Allowing same-sex marriage shows that religion is the best way to decide morals.

This is the final round. I'll do my rebuttals and, if I have space, make my closing statement. 1. First off, I gave evidence showing it has changed. Pro's only response is bare assertion of the negative. Second, whether it has contradictions has naught to do with whether it has been changed. That Pro thinks the KJV is "still good", or that the changes are "of no witchcraft" shows a fundamental lack of understanding on his subject. It is rife with what can be charitably called translation. .. differences. [1] And, further, it actually does have quite a few contradictions. [2] 2. This debate is about whether Gay marriage shows religion is the best way to decide morals. It is not necessarily about "movable morals vs. set morals", that's shifting the goal post. Religious morals, as I've already established, are quite movable, and some secular moralities have remained quite unchanged. If Pro can't prove that religion has a better answer to the gay marriage question, then Pro has not supported his assertion. 3. Pro's response to 3 shows he does not know about the French Revolution; he conflates the "Cult of Reason" with the "Cult of the Divine Being". Robespierre's Cult was established expressly against what Robespierre didn't like about the "Cult of Reason", such as the rejection of divinity. [3] 4. Pro here repeats his points from earlier. Who decides the laws of physics? Are they put to a vote? How about the laws of logic? How about the rules of proper and safe food preparation? We can apply our reason to these things and, accepting axioms, reach conclusions. It's funny that Pro brings up a dictator of morality; Pro is arguing that he wants a dictatorship over morality; that dictator, to Pro, should be God. As to the Supreme Court: Supreme Court justices are not elected officials. They are appointed for life terms. They are approved by the Executive and Legislative branches, regardless of who's in power in either. In fact, the Supreme Court has ruled against the "majority" on numerous occasions, basing their decisions on Constitutional Law, rather than the preferences of the majority. That's their job. Pro then makes a completely unsupported, nonsensical assertion about abortion that I will disregard for want of substance. 5. Pro's burden here is to establish his case. Calling the two frameworks equal does not establish his case. As to "great things done by religion", Pro gives no examples, so I cannot rebut, I can only dismiss the argument of religion's necessity for these "great things" for want of evidence. 6. I find this quite a bit of hypocrisy. .. A charge of hypocrisy from Pro? Perhaps he should reread what I wrote, instead of what he wanted me to write. The point I was making was simply that the text can be interpreted multiple ways, thus completely negating his argument that it was "set". This doesn't mean the interpretation I presented is necessarily right, it just means that Pro has given no reason that it's not equally valid, thus giving two completely different answers to the same question, and showing that Pro's claim that the morals are "set" to be untrue. I would have tried harder to refrain from snark, had Pro not levied a "hypocrite" charge. But now I think it's well warranted. Perhaps Pro should invest in a dictionary, along with some history books? Oh wait, yes we can. Next verse- And if mischief does follow, you shall take a life for a life. Baby dies, then the guy dies. As previously noted, THAT'S YOUR INTERPRETATION. You can't seem to defend that interpretation except by stamping your foot and asserting it. . .. It is ending the bad family line. That's kinda how Israel lasted for forty years. If you just punish those who did the crime, than the family will become corrupted. So abortion is okay in the case of criminals. Check. Therefore, there are circumstances where abortion is okay. Gotcha. It's worth noting that the Bible doesn't condemn the children of criminals as a general rule for crimes. But it does condemn the unborn. Which would rather imply that even the writers of the bible saw the difference. Oh, and when it says that she did not cry, do you really think they mean literally. It means that it did not burden her heart for what she did. I assume he's referencing my point about giving the death penalty to rape victims. Well, that's just absurd. First "for what she did"? Get raped? Since Pro obviously hasn't read his bible, let's expand that Deuteronomy verse I mentioned earlier: "If within the city a man comes upon a maiden who is betrothed, and has relations with her, you shall bring them both out of the gate of the city and there stone them to death: the girl because she did not cry out for help though she was in the city, and the man because he violated his neighbors wife. " Pro did not support his case on this interpretation except by assertion. I would hope posting the text is sufficient to put the lie to his claim. 7. You just changed everything you said. .. No. I was using your own phrase. You're the one who said "we", I simply repeated using the framework you set up. You said that "If you give society the ability to decide what is right and what is wrong, how can you tell someone something is wrong any more? If we allow gay marriage, what comes after that? Animal marriage to people? Are we going to say no to that? " I said that, since those are completely different, "we" wouldn't. The rationality used to justify one is not valid when used for another. You attempted a slippery slope argument based on your own unsupported equivalence between secular morality and nihilism. And I am very aware of hitler's propaganda with religion. Once again, this is someone using religion, not it itself. The bible goes against it, and since someone did it doesn't make it right. Where, precisely, does the bible "go against it"? Pro has given us no grounds to think that. There is genocide aplenty in the good book. But Pro's case is that religion is the best way to decide morals. Clearly here, religion as they had it was NOT the best way to decide morals. 8. I will read it more when you do. The people who was treated as slaves were war criminals. Nothing more or less. No, they weren't. They were purchased from foreigners. It says it, explicitly. 9. This is a nonsense, irrelevant point. 10. Pro's final point is another nonsensical one, where he claims the Nazis weren't religious, then claims that "school shootings in the past year was done by atheists". He gives no link whatsoever to prove this; I know of no evidence for this. He then says that "by [my] logic, religion and science are both bad". It is Pro's Burden to Prove his case. It is not my job to prove anything except that Pro has not supported the motion that: "Allowing same-sex marriage shows that religion is the best way to decide morals. " It seems I'm out of space. Thank you to my opponent for this debate. To the voters: I urge a vote for Con, as Pro has clearly not established his case. I believe, in fact, that he's not exactly sure what his case is. Is it for "religion", "Christianity", "Pro's Christianity", or "Inflexible morality"? I hope Pro refines his thinking and learns his history, and comes back with a coherent case which he can support. As to the motion on the floor, as written, I shall close by quoting Steven Weinberg: "With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion. " [1] -- . http://www.contenderministries.org... [2] -- . http://www.evilbible.com... [3] -- . http://en.wikipedia.org...