RESOLVED: Christianity is Beneficial to the Individual Man

As the Burden of Proof lies on the opponent, I would be presenting one arguments per round as insurance. As the opponent has failed to some other key terms, I would like to take this opportunity to do so. Beneficial: The quality of having a good outcome from practicing said practices. For the opponent to win this debate, he has to prove to us that Christianity is beneficial for all individuals that practice it, rather than most. For me to win this debate, I would have to state how many, but not all, practitioners of the Christian religion have detrimental results from practicing Christianity. Before we start to observe the disadvantages of the Christian faith and its morality, we must observe firstly that the opponent bases his arguments on the following postulates: Postulate 1. That an afterlife exists. In refuting his first “foundational argument” one would need to observe the following facts; the afterlife is based upon the existence of the soul, and if one can prove that the soul doesn’t exist, then one can prove that the afterlife doesn’t exist. Firstly, the psychological theory that states that soul exists is called psychological dualism; the problem of the soul’s existence is called the mind-body problem. First elaborated, at least formally, by Descartes, this theory is still under intense debate from neurologists, psychologists and philosophers from all over the world. Dualism is easily disproven by the mere fact that the brain, in its entirety, creates consciousness; neurons transmit electronic charges of a certain degree to allow the body to sense, feel, touch etc. This in turn creates consciousness; we are not here, however, to refute this postulate. If the opponent chooses to continue to assume, and possibly defend this postulate, then this case will be continued in the next rounds. Postulate 2. That something being true means it’s more beneficial This postulate is a very dangerous postulate; for example, “there is a mild economic regression in the United States, which goes in hand accordingly with Ron Paul’s predictions. Therefore, we should follow Ron Paul’s political philosophy” is the logic the opponent is trying to use here. And indeed, I do not deny the fact that some of the Bible’s prophecies were true, but the opponent does the classic correlation-causation mistake. If 1/20x of x is true, therefore x is true is an immediately fallacious argument. Apart from this, we are talking about Christianity’s effect on the mortal man, not the immortal, supernatural (possibly) non-existent world. Nevertheless, the truth factor in Christianity does not contribute anything to this debate; a prophecy may be true, but that does not mean the faith supports and engages the mortal man. These postulates establish the basis for a very fallacious argument on the opponent’s side. Indeed, since we are here to talk about Christianity’s benefits towards the individual man, we should not make so many assumptions; these postulates are left unsupported, like a weak pillar to support a very heavy building. Now, I move onto my rebuttal cases: 2R1NRC: On Deaths By Christianity The opponent seems to sketch some arguments for me; “crusaders, Carlists, Catholics, and Christian Murderers” have killed millions of people. But he then states that these aren’t “true Christian” accordingly to the definition. However, this is a false claim. From the opponent’s two fundamental points of Christianity, he does not say anything about killing. In fact, the Crusaders had a more active spiritual life than many other Christians at the time; during a siege in the First Crusade, they charged into victory after seeing the armies of St. John riding and defeating the “Pagan Mob” They thoroughly believed that recapturing the Holy City was a ticket to heaven, and that God spoke to them. The Crusaders prayed more than an ordinary Cardinal, and the opponent seems to accept that a Cardinal is a “true Christian” in this sense. And yes, Christianity has killed millions of people; from the pogrom mobs of the 13th Century to the Rwandan Massacres, Christianity has been the covert cause of killing all over the world. [2] Does adopting a murderous state of mind to respect an entirely peaceful prophet help the Christian cause at all? In its entirety, no; the Christian man, driven by faith to kill, is no safer than an Islamic Fundamentalist. 