Basically, your argument on the grammar issue is that Pro made references to Christian theological subjects that you aren't familiar with.
That isn't a grammar issue, that just means you didn't know what he said because you weren't personally familiar with the topic.
I know almost nothing about music. When I vote on "rap battles" on this site, I don't hammer the participants because I didn't understand the rap lyrics. But you seem to be penalizing Pro in this debate because you don't understand his theology. That isn't Pro's fault.
Again, inserting the word "claim" into the argument is semantics. As I pointed out, Con designed this debate from the ground up to be as difficult as possible for his opponent because he had prior knowledge of what argument his opponent was going to make.
I did not include this in the RFD (to avoid bringing outside knowledge into it), but Con specifically challenged Pro to this debate based on being unhappy that he won a prior debate against a different individual. Con saw his argument in that debate and didn't like it, so he challenged Pro to the "same" debate.
The problem is, this isn't the "same" debate. He carefully changed the title and the description in ways that he knew would make things harder on Pro. Including the word "claim" is one of the semantic ways he did that. Specifically mentioning the dictionary in the description, which he knew his opponent would do, is another way. This whole debate was carefully set up by Con merely because he wanted to spend the entire debate shouting down at Pro for using the dictionary, and that is exactly what he did.
But he, by his own admission, never said God doesn't exist. Which means he never directly challenged the "claim" being made by Pro. He nitpicked reasons why he personally doesn't like Pro's argument, but those reasons are a 'No True Soctsman' fallacy at best, and just childish bickering at worst, so he still failed to make any actual argument on his own behalf or against the "claim" made by Pro.
And Ramshutu, while I respect your right to make your own decision about who "won" the arguments, I have to agree with Wylted that your 'Grammar & Spelling' vote was not fair in this case.
The "examples" you gave of supposedly "incoherent" passages from Pro's argument were not at all incoherent. I clearly understood what he wrote and recognized it as common examples of Christian theology.
Conversely, your own RFD had grammar and structure errors. Why were there unnecessary line breaks in the middle of several paragraphs?
For example;
"...what he has mainly done, is gone to great lengths to show people [unexplained line break]
Define God in a particular way..."
"...as the definitions themselves were mostly undisputed in this way, the sources presented had little [unexplained line break]
Material value to the debate."
I don't expect you to type up your RFD as if it was going to be published in the New Yorker, but it really isn't fair to pounce on a debater for minor grammar errors when you make similar mistakes yourself.
If Con doesn't "claim" that the Christian God doesn't exist, then he has no real criticism of Pro's "claim" that He does exist.
It would be as if I said "I'm not saying your wrong... but your wrong!"
Inserting the word "claim" into the argument as a way to avoid burden of proof is just semantics. (Which is further proof of the "bad sportsmanship" which I also pointed out.)
None of which justifies the fact that Con still spent the whole debate complaining about the dictionary while saying nothing about God.
I wish the character limit on this debate had been higher, because there were a lot of topics in here that could have been hashed out and examined in a lot more depth. The global warming suicide chain idea is something that could have been attacked or promoted a lot of different ways and there just wasn't room in this debate for it.
Either way though, I hope Wylted is still happy with the outcome of the debate, because he likes interesting topics and this one was surely interesting at the least!
Oh, and I did want to try to cram all the points into my RFD, but like I said, character limit bit me there too. Hopefully I didn't glaze over anything critical.
My RFD would have been even longer, but apparently even RFD's have a character limit.
This was a completely fair vote. If the question is legitimately intended to be "would society be better if Wylted was dead" then Pro failed to prove that it would be. Con had effective rebuttals for the insurance money scam idea at the very least, and cast sufficient doubt on everything else to make the overall claim come up short.
I'll definitely look everything over one more time and vote when I can. One quick question though; In the last round Pro put his whole argument in a quote? Was all of that quoted from elsewhere or...?
I'm starting to consider a mathematical equation to determine who should be blocked. X = (number of forum posts). Y = (number of debates participated in multiplied by 100). If X is greater than Y, I add you to my block list. Math is a fair way to make decisions, right?
