliable as "reliability means something is trustworthy. It can also mean that something is consistently good in its quality."

Reliability, in simple terms, usually refers[2] to something that gives the same result after being used numerous times(eg I used my calculator many times to calculate 2 + 2. I got 4 as answer each time. Therefore my calculator is very reliable). This definition corresponds with the one given in the article so the article is fine, for now.

The article aims to prove the reliability of the New Testament by using these premises:

> "The New Testament contains 27 books"

>"Thousands of complete manuscripts and multiple thousands more fragments available"

>"A number of scholars quoted the New Testament. "

I am assuming here that all these are true and that the article is not misrepresenting anything. Whether or not they actually are, my next point will not be affected.

Even by accepting the premises, these do not indicate that the New Testament is reliable. This is known as the non-sequitur fallacy[3] (When the conclusion does not follow from the premises). Saying that the Testament has been written multiple times and that it has been cited by many scholars does not mean it's reliable. It simply means that many people wrote in it and many people cited it.

To indicate that the New Testament is reliable, PRO will have to indicate how predictions made in the Bible consistently came true.

Just like with my calculator example, by performing calculations and obtaining the right answer every time, PRO has to demonstrate that one can use the New Testament repeatedly and consistently obtain accurate predictions.

There are plenty of evidence to indicate that the New Testament is actually unreliable:

> There are plenty of instances where the New Testament authors disagree with each other:

1. Matthew and Luke disagree who the father of Joseph was

2. Matthew and Luke are the only one who knew of the Virgin birth

I am not a Biblical expert so I can only refer to better sources than me[4]

>There are many textual flaws with the New Testament

Here is a list of videos by Dr. Joshua Bowen[6], an Assyriologist who specialises in Sumerian literary and liturgical compositions, on all the translation issues with the New Testament(I can only cite him because I have no understanding of the old language in these texts while he is among the best there is, in that field)[Links cited in source[6] ]

The second link ,you cited, goes in depth explaining the prophecies Jesus allegedly made. Notice that I use the term "allegedly" here. The reason is because the article does not provide any evidence that Jesus actually did these things, the article just indicate that the Bible says Jesus did these things and that therefore, it must be true.

I will refute that argument("The Bible shows that Jesus did all these extraordinary feats therefore it must be true") by using a reductio ad absurdum[5]

(Take an argument to its extreme to point out why it is not a good argument):

There are 7 Harry Potter books. Each one of them cite Dumbledore. Even more amazing than that, there are three Fantastic Beasts books that also cite Dumbledore. Even better, there is a book written by other authors called "Harry Potter and the cursed child" where Dumbledore is also cited. If you go on certain websites, you can find thousands upon thousands of other authors writing stories about the Great Albus Dumbledore.

To prove that the Bible is true, you need to provide evidence from outside the Bible.

For eg, I recently read Usain Bolt's biography. In it, he talks about beating the World record. To prove that he actually did that, I can provide videos of the race, I can provide eye witness testimonies from all the people in the stadium, I can provide newspaper articles from then indicating that happened. I myself watched it live on tv. I can provide data from the IAAF(the International Track and Field association).

Your article provided nothing like these. It just keeps citing the Bible. Simply citing a book is not enough. You must have external evidence outside of it to prove it.

However, we know that the New testament is flawed and contain many contradictions and inconsistencies(Video links to Dr. Joshua Bowen's works and [4] ). Therefore, this indicates that the New Testament cannot be trusted to make reliable predictions. These prophecies ,that PRO seems to believe Jesus fulfilled, are extraordinary claims. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. PRO failed to provide any.

To conclude my round:

PRO made two main arguments:

> The New Testament is reliable

> Jesus fulfilled many prophecies

I refuted the two evidence they cited.

The 1st one did not actually indicate that the New Testament is reliable. It only showed that it was written by many authors and was cited a lot by scholars.

My rebuttal for this was to explain how, even by accepting everything the article said, I cannot reach the conclusion that therefore the Bible is reliable. Afterwards, I provided examples of authors of the New Testament contradicting each other(I provided links to a compilation of more contradictions). I also provided evidence by an Assyriologist on the textual problems with the New Testament.