2R2NRC: Statistics, Probability and Miracles The opponent uses the theory of miracles and cites four personal testimonies; firstly, we have to treat this as if it were a legal case. There are several things that influence a personal testimony. The most important factor effecting testimonial evidence is the memory loss theory; others may be confirmation bias and misattribution. But memory loss is a key intake; a study was done via testimonies of car crash. Studying them, subjects who used the words “crashed” were more likely to say that the windows broke than subjects who used the word “bumped” or “smashed” Take the memory curve theory into account: From a legal perspective; the larger the phenomenon, the more testimonies is needed. Why is this? Say you flip a coin; theoretically, there should be a 50-50 balance between heads and tails. However, there are in some cases that one would get an imperfect balance; for example, when one flips the coin 24 times and receives 18 heads and 6 tails, this is called an outlier. But if we flip the coins 500 times, this would give us what we call “theoretical equilibrium” in which the theoretical expectation is reached. Statistically, for Christianity to have delivered, in a divine manner, many from impending crises, millions of testimonies; valid, real, and confirmation bias free testimonies. In fact, take a look at this following picture: This graph demonstrates a key thing; that people are leaving Christianity for the radical “a-word” alternative; atheism. 20% of the US public, a figure still growing, has become unsatisfied with religion and chose to say “I have no religion” Atheism is on the rise; atheism (including Buddhism, a non-theistic religion) is the 3rd highest religious identity in the world, with 1.15 billion “followers”! This is because Jesus has ceased to become the salvation; there has been a plethora of evidence suggesting the “no-God” theory rather than the “God exists” theory. [3] Although we may see recurring testimonies about religion and its miracles; rational, theoretical, and empirical data is proving otherwise; not to mention the usage of anecdotal evidence fallacy. With this said, I would like to move onto my only argument in this round; the on the Christian concepts of pity and how this weakens the man. 2R1NC: Pity and Christianity To replace the virtues of tiger with a virtue of a sheep is definitely detrimental; for harmlessness and innocence is nothing in the face of pride and honor. Yet Christian ethics destroys the virtues of a lion, and replaces them with a virtue of a sheep. The human aims to be a better human being; the human aims to be more psychologically healthy; the human does not aim to be stuck in the chains of the past, under considerable weights of ignorance and backwardness. But yet this is what Christianity does; it snatches from the people the necessary aggressive virtues, and replaces these with the unbeneficial passive virtues. This argument is mainly based on Nietzsche’s work, the Antichrist. To disarm the people of the negative influencing aggressive virtues is one thing; but to steal the pride and joy away from the people is another. As Nietzsche writes; “Pity stands in opposition to all the tonic passions that augment the energy of the feeling of aliveness; it is a depressant” Nietzsche was not wrong to think this; when one feels sympathy, sadness is also present. When one feels pity, one feels the need to become more harmless, more innocent, and more helpful. Is this natural? Nietzsche raises one example; perhaps the best. He raises the example of the growing secular-thinking scholars in the Renaissance; enlightened, prideful, and honorable. But he then raises other examples of thinkers who have “had their pride and honor disarmed from them” The Dark Ages was an example; the European of the Dark Ages lived in a period of depression and intellectual ignorance. During the Dark Ages, Christianity was often referred to as the “divine doctrine” and questioning it was unneeded. The Christian of the Dark Ages, disarmed of all “sinful” characters, is merely an innocent person who cannot defend himself. How is this not beneficial to the individual person? It is because we have said that we humans have no chance of being good people due to the existence of this concept of original sin, and that we humans must be pitiful. There are two flaws with this; this concept of original sin is such an imaginary concept that the concept of the Flying Spaghetti Monster seems more viable. Secondly, pity is the destruction of human progress; psychologically it makes men depressed and guilty, physically it makes men lose their belongings for a purely imaginary ends. Or in Nietzsche’s own words: We have unlearned something. We have become more modest in every way. We no longer derive man from the “spirit,” from the “godhead”; we have dropped him back among the beasts. Pity thwarts the whole law of evolution, which is the law of natural selection. It preserves whatever is ripe for destruction; it fights on the side of those disinherited and condemned by life; by maintaining life in so many of the botched of all kinds, it gives life itself a gloomy and dubious aspect. We should not deck out and embellish Christianity: it has waged a war to the death against this higher type of man[1] Citations: [1] the Antichrist, Nietzsche [2] . http://www.truthbeknown.com... [3] . http://en.wikipedia.org...