It was recently explained to me that blocking people is a form of "punishment" on this site... apparently...?
And after giving it some consideration, I feel I need to reserve my "punishments" for those who are truly deserving. And nothing you have ever done in your life is anywhere nearly as bad as the guy I just recently "punished" by adding him to my block list.
So as a matter of principle, I feel I must unblock you. Congrats.
But point being, this is still supposed to be a debate on the existence of God.
If you were a Christian debating another Christian on the doctrine of Sola Scriptura, then the type of argument you are trying to structure would make an incredible amount of sense.
But when you are an atheist trying to prove that God doesn't exist, claiming that the entity you don't believe in won't allow himself to be defined by anything other than a book he supposedly didn't write which doesn't even include a definition anyway... is a needlessly convoluted way of saying you just don't believe in God.
We all know that you don't believe in God. But that isn't a convincing argument in an of itself. It comes across as more of a "Nitpick" strategy;
http://www.flamewarriorsguide.com/warriorshtm/nitpick.htm
Oh, and the description also doesn't specify which side Pro and Con take on this debate. So the person accepting the debate has no way of knowing which hero they are advocating for.
He is saying your debate description ("no upfront knowledge about the other") is effectively preventing Batman from using one of his most powerful assets; His intellect, skills as a detective and knowledge base about his common foes.
Batman (depending on which version of him we are talking about) is still a competent fighter even without those assets, but he becomes a significantly less compelling character. You may as well be asking, "Can Captain America beat some random ninja in a bat costume?"
Look at that quote again. I said I was going to cite a book. I also said the author of the book had a critical opinion of Obama. I didn't say that I was going to cite his opinion. From the context of the conversation, a reasonable person would recall that we had been discussing a "definition" of Obama, thus inferring that I intended to cite a "definition" of Obama from the book. The reason to draw attention to the author's opinion was to show that his book is a source which doesn't meet your previously discussed requirement that sources be approved by Obama himself.
But all of that is aside from the real point here. This was only a hypothetical situation which I brought up because I'm trying to get you to elaborate on your position regarding the applicability of sources during a debate.
As you know, this is a debate over the existence of [the Christian] God. So far however, I've heard little said about God, and mostly a lot of debate over Merriam Webster. I'm starting to think we should hold a debate on the existence of Merriam Webster.
In the debate description, you say "the god in question can only be defined by the Christian bible."
In the first round of the debate you said, "The Christian bible does not give any definition of the Christian god."
So basically you have set up a debate where the primary subject of the debate cannot ever have a definition, because the only source you will accept as valid supposedly doesn't provide a definition, based upon your own claim.
It also seems like you are indirectly arguing in favor of the principle of Sola Scriptura, which is a rather odd angle for an atheist to take.
Hold on, you are jumping ahead. We aren't citing opinions, we are trying to "define" Obama.
Now, you seem to be saying that you would only accept "definitions" of Obama if they came from Obama himself, or a source with which Obama has personally agreed, such as his wife.
I'm asking, if I were to cite an expert political source from a book that provides a "definition" of Obama, but was from a source that Obama himself wouldn't personally agree with, how would you respond?
But you would insist that any source used to "define" Obama be 'Obama-approved' in some way? As in, you wouldn't let me cite a book by another author who had a negative opinion of Obama?
Obama wrote a memoir, right? So Obama gave us a book that "defines" who he is... (sort of...?)
But if we were having a debate about Obama, would you scold me if I looked up "African American" in the Dictionary, insisting that only Obama's memoir could be used as a source?
Armoredcat, I'm trying to answer your question, but I'm also trying not to be too blunt/direct about it, because (unlike another user who is neither you or I) I make my best effort to follow the code of conduct and I want the moderators (who have told me that they intend to deal with this shortly) to understand that I'm not the instigator of the situation, nor am I trying to retaliate against anyone.
The reason I'm telling you about this other user is because you have already seen his activity on this page, and I want you to understand that I block people when I feel it is in my own best interest to minimize my contact with them. I cannot elaborate further than that, at this time.
If you don't feel that you did anything wrong, then it is entirely possible that you didn't. I would suggest just leaving it at that.