The second evidence aimed to explain that Jesus fulfilled many prophecies. I pointed out how the article only uses the Bible as evidence and nothing outside of it. I used a reductio as absurdum to explain the problem with this type of argument. Then I explained that, to prove that the Bible makes accurate predictions, PRO would need to have evidence outside of the texts.

Sources:

[1] https://www.focusonthefamily.com/faith/the-study-of-god/how-do-we-know-the-bible-is-true/is-the-bible-reliable

[2] http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/reliability.html

[3] https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/136/Non-Sequitur

[4] https://infidels.org/library/modern/paul_carlson/nt_contradictions.html

[5] https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/151/Reductio-ad-Absurdum

[6] >> https://youtu.be/al5orakoYqg

>> https://youtu.be/t1HcHAIyGVE

>> https://youtu.be/_K7F89_qDGM

>> https://youtu.be/1PQ9-WRR0tQ

>> https://youtu.be/v5lBaw66OBE

Plenty more videos by Dr. Joshua Bowen(9 parts in total) in the suggestions of those videos.

Speedrace

04.23.2019 03:09AM

Pro

I have a lot of stuff to do and not enough time to post a round, so feel free to extend your arguments.

Round 3

vsp2019

04.23.2019 05:40AM

Con

There is nothing else for me to say.

If I make my case for why I believe there is no God here, you will have too many arguments to respond to. I already provided many rebuttals to your arguments(the God of the New Testament). I do not want to provide too many arguments and then have you not being able to respond to all of them.

I put in my time and effort in reading your arguments and studying your citations.

I hope that you will spend more time reading my rebuttals and respond back with your thoughts.

The reason I believe that your God does not exist is because:

>Many of the accounts in the New Testaments are flawed and/or simply untrue

I made that case already earlier

>Those texts make extraordinary claims(like the prophecies of Jesus you mentioned) and the evidence you provided were not evidence at all. They were just excerpts from the texts.

I refuted them already in the previous round.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence

> You made assertions about Jesus and provided no actual evidence. That which can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.

These may be redundant but there is nothing else for me to say since you provided nothing new.

Here are some sources to scientific problems in the Bible(Both the Old and the New Testament)

Sources:

[1] https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Biblical_scientific_errors

[2] https://infidels.org/library/modern/donald_morgan/

Speedrace

04.23.2019 04:37PM

Pro

To indicate that the New Testament is reliable, PRO will have to indicate how predictions made in the Bible consistently came true.
Just like with my calculator example, by performing calculations and obtaining the right answer every time, PRO has to demonstrate that one can use the New Testament repeatedly and consistently obtain accurate predictions.

This is incorrect. My opponent is pulling qualifications for being reliable out of thin air. The correct procedure is to look at how actual historians verify the reliability of historical documents.

Among others, these are some of the requirements for verifying reliability [1]:

It must be original.
It must be near the date of the event it describes.
Eyewitnesses are better than secondhand, which is better than hearsay.
If many independent sources make the same claim, its reliability increases by a lot.

Another qualification is if the historical document is a personal letter or is informal because that indicates that the author wasn’t writing it with the intention of it being shown to the public.

The New Testament is majorly eyewitnesses, composed a lot by personal letters, and is quite obviously original.

Take a look at this chart. [2] The time span for the New Testament is 25-50 years. The second lowest is FIVE HUNDRED YEARS. Not only that, most amount of manuscripts besides the New Testament is 643. The New Testament has 24,000. The New Testament is far more reliable than the other documents listed, yet it’s the one being questioned?

There are plenty of evidence to indicate that the New Testament is actually unreliable:
> There are plenty of instances where the New Testament authors disagree with each other:
1. Matthew and Luke disagree who the father of Joseph was
2. Matthew and Luke are the only one who knew of the Virgin birth
I am not a Biblical expert so I can only refer to better sources than me[4]

New Testament authors disagreeing with each other proves the Bible’s validity even more. For example, in police cases, cops become more suspicious when two witnesses’ stories match each other perfectly, because it is more likely that they rehearsed it together. The disagreement makes it much less likely that they faked it.