Armoredcat, I didn't say you insulted me. But just a quick look at some of the other comments here would easily reveal the person that I am talking about.
Regardless, if someone blocks you, the logical conclusion is because they don't want to talk to you. So why chase after that person and follow them around demanding answers? If someone has you blocked, leave them be. It isn't like it harms you at all.
I'm glad you spotted the Dawkins citation in particular. One criticism I've received on this argument in the past is that a lot of the sources are "conservative" in nature, but I actually do strive to show that people on many sides of the political spectrum had legitimate criticism of the way Ahmed's case was handled. It isn't a one sided issue.
Armoredcat, ask yourself this; How did you even know someone blocked you, unless you tried to send them a message that failed to go through? So obviously, you must have done a little more than what you say... and when you follow someone around demanding to know why they blocked you (or insulting them for blocking you) that really should be an explanation in itself for why they blocked you.
And as I told Con in our other debate, I treat things that happen in a debate as things which were said with the explicit goal of winning. I don't plan to hold any grudges for anything said during a debate. But if Con feels like I was being a jerk and wants to bitch me out for it, he is more than welcome to contact me via a PM and I'll likely offer an apology. I would just prefer to avoid further discussion in the comments, due to the aforementioned "haunting" I'm currently dealing with...
Not sure what time zones everyone else is in, but for me the period when the site was down was around 9pm at night, and the deadline for Con to post his argument was at approximately 9am the next morning. There there was at least a 12 hour break in between when the site was down and when he needed to post.
Plus, he didn't actually miss the deadline. He responded in time and got his post up.
And you are right, being tired, busy or otherwise distracted in real life are valid excuses. But that brings us back to the fact that he was actually posting on other parts of this site, not busy elsewhere.
If he had contacted me and politely said, "Hey, I'm out of time and I don't think I can post a good argument, can you cut me some slack?" I would have been open to that for sure.
But he insisted that he won... sooo... eh? *shrug*
Anyway, if you want to hit me up via a private message I would be happy to discuss this with you further... or not at all. Entirely up to you.
I'm not going to chase you halfway across the internet to give you the "option" of "talking" to me, because I'm not emotionally invested in an internet debate website.
Wylted, I just want to let you know that I don't have any hard feelings against you. A debate is a debate and people say things with the explicit goal of winning. I treat what happens in a debate (or in a game of forum mafia, etc.) as separate from everything else.
From what I've seen of you, you seem like an interesting person and someone who has plenty of your own matters to concern yourself with aside from some petty debate on the internet. I accepted this debate originally because it seemed like an amusing topic to debate that was different from a lot of the repetitive stuff other people on this site tend to debate over and over again. The goal was not to be a dick and piss you off.
There are a few folks on this site with very petty grudges against me which they have formed for very silly reasons, after knowing me for barely more than a day. I tried talking to them and they made it pretty clear that my option was to change my opinions to agree with them or they would continue to come after me until I did. As such, I added them to my block list and I no longer waste my valuable time engaging them.
If you want to be pissed off at me over something said in a debate, alright, I can't stop you from feeling that way. But don't just blindly jump on the first "Anti-Raltar" bandwagon which comes along. Other people have told me good things about you, and I think you can choose to be better than this.
Bias in three different courts? Alright, man, if that is what you want to run with... yeah, I guess there is an immeasurably small possibility that an entire school district, an entire police department and the federal court system (including judges appointed by democrats) are all so heavily biased against Muslims, yet so simaltaniously short sighted, that they engaged in a massive conspiracy to get one Muslim kid with a plagiarized clock kicked out of his high school. Obama was probably in on the whole thing too. It was an inside job, just like 9/11 and the Roswell landing..... or maybe a bad kid got kicked out of school for lying about a clock. I'm sure it is whichever of those possibilities is less absurd.
I never said it would apply to a large number of women. But if your counter argument is that we should ignore the small number of cases where your argument has a flaw, then that seems like an inverse ad marjoram fallacy. And besides, how long does it take a castrated iPhone slave to earn a million dollars anyway? I doubt they could earn that amount even if they remained enslaved for the rest of their life. As I said, I'm personally pro-life and conservative, but when we start talking about million dollar fines, castration and ignoring a certain percentage of the population because designing public policy for them is too hard, I think we may have missed the point of being pro-life in the first place. What ever happened to being against abortion just because killing people is wrong?