As to the genealogies, there are plenty of explanations. For one, one could be Joseph’s genealogy and the other could be Mary’s. Another explanation is that Joseph had two dads. By the laws of a Jewish marriage, if a husband died, his brother can marry his dead brother’s wife to help her with money or whatever. If this happened to Joseph, it would explain his genealogy. [3]

About the virgin birth one, how is that proof of the New Testament’s unreliability?

>There are many textual flaws with the New Testament

Here is a list of videos by Dr. Joshua Bowen[6], an Assyriologist who specialises in Sumerian literary and liturgical compositions, on all the translation issues with the New Testament(I can only cite him because I have no understanding of the old language in these texts while he is among the best there is, in that field)[Links cited in source[6] ]

Can you provide specific examples? 12 hours is barely enough time to respond, and I can’t watch and respond to a whole video in that time because I have other responsibilities.

The second link ,you cited, goes in depth explaining the prophecies Jesus allegedly made. Notice that I use the term "allegedly" here. The reason is because the article does not provide any evidence that Jesus actually did these things, the article just indicate that the Bible says Jesus did these things and that therefore, it must be true.

I will refute that argument("The Bible shows that Jesus did all these extraordinary feats therefore it must be true") by using a reductio ad absurdum[5]
(Take an argument to its extreme to point out why it is not a good argument):

There are 7 Harry Potter books. Each one of them cite Dumbledore. Even more amazing than that, there are three Fantastic Beasts books that also cite Dumbledore. Even better, there is a book written by other authors called "Harry Potter and the cursed child" where Dumbledore is also cited. If you go on certain websites, you can find thousands upon thousands of other authors writing stories about the Great Albus Dumbledore.

This is a total straw man. The Harry Potter books literally claims to be fiction, so of course it is not counted as real.

To prove that the Bible is true, you need to provide evidence from outside the Bible.

I did, the quotations of it and its extremely large manuscript base is proof of that. Documents like Homer’s Iliad have way less.

Your article provided nothing like these. It just keeps citing the Bible. Simply citing a book is not enough. You must have external evidence outside of it to prove it.

I cited how the New Testament is reliable, which tells us that we can rely on what it says. Until you prove it to be unreliable, then this goes through. You’ve provided no historical opinion saying that you need external sources to prove reliability, you are simply pulling that out of thin air.

However, we know that the New testament is flawed and contain many contradictions and inconsistencies(Video links to Dr. Joshua Bowen's works and [4] ). Therefore, this indicates that the New Testament cannot be trusted to make reliable predictions. These prophecies ,that PRO seems to believe Jesus fulfilled, are extraordinary claims. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. PRO failed to provide any.

Again, I need specific claims from the videos to respond to because you didn’t give me enough time to look at them. Besides that, I believe that it is the DART rules that you actually have to make the claim in the round for it to count, simply citing a source is not enough.

Sources:

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_method
[2] https://www.christianevidence.net/2017/10/is-bible-reliable.html
[3] https://zondervanacademic.com/blog/why-are-jesus-genealogies-in-matthew-and-luke-different/

Round 4

vsp2019

04.23.2019 06:20PM

Con

This is incorrect. My opponent is pulling qualifications for being reliable out of thin air. The correct procedure is to look at how actual historians verify the reliability of historical documents.

I would like to point out that PRO here is attempting to refute my argument where I was agreeing with their own sources. The argument on what it means for something to be reliable, comes out from that website as well[1].

"Let's first consider the meaning of reliable. In short, reliability means something is trustworthy. It can also mean that something is consistently good in its quality."

Reliability means that it is trustworthy and consistently good in its quality, according to PRO's cited website.

How does this disagree with my definition, that I also cited?

PRO claims that I pulled it out of thin air even though I clearly cited another website where they give the formal definition of reliability[2]. That part was to demonstrate that I agreed with the initial claim of their article. It is strange that PRO would challenge this.

This is incorrect. My opponent is pulling qualifications for being reliable out of thin air. The correct procedure is to look at how actual historians verify the reliability of historical documents.