If a Muslim can become the valedictorian of the school, it becomes extremely unlikely that there is a bias against Muslims in the school. You also have to consider the other evidence alongside this. Ahmed had a known history of bad behavior and lied about the clock. His father has political and financial motives. In court, his lawyers were unable to produce even the tiniest amount of evidence and all of their cases were thrown out. Each of these is a small stone on it's own, but taken together they become a mountain of evidence against Ahmed. On the other side of the argument we have... nothing.
What if the woman was already wealthy before the pregnancy and considered the money to be of less value than the opportunity to not be pregnant? I'm pro-life personally, but the idea that you can bribe people to prevent abortions seems like a weak argument to me.
So, even if Ahmed is the only student in history who has ever had the police called after misbehaving in class (an unlikely possibility), we still have to evaluate the motive for why that took place. Con refuses to discuss motive, but the facts I have cited prove that Islamophobia was not to blame. And as Con is unable to provide any other explanation, there is a serious logical disconnect in his claims.
Plus, I cited the school valedictorian who is also a Muslim woman and she stated that there was no bias against Muslims in the school. So if there was any bias at all, it was not Islamophobia.
Except, we don't know or have any statistics available (as Con was unable to provide any sources) regarding how many disciplinary incidents result in police involvement. Plus, even if "discrimination" (based on a very broad and generic definition) may have taken place, it hasn't been established if it was caused by any bias against Ahmed, because Con refuses to discuss that. Lastly, if there was "discrimination" then why were Ahmed's lawyers unable to produce any evidence of such in any of the lawsuits?
That's a fascinating theory... But how do we know that the secret knowledge in question isn't itself a bannable offense which justifies my conduct vote against him? Perhaps he has a sinister plan to dox people via private message?
"This was the worst troll debate in the history of bad troll debates." -Virtuoso
A moderator has already declared this a troll debate. According to the rules, troll debates aren't moderated.
I could have written "Con eats dog lips and drinks kool-aid" as my rationale for voting and it wouldn't matter. The same goes for the votes cast by Declan25 and all other voters. Con aught to be happy that at least some people are treating his debate seriously and giving serious votes. Instead, he wants to argue with and harass everyone who casts a vote he doesn't like, which shows what kind of scheme he is running here.
I would like to point out a few things which were said about this debate in the votes;
"This was the worst troll debate in the history of bad troll debates." (This comment was from a moderator too!)
"This was a horrible debate, and pro should feel bad about himself. If I could have awarded -5 conduct points I would have."
In comparison to comments like these, what I had to say in my vote was downright complimentary!
In spite of that fact, 'Magicaintreal' is still harassing me and has now escalated to sending me unsolicited private messages demanding I talk to him. As such, I'm adding him to my block list and will no longer respond to this comment thread.
Seriously though RM, don't take what I said the wrong way. Usually you are the guy pouncing on the noobs and getting an easy win, but this time you really did some poor noob out there a favor by fighting this trap rather than letting some other person fall into it. And you fought it well. I still think you won on the basis of sources if nothing else.
Basically, your argument on the grammar issue is that Pro made references to Christian theological subjects that you aren't familiar with.
That isn't a grammar issue, that just means you didn't know what he said because you weren't personally familiar with the topic.
I know almost nothing about music. When I vote on "rap battles" on this site, I don't hammer the participants because I didn't understand the rap lyrics. But you seem to be penalizing Pro in this debate because you don't understand his theology. That isn't Pro's fault.
Again, inserting the word "claim" into the argument is semantics. As I pointed out, Con designed this debate from the ground up to be as difficult as possible for his opponent because he had prior knowledge of what argument his opponent was going to make.
I did not include this in the RFD (to avoid bringing outside knowledge into it), but Con specifically challenged Pro to this debate based on being unhappy that he won a prior debate against a different individual. Con saw his argument in that debate and didn't like it, so he challenged Pro to the "same" debate.