Among others, these are some of the requirements for verifying reliability [1]:

It must be original.
It must be near the date of the event it describes.
Eyewitnesses are better than secondhand, which is better than hearsay.
If many independent sources make the same claim, its reliability increases by a lot.

I am not arguing against the existence of historical figures. So anything Historians have to say is irrelevant here. I was refuting your original argument:

>"The New Testament is reliable. (It has more copies than other historical documents, and every single verse except 11 has been quoted. )"

My argument was that, to prove that the God of the New Testament is real, PRO would have to show how the article you cited failed to reach their own standards. All the article did was to point out that there were many authors who wrote that book, the New Testament has been published a lot of times and and it has been cited by many scholars. I could agree with everything here and that still does not prove that the New Testament is reliable proof/evidence of your God. The only way it can be reliable is by consistently being right in its predictions. I pointed out the many flaws in the texts to demonstrate the impossibility of its reliability and how it is in fact unreliable.

Another qualification is if the historical document is a personal letter or is informal because that indicates that the author wasn’t writing it with the intention of it being shown to the public.

Whether or not there was a person back then who called themselves Jesus of Nazareth and said they were the Son of God, that is not an extraordinary claim(A lot of preachers back then did that too). So anything historians have to say on historicity is irrelevant. It seems like you forgot the title of the debate. The title is: "God is real" You are for the motion, I am against it. NOT "Did Jesus exist?"

The New Testament is majorly eyewitnesses, composed a lot by personal letters, and is quite obviously original.
Take a look at this chart. [2] The time span for the New Testament is 25-50 years. The second lowest is FIVE HUNDRED YEARS. Not only that, most amount of manuscripts besides the New Testament is 643. The New Testament has 24,000. The New Testament is far more reliable than the other documents listed, yet it’s the one being questioned?

PRO is paraphrasing their own argument again. I will paste my earlier rebuttal here:

> To prove that the Bible is true, you need to provide evidence from outside the Bible.

You keep citing the New Testament to prove the New Testament is true. This is a circular reasoning. To prove the New Testament is true, you need to find evidence outside of it.

New Testament authors disagreeing with each other proves the Bible’s validity even more. For example, in police cases, cops become more suspicious when two witnesses’ stories match each other perfectly, because it is more likely that they rehearsed it together. The disagreement makes it much less likely that they faked it.

There is a massive difference between small differences in eye witness accounts("He had a watch on his left wrist" or "He had a bracelet on his left wrist") and the name of the father or Joseph or where Jesus was born etc. In the police cases example, the eye witnesses only disagree on small details. They would agree on the location of the crime, they would agree on what crime was committed, they would even agree that a crime was committed. They would agree about the approximate time of the crime(Maybe to a couple of minutes differences).

About the virgin birth one, how is that proof of the New Testament’s unreliability?

In the case of the New Testament, Matthew and Luke say that Jesus was a direct descendant of King David since Joseph follows that lineage while the Church says that Jesus was born of a Virgin. Was Jesus descendant of King David as the texts say or a direct Son of God as the church says? Only Matthew and Luke knew of the Virgin birth, the others assume Joseph was the Dad since they say Jesus was "born of the seed of David"[3]. In the link I cited in the initial round, they had a lot more of these largely significant disagreements[4] not a simple variation("He had a red watch" and "He had a red bracelet"). Here is another compilation of the massive discrepancy in the genealogy of Jesus[5].

Can you provide specific examples? 12 hours is barely enough time to respond, and I can’t watch and respond to a whole video in that time because I have other responsibilities.

This would require me to get a degree in Ancient languages and texts so I can answer you. This is why I have no choice but to cite an expert. Even if I was an expert, it would take me time to dissect these examples here. This platform is not appropriate for that. I used these videos because you claimed that the New Testament was reliable. I used these to point out how experts(in this field, experts who study these texts in depth) disagree with you. If you still disagree, bring that up to academics, email the guy or any of his colleagues. I cannot only refer to the experts. If you disagree with academia, that is on you. Figure it out with them.