The problem is, this isn't the "same" debate. He carefully changed the title and the description in ways that he knew would make things harder on Pro. Including the word "claim" is one of the semantic ways he did that. Specifically mentioning the dictionary in the description, which he knew his opponent would do, is another way. This whole debate was carefully set up by Con merely because he wanted to spend the entire debate shouting down at Pro for using the dictionary, and that is exactly what he did.
But he, by his own admission, never said God doesn't exist. Which means he never directly challenged the "claim" being made by Pro. He nitpicked reasons why he personally doesn't like Pro's argument, but those reasons are a 'No True Soctsman' fallacy at best, and just childish bickering at worst, so he still failed to make any actual argument on his own behalf or against the "claim" made by Pro.
And Ramshutu, while I respect your right to make your own decision about who "won" the arguments, I have to agree with Wylted that your 'Grammar & Spelling' vote was not fair in this case.
The "examples" you gave of supposedly "incoherent" passages from Pro's argument were not at all incoherent. I clearly understood what he wrote and recognized it as common examples of Christian theology.
Conversely, your own RFD had grammar and structure errors. Why were there unnecessary line breaks in the middle of several paragraphs?
For example;
"...what he has mainly done, is gone to great lengths to show people [unexplained line break]
Define God in a particular way..."
"...as the definitions themselves were mostly undisputed in this way, the sources presented had little [unexplained line break]
Material value to the debate."
I don't expect you to type up your RFD as if it was going to be published in the New Yorker, but it really isn't fair to pounce on a debater for minor grammar errors when you make similar mistakes yourself.
If Con doesn't "claim" that the Christian God doesn't exist, then he has no real criticism of Pro's "claim" that He does exist.
It would be as if I said "I'm not saying your wrong... but your wrong!"
Inserting the word "claim" into the argument as a way to avoid burden of proof is just semantics. (Which is further proof of the "bad sportsmanship" which I also pointed out.)
None of which justifies the fact that Con still spent the whole debate complaining about the dictionary while saying nothing about God.
I don't know what that answer means... so I think that means you win.
Who will you get to judge?
Oh, good point! I'll have to remember that for next time.
I wish the character limit on this debate had been higher, because there were a lot of topics in here that could have been hashed out and examined in a lot more depth. The global warming suicide chain idea is something that could have been attacked or promoted a lot of different ways and there just wasn't room in this debate for it.
Either way though, I hope Wylted is still happy with the outcome of the debate, because he likes interesting topics and this one was surely interesting at the least!
Oh, and I did want to try to cram all the points into my RFD, but like I said, character limit bit me there too. Hopefully I didn't glaze over anything critical.
My RFD would have been even longer, but apparently even RFD's have a character limit.
This was a completely fair vote. If the question is legitimately intended to be "would society be better if Wylted was dead" then Pro failed to prove that it would be. Con had effective rebuttals for the insurance money scam idea at the very least, and cast sufficient doubt on everything else to make the overall claim come up short.
Thanks for the vote!
I'm not sure if I've seen the debate you mention in the RFD. I'll have to look it up again to see if that was one I read.
Okay. I figured it was probably something like that and wanted to be sure I understood everything correctly.
I'll definitely look everything over one more time and vote when I can. One quick question though; In the last round Pro put his whole argument in a quote? Was all of that quoted from elsewhere or...?
I'm starting to consider a mathematical equation to determine who should be blocked. X = (number of forum posts). Y = (number of debates participated in multiplied by 100). If X is greater than Y, I add you to my block list. Math is a fair way to make decisions, right?
Yo ArmoredCat!
I've unblocked you!
It was recently explained to me that blocking people is a form of "punishment" on this site... apparently...?
And after giving it some consideration, I feel I need to reserve my "punishments" for those who are truly deserving. And nothing you have ever done in your life is anywhere nearly as bad as the guy I just recently "punished" by adding him to my block list.
So as a matter of principle, I feel I must unblock you. Congrats.
"Humans are incapable of proving that something doesn't exist."
Alright then. Debate over. Lets all go home.
And that sounds like a false equivalency fallacy.