This is a total straw man. The Harry Potter books literally claims to be fiction, so of course it is not counted as real.

I said right above my analogy that it was a reductio ad absurdum. The point of a reductio ad absurdum is to use your argument to demonstrate something we both know to be false. If the same argument you used can also be used for an absurd example, then your argument cannot sufficiently prove your holy book. I spend time making these arguments and being sure I understand what you are saying. So please do take time in actually understanding my arguments. And do not falsely accuse me of a strawman fallacy when you are the one who missed the mark.

I did, the quotations of it and its extremely large manuscript base is proof of that. Documents like Homer’s Iliad have way less.

You cited authors in the New Testament. You need evidence from outside the New Testament that the New Testament is true.

Hence why I used that Dumbledore example. Harry Potter and the cursed child and Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix were written by different authors. However they both agree that Dumbledore existed. Therefore, Dumbledore existed.

Again, this is a reductio ad absurdum[6].

For eg, Noah's ark is mentioned in Matthew and Luke among others. You cannot just cite these other authors to prove Noah's ark was a real thing. You need to find evidence outside the texs like proof of a flood, proof of a massive ship being used to carry these animals etc... To that I can simply point out to the various flaws in the Noah's Ark story. I will not do it here since I don't know if you even believe in this story. But I can provide evidence against it in the next round, if you believe in it.

Again, I need specific claims from the videos to respond to because you didn’t give me enough time to look at them. Besides that, I believe that it is the DART rules that you actually have to make the claim in the round for it to count, simply citing a source is not enough.

In the first round, you also just cited these websites and barely gave any actual arguments. I had to read through them all before responding. So if that's true, then we both did it. You cannot expect me to dissect ancient languages here and explain to you why they are flawed. Those would require me to get a degree in that field. That's unreasonable of you to expect that of me.

Sources:

[1] https://www.focusonthefamily.com/faith/the-study-of-god/how-do-we-know-the-bible-is-true/is-the-bible-reliable

[2] http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/reliability.html

[3] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/index.php?version=NKJV&search=Romans+1:3

[4] https://infidels.org/library/modern/paul_carlson/nt_contradictions.html

[5] https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Genealogy_of_Jesus

[6] https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/151/Reductio-ad-Absurdum

Speedrace

04.24.2019 03:51AM

Pro

Feel free to extend arguments. I have to go to sleep.

Round 5

vsp2019

04.24.2019 05:07AM

Con

Since PRO forfeited their last round(Second time they forfeited a round in this debate), I can summarise my views here and conclude.

PRO made two main arguments:

> The New Testament is reliable

> Jesus fulfilled many prophecies

I defined the term "reliable" and demonstrated how the evidence ,PRO cited for why the New Testament is reliable, fails to demonstrate that the New Testament is reliable.

Afterwards, I provided evidence for why the New Testament is unreliable(Textual flaws and contradictions) and why we have no reason to believe Jesus ever fulfilled prophecies.

Then PRO forfeited one round.

I summarised my views since I had nothing to respond to.

In the fourth round, PRO essentially made these arguments:

>PRO said that I am making up the definition of reliable

>PRO made historicity arguments

> PRO said that the authors of the Bible disagreeing with each other only proves the Bible even more. Police case analogy where witnesses with too similar accounts look fishy

> PRO accused me of disrespecting the rules by citing videos rather than posting the arguments here. PRO also added that they cannot have the time to watch all that

My rebuttals to each point were:

> I cited PRO's own articles to define reliability and I provided a link to a formal definition of reliability that proved that the website PRO cited was right. I was agreeing with the article PRO cited.

> I pointed out that this debate is titled "God is real" not "There was a Jesus of Nazareth". Historicity arguments are irrelevant here

> I pointed out that the differences in eye witness testimonies are in the details. The contradictions in the Bible are very significant. If one eye witness said a crime was committed in Seattle and the other said it was committed in LA, we would not say "These accounts differ therefore they must be right"

>I explained that I am not an expert on Ancient Texts and, for me to explain it, I would have to get an actual degree on this. For this debate, it is unreasonable to expect that of me. I can only cite what the academia say. PRO should consider emailing the experts and arguing with them. I found someone

Conclusion:

I have provided ample reasons for why the New Testament is unreliable

PRO has not provided any further reasons to indicate that Jesus fulfilled any prophecy. PRO only used evidence from within the Bible to prove that. I explained the problem with using the Bible to prove the Bible is true. That is called circular reasoning, as I mentioned in the previous round.