But point being, this is still supposed to be a debate on the existence of God.
If you were a Christian debating another Christian on the doctrine of Sola Scriptura, then the type of argument you are trying to structure would make an incredible amount of sense.
But when you are an atheist trying to prove that God doesn't exist, claiming that the entity you don't believe in won't allow himself to be defined by anything other than a book he supposedly didn't write which doesn't even include a definition anyway... is a needlessly convoluted way of saying you just don't believe in God.
We all know that you don't believe in God. But that isn't a convincing argument in an of itself. It comes across as more of a "Nitpick" strategy;
http://www.flamewarriorsguide.com/warriorshtm/nitpick.htm
It sounds like a 'No True Scotsman' fallacy to me though.
You, as an atheist, said that the Christian God can only be defined by the Bible.
Your opponent, who himself is a Christian, opened up a dictionary and found a definition of God which he feels applies to his God.
And you say that he can't do that... which becomes the 'No True Scotsman' claim.
Oh, and the description also doesn't specify which side Pro and Con take on this debate. So the person accepting the debate has no way of knowing which hero they are advocating for.
He is saying your debate description ("no upfront knowledge about the other") is effectively preventing Batman from using one of his most powerful assets; His intellect, skills as a detective and knowledge base about his common foes.
Batman (depending on which version of him we are talking about) is still a competent fighter even without those assets, but he becomes a significantly less compelling character. You may as well be asking, "Can Captain America beat some random ninja in a bat costume?"
Look at that quote again. I said I was going to cite a book. I also said the author of the book had a critical opinion of Obama. I didn't say that I was going to cite his opinion. From the context of the conversation, a reasonable person would recall that we had been discussing a "definition" of Obama, thus inferring that I intended to cite a "definition" of Obama from the book. The reason to draw attention to the author's opinion was to show that his book is a source which doesn't meet your previously discussed requirement that sources be approved by Obama himself.
But all of that is aside from the real point here. This was only a hypothetical situation which I brought up because I'm trying to get you to elaborate on your position regarding the applicability of sources during a debate.
As you know, this is a debate over the existence of [the Christian] God. So far however, I've heard little said about God, and mostly a lot of debate over Merriam Webster. I'm starting to think we should hold a debate on the existence of Merriam Webster.
In the debate description, you say "the god in question can only be defined by the Christian bible."
In the first round of the debate you said, "The Christian bible does not give any definition of the Christian god."
So basically you have set up a debate where the primary subject of the debate cannot ever have a definition, because the only source you will accept as valid supposedly doesn't provide a definition, based upon your own claim.
It also seems like you are indirectly arguing in favor of the principle of Sola Scriptura, which is a rather odd angle for an atheist to take.
Thanks for the feedback!
Thanks for the feedback!
Hold on, you are jumping ahead. We aren't citing opinions, we are trying to "define" Obama.
Now, you seem to be saying that you would only accept "definitions" of Obama if they came from Obama himself, or a source with which Obama has personally agreed, such as his wife.
I'm asking, if I were to cite an expert political source from a book that provides a "definition" of Obama, but was from a source that Obama himself wouldn't personally agree with, how would you respond?
But you would insist that any source used to "define" Obama be 'Obama-approved' in some way? As in, you wouldn't let me cite a book by another author who had a negative opinion of Obama?
Brutal, Let me ask you this;
Obama wrote a memoir, right? So Obama gave us a book that "defines" who he is... (sort of...?)
But if we were having a debate about Obama, would you scold me if I looked up "African American" in the Dictionary, insisting that only Obama's memoir could be used as a source?
Armoredcat, I'm trying to answer your question, but I'm also trying not to be too blunt/direct about it, because (unlike another user who is neither you or I) I make my best effort to follow the code of conduct and I want the moderators (who have told me that they intend to deal with this shortly) to understand that I'm not the instigator of the situation, nor am I trying to retaliate against anyone.
The reason I'm telling you about this other user is because you have already seen his activity on this page, and I want you to understand that I block people when I feel it is in my own best interest to minimize my contact with them. I cannot elaborate further than that, at this time.