PRO followed by forfeiting their last round

So PRO forfeited their rounds twice in this debate.

Since they forfeited their last round as well, I cannot respond to any push back they may want to bring forward.

When agreeing to the debate, PRO knew of the time limit.

I believe that, by showing all the flaws in the New Testament and by pointing out its contradictions, it is then a logical consequence that the God ,that PRO believes in, does not exist. Their texts disagree with reality therefore their texts can only be wrong.

I would like to thank PRO for accepting to participating in this debate.

Speedrace

04.24.2019 04:19PM

Pro

#10

Since PRO forfeitedtheir last round(Second time they forfeited a round in this debate), I can summarise my views here and conclude.

Not sure what you expected when you made the argument time 12 hours lol

I will now rebut my opponent’s Round 4.

I would like to point out that PRO here is attempting to refute my argument where I was agreeing with their own sources. The argument on what it means for something to be reliable, comes out from that website as well[1].

Reliability means that it is trustworthy and consistently good in its quality, according to PRO's cited website.
How does this disagree with my definition, that I also cited?

My opponent is straw-manning my argument. I never disagreed with this definition, but I did disagree with the process through which a document’s reliability is determined. I cited sources showing this process; my opponent did not.

PRO claims that I pulled it out of thin air even though I clearly cited another website where they give the formal definition of reliability[2]. That part was to demonstrate that I agreed with the initial claim of their article. It is strange that PRO would challenge this.

My opponent again straw-mans my argument. I never said that he pulled the definition out of thin air; I said he pulled the process out of thin air, because he did.

I am not arguing against the existence of historical figures. So anything Historians have to say is irrelevant here. I was refuting your original argument:

Historians are the ones who determine the reliability of historical documents, not you.

My argument was that, to prove that the God of the New Testament is real, PRO would have to show how the article you cited failed to reach their own standards. All the article did was to point out that there were many authors who wrote that book, the New Testament has been published a lot of times and and it has been cited by many scholars. I could agree with everything here and that still does not prove that the New Testament is reliable proof/evidence of your God.

That is incorrect. As I showed, all of these are the qualifications for a document to be proved to be reliable.

The only way it can be reliable is by consistently being right in its predictions.

That is incorrect. Nowhere in your argument have you cited real evidence of this.

I pointed out the many flaws in the texts to demonstrate the impossibility of its reliability and how it is in fact unreliable.

No, you gave a video, but I explained that I barely have enough time to respond, let alone watch a whole video. You never gave the actual arguments for that, so it doesn’t count.

Whether or not there was a person back then who called themselves Jesus of Nazareth and said they were the Son of God, that is not an extraordinary claim(A lot of preachers back then did that too). So anything historians have to say on historicity is irrelevant. It seems like you forgot the title of the debate.

The history shows that these people genuinely saw Jesus rise from the grave.

The title is: "God is real" You are for the motion, I am against it. NOT "Did Jesus exist?"

Jesus is God, that was my point.

PRO is paraphrasing their own argument again. I will paste my earlier rebuttal here:

You keep citing the New Testament to prove the New Testament is true. This is a circular reasoning. To prove the New Testament is true, you need to find evidence outside of it.

I did, by showing the accuracy of the New Testament.

There is a massive difference between small differences in eye witness accounts("He had a watch on his left wrist" or "He had a bracelet on his left wrist") and the name of the father or Joseph or where Jesus was born etc. In the police cases example, the eye witnesses only disagree on small details. They would agree on the location of the crime, they would agree on what crime was committed, they would even agree that a crime was committed. They would agree about the approximate time of the crime(Maybe to a couple of minutes differences).

Yes, and that is what happened with the New Testament authors.