If you don't feel that you did anything wrong, then it is entirely possible that you didn't. I would suggest just leaving it at that.
No biggie. I think this debate kinda got derailed by all the drama in the comments anyway.
Armoredcat, I didn't say you insulted me. But just a quick look at some of the other comments here would easily reveal the person that I am talking about.
Regardless, if someone blocks you, the logical conclusion is because they don't want to talk to you. So why chase after that person and follow them around demanding answers? If someone has you blocked, leave them be. It isn't like it harms you at all.
Thanks for the feedback!
I'm glad you spotted the Dawkins citation in particular. One criticism I've received on this argument in the past is that a lot of the sources are "conservative" in nature, but I actually do strive to show that people on many sides of the political spectrum had legitimate criticism of the way Ahmed's case was handled. It isn't a one sided issue.
Thank you for the feedback, Ramshutu.
Trolling. Don't feed the trolls.
Armoredcat, ask yourself this; How did you even know someone blocked you, unless you tried to send them a message that failed to go through? So obviously, you must have done a little more than what you say... and when you follow someone around demanding to know why they blocked you (or insulting them for blocking you) that really should be an explanation in itself for why they blocked you.
And as I told Con in our other debate, I treat things that happen in a debate as things which were said with the explicit goal of winning. I don't plan to hold any grudges for anything said during a debate. But if Con feels like I was being a jerk and wants to bitch me out for it, he is more than welcome to contact me via a PM and I'll likely offer an apology. I would just prefer to avoid further discussion in the comments, due to the aforementioned "haunting" I'm currently dealing with...
Not sure what time zones everyone else is in, but for me the period when the site was down was around 9pm at night, and the deadline for Con to post his argument was at approximately 9am the next morning. There there was at least a 12 hour break in between when the site was down and when he needed to post.
Plus, he didn't actually miss the deadline. He responded in time and got his post up.
And you are right, being tired, busy or otherwise distracted in real life are valid excuses. But that brings us back to the fact that he was actually posting on other parts of this site, not busy elsewhere.
If he had contacted me and politely said, "Hey, I'm out of time and I don't think I can post a good argument, can you cut me some slack?" I would have been open to that for sure.
But he insisted that he won... sooo... eh? *shrug*
Agreed. But still, 2 or 3 hours shouldn't have been a prolonged enough time to justify not responding when the argument period was 72 hours long.
The only reason it was brought up was because he claimed that he was unable to respond because the site was down.
So my question became; If the site was down, how was he still able to post on other parts of the site?
There was no other reason to bring it up aside from that.
However, as you can see, issues from other parts of this site "haunt" me on a regular basis.
Anyway, if you want to hit me up via a private message I would be happy to discuss this with you further... or not at all. Entirely up to you.
I'm not going to chase you halfway across the internet to give you the "option" of "talking" to me, because I'm not emotionally invested in an internet debate website.
Wylted, I just want to let you know that I don't have any hard feelings against you. A debate is a debate and people say things with the explicit goal of winning. I treat what happens in a debate (or in a game of forum mafia, etc.) as separate from everything else.
From what I've seen of you, you seem like an interesting person and someone who has plenty of your own matters to concern yourself with aside from some petty debate on the internet. I accepted this debate originally because it seemed like an amusing topic to debate that was different from a lot of the repetitive stuff other people on this site tend to debate over and over again. The goal was not to be a dick and piss you off.
There are a few folks on this site with very petty grudges against me which they have formed for very silly reasons, after knowing me for barely more than a day. I tried talking to them and they made it pretty clear that my option was to change my opinions to agree with them or they would continue to come after me until I did. As such, I added them to my block list and I no longer waste my valuable time engaging them.
If you want to be pissed off at me over something said in a debate, alright, I can't stop you from feeling that way. But don't just blindly jump on the first "Anti-Raltar" bandwagon which comes along. Other people have told me good things about you, and I think you can choose to be better than this.