In the case of the New Testament, Matthew and Luke say that Jesus was a direct descendant of King David since Joseph follows that lineage while the Church says that Jesus was born of a Virgin. Was Jesus descendant of King David as the texts say or a direct Son of God as the church says? Only Matthew and Luke knew of the Virgin birth, the others assume Joseph was the Dad since they say Jesus was "born of the seed of David"[3]. In the link I cited in the initial round, they had a lot more of these largely significant disagreements[4] not a simple variation("He had a red watch" and "He had a red bracelet"). Here is another compilation of the massive discrepancy in the genealogy of Jesus[5].

Again, I barely have enough time to respond, let alone look at an article.

This would require me to get a degree in Ancient languages and texts so I can answer you. This is why I have no choice but to cite an expert. Even if I was an expert, it would take me time to dissect these examples here. This platform is not appropriate for that. I used these videos because you claimed that the New Testament was reliable. I used these to point out how experts(in this field, experts who study these texts in depth) disagree with you. If you still disagree, bring that up to academics, email the guy or any of his colleagues. I cannot only refer to the experts. If you disagree with academia, that is on you. Figure it out with them.

You say yourself that you don’t have time to dissect this evidence, yet you expect me to? That’s called hurling the elephant, and that is dishonest debating.

I said right above my analogy that it was a reductio ad absurdum. The point of a reductio ad absurdum is to use your argument to demonstrate something we both know to be false. If the same argument you used can also be used for an absurd example, then your argument cannot sufficiently prove your holy book. I spend time making these arguments and being sure I understand what you are saying. So please do take time in actually understanding my arguments. And do not falsely accuse me of a strawman fallacy when you are the one who missed the mark.

This is incorrect. The argument I used cannot be applied to the Harry Potter series because it literally says it’s fiction. The Bible doesn’t. That is an incorrect reductio ad absurdum.

You cited authors in the New Testament. You need evidence from outside the New Testament that the New Testament is true.

Again, I cited multiple sources showing why the New Testament is reliable. You’ve cited no sources about your method of determining reliability, while I have.

Hence why I used that Dumbledore example. Harry Potter and the cursed child and Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix were written by different authors. However they both agree that Dumbledore existed. Therefore, Dumbledore existed.

Again, this is a reductio ad absurdum[6].

No, it is not, because that series claims to be fiction, which cancels that out.

For eg, Noah's ark is mentioned in Matthew and Luke among others. You cannot just cite these other authors to prove Noah's ark was a real thing. You need to find evidence outside the texs like proof of a flood, proof of a massive ship being used to carry these animals etc... To that I can simply point out to the various flaws in the Noah's Ark story. I will not do it here since I don't know if you even believe in this story. But I can provide evidence against it in the next round, if you believe in it.

I am not arguing for Noah’s ark.

In the first round, you also just cited these websites and barely gave any actual arguments. I had to read through them all before responding. So if that's true, then we both did it. You cannot expect me to dissect ancient languages here and explain to you why they are flawed. Those would require me to get a degree in that field. That's unreasonable of you to expect that of me.

All that I asked is that you cite examples of the arguments made in the video. You failed to do so.

David

04.30.2019 03:19AM

#12

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@RationalMadman

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>Reported Vote: RM // Mod action: Not Removed
>Points Awarded: Tied.
>Reason for Mod Action: Votes which do not award points are not subject to review because no standard exists in the COC against by which they can be removed.
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bsh1

04.28.2019 08:56PM

#11

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@Wrick-It-Ralph

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>Reported Vote: Wrick-It-Ralph // Mod action: Not Removed

>Points Awarded: Tied.

>Reason for Mod Action: Votes which do not award points are not subject to review because no standard exists in the COC against by which they can be removed.
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Speedrace

04.26.2019 12:15PM

#10

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@Wrick-It-Ralph

Oh ok lol

Wrick-It-Ralph

04.26.2019 10:37AM

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@Speedrace

I know. But it feels good to type it.