Bias in three different courts? Alright, man, if that is what you want to run with... yeah, I guess there is an immeasurably small possibility that an entire school district, an entire police department and the federal court system (including judges appointed by democrats) are all so heavily biased against Muslims, yet so simaltaniously short sighted, that they engaged in a massive conspiracy to get one Muslim kid with a plagiarized clock kicked out of his high school. Obama was probably in on the whole thing too. It was an inside job, just like 9/11 and the Roswell landing..... or maybe a bad kid got kicked out of school for lying about a clock. I'm sure it is whichever of those possibilities is less absurd.
I never said it would apply to a large number of women. But if your counter argument is that we should ignore the small number of cases where your argument has a flaw, then that seems like an inverse ad marjoram fallacy. And besides, how long does it take a castrated iPhone slave to earn a million dollars anyway? I doubt they could earn that amount even if they remained enslaved for the rest of their life. As I said, I'm personally pro-life and conservative, but when we start talking about million dollar fines, castration and ignoring a certain percentage of the population because designing public policy for them is too hard, I think we may have missed the point of being pro-life in the first place. What ever happened to being against abortion just because killing people is wrong?
If a Muslim can become the valedictorian of the school, it becomes extremely unlikely that there is a bias against Muslims in the school. You also have to consider the other evidence alongside this. Ahmed had a known history of bad behavior and lied about the clock. His father has political and financial motives. In court, his lawyers were unable to produce even the tiniest amount of evidence and all of their cases were thrown out. Each of these is a small stone on it's own, but taken together they become a mountain of evidence against Ahmed. On the other side of the argument we have... nothing.
What if the woman was already wealthy before the pregnancy and considered the money to be of less value than the opportunity to not be pregnant? I'm pro-life personally, but the idea that you can bribe people to prevent abortions seems like a weak argument to me.
So, even if Ahmed is the only student in history who has ever had the police called after misbehaving in class (an unlikely possibility), we still have to evaluate the motive for why that took place. Con refuses to discuss motive, but the facts I have cited prove that Islamophobia was not to blame. And as Con is unable to provide any other explanation, there is a serious logical disconnect in his claims.
Plus, I cited the school valedictorian who is also a Muslim woman and she stated that there was no bias against Muslims in the school. So if there was any bias at all, it was not Islamophobia.
Except, we don't know or have any statistics available (as Con was unable to provide any sources) regarding how many disciplinary incidents result in police involvement. Plus, even if "discrimination" (based on a very broad and generic definition) may have taken place, it hasn't been established if it was caused by any bias against Ahmed, because Con refuses to discuss that. Lastly, if there was "discrimination" then why were Ahmed's lawyers unable to produce any evidence of such in any of the lawsuits?
That's a fascinating theory... But how do we know that the secret knowledge in question isn't itself a bannable offense which justifies my conduct vote against him? Perhaps he has a sinister plan to dox people via private message?
Fair enough then. Still, my vote was found to be compliant with the rules. So I would appreciate not being further harassed about it by Pro.
Final point I'm going to add here;
"This was the worst troll debate in the history of bad troll debates." -Virtuoso
A moderator has already declared this a troll debate. According to the rules, troll debates aren't moderated.
I could have written "Con eats dog lips and drinks kool-aid" as my rationale for voting and it wouldn't matter. The same goes for the votes cast by Declan25 and all other voters. Con aught to be happy that at least some people are treating his debate seriously and giving serious votes. Instead, he wants to argue with and harass everyone who casts a vote he doesn't like, which shows what kind of scheme he is running here.
I would like to point out a few things which were said about this debate in the votes;
"This was the worst troll debate in the history of bad troll debates." (This comment was from a moderator too!)
"This was a horrible debate, and pro should feel bad about himself. If I could have awarded -5 conduct points I would have."
In comparison to comments like these, what I had to say in my vote was downright complimentary!
In spite of that fact, 'Magicaintreal' is still harassing me and has now escalated to sending me unsolicited private messages demanding I talk to him. As such, I'm adding him to my block list and will no longer respond to this comment thread.
Seriously though RM, don't take what I said the wrong way. Usually you are the guy pouncing on the noobs and getting an easy win, but this time you really did some poor noob out there a favor by fighting this trap rather than letting some other person fall into it. And you fought it well. I still think you won on the basis of sources if nothing else.