Speedrace

04.26.2019 10:35AM

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@Wrick-It-Ralph

And? Lol everyone knows that

Wrick-It-Ralph

04.26.2019 10:33AM

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@Speedrace

@vsp2019

I believe no gods exist...…………………………………………………...

Speedrace

04.26.2019 10:33AM

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@Ramshutu

I go like 2 huge assignments right after I accepted lol

vsp2019

04.23.2019 06:46PM

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@Speedrace

I would like to point out a typo on my part in the last round and correct it here.

"My argument was that, to prove that the God of the New Testament is real, PRO would have to show how the article you cited failed to reach their own standards. "
I meant for it to say "My argument was that PRO would have to prove that the New Testament is reliable. The article you cited fail to reach even their own standards."

vsp2019

04.22.2019 09:32PM

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@Speedrace

What does that even mean? Lol. I rebutted you and that's it. I did not insult you, I did not make derogatory comments towards you. I don't know what you mean by "hostile". Now it's your turn to respond to me.

Speedrace

04.22.2019 09:27PM

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@vsp2019

I expected you to rebut, but I didn’t expect you to be so hostile and formal

vsp2019

04.22.2019 09:25PM

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@Speedrace

I have no idea what you are talking about. This is a website called debateart, I opened this debate with main theme: God is real, and I took the CON position. Even if this was a discussion, whatever that means, do you think I would just read what you said and never rebut it? You agreed to the debate. Do you think people just come here to discuss with people without challenging each other?

Dude, what are you doing?

Speedrace

04.22.2019 08:32PM

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@vsp2019

Dude, you said this was a discussion, not a debate, what are you doing?

RationalMadman

04.28.2019 11:40PM

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:

Kiss my goddamn ass.

Wrick-It-Ralph

04.28.2019 09:21AM

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:

undecidedly undecided

Ramshutu

04.26.2019 10:31AM

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:

Conduct to con: pro “effectively” forfeited two rounds of argument. While the rounds were 12 hours, it’s incumbent in pro to read the debate configuration before hand.

Arguments

Pro argues the bible is reliable, and that Jesus fulfilled 300 prophecies.

Con points out that there pro has not justified the reliability of the Bible, and points out some examples of unreliability, these on their face seem pretty damning to the reliability of the Bible.

Con points out that the primary justification for Jesus fulfilling 300 prophecies, citing the Bible. Con provides an excellent argument - using Harry Potter and usain bolt autobiography to justify why I shouldn’t consider this validation

Pro starts off by arguing that cons definition of reliability is incorrect, that it should be viewed in terms of a historical document.

While I’m largely sympathetic and agree that the exact definition con uses is not ideal, for “reliability” of the Bible to be justification of a supreme deity - pro must do more than show that it meets basic historical standards.

As a result - pros argument in defense of reliability appears to be more of a set of an excuses as to why the Bible isn’t reliable. It’s either a reliable document or not, factual errors, incongruities clearly undermine that position.

Pro goes on to object to the Harry Potter example as Harry Potter is self professed fiction - which imo misses the point of this argument. Pro drops the usain bolt argument which is far more relevant.

Pro reiterates that the Bible has been cited more than the Iliad. How this proves the Bible is reliable, I am not certain.

Cons rebuttal was to defend the definition as supported by pros sources. He then goes on to separate historicity from the claim of Gods existence.

Con also argues that pros logic is circular - using the bible to prove the Bible.

Con pointed out his Harry Potter example was absurd but intentionally absurd, and pointed out that witnesses of the Bible disagree on major points.

Pros round 4 was largely a set of rejections / there was little in the way of objective rebuttal.

So, the main issue hinges on reliability. Even if I assume everything pro said was correct about historical reliability - it doesn’t establish that a supreme deity exists - as historicity of content and that contents philosophical claims are not the same. Using a reliability scale more into cons position - the Bible clearly doesn’t meet the reliability criteria set out by his source, as shown by con.

Pro did not respond to the issues of predictions and prophecies that con highlighted - and as this debate was setup for pro to have the burden of proof (I would give him benefit of the doubt on the amount of proof he has to provide), the arguments provided clearly are not sufficient to meet it.

As a result: arguments to con.