BeIR/webis-touche2020 huggingface dataset:
The Beginning of the Universe Implies that God Exists

I must confess that I'm having a little difficulty parsing my opponents arguments from the statements that he is making. That being said, there seem to be two lines of argument that he is describing. First is what is called the B-theory of time. This is the theory that temporal duration is illusory. All points on the timeline exist equally and time doesn't really move from point A to point B to point C and so on. As I pointed out in my previous comments, my opponent has given us no reason to think that this theory is true and it flies in the face of our common sense experience of the world. Since my opponent merely asserts the theory again without providing more evidence, there isn't much more that I can say about it. You will need to decide which you find more persuasive, my opponents assertion that temporal duration is illusory or your own experience of time. He also seems to reify "nothing" into "something". He describes the state of affairs from with the universe came as "space lacking matter", an "infinite void", an "empty container", and "radiation". But these are not *nothing*. Nothing is a term of universal negation, meaning not anything. It is nonsense to try and come up with some sort of physical description of "nothing". Imagine if your doorbell rang and you went to answer it only to find no one there. When you got back your spouse might ask, "Who was it?" If you were to answer, "No one," then it would be nonsense for your spouse to reply, "Well what did they want?" In the same way, once we understand that the universe came from nothing, it is nonsense to ask, "Well what is the physical description of nothing?" As I have said before, out of nothing, nothing comes. It is irrational to deny this since "nothing" has no powers, no properties, no potentialities. Even so, we are faced scientifically to face the prospect of a beginning from nothing. In 2003 Arvind Borde, Alan Guth, and Alexander Vilenkin proved that *any* universe that has been, on average, expanding throughout its history cannot stretch eternally into the past. Vilenkin wrote: "It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. With the proof now in place, cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past-eternal universe. There is no escape: they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning."[1] As I have contended in this debate. Whatever begins to exist has a cause, the universe began to exist, and therefore the universe has a cause. This cause must transcend the things it creates, and therefore this cause must transcend space, time, matter, and energy. I have also given an argument for why this cause must be personal. For if this cause were impersonal, then we would expect to encounter an eternally old universe. This personal cause that transcends space, matter, time, and energy is what we are referring to when we use the word "God". Many thanks to you for reading this debate, and to my opponent for his time. [1] Alexander Vilenkin, Many Worlds in One (New York: Hill and Wang, 2006), 176
The Beginning of the Universe Implies that God Exists

In accepting this challenge my first step appears to be identifying the logic for Pro in a square circle. Though the circle and square are two dimensional images, and unique. The addition of square has multiple meanings and is not dictated. A square that is square, and a circle that is square, symbolize a common principle, characteristic, column is one premise that might describe a square circle into three detentions, square. Premise two is that all circles can be describe with a second geometric terminology annulus. This means resembling a ring with no mathematical structure of consistency, relaxed in formation, not square. If this can be demonstrated then square to is achievable through specification. Addressing GOD in relationship to this debate. There is literature which suggests GOD is an axiom "One Nation Under Principle (a guide to the common defence.) Plus there are a number of religious literature, the Bible, Torah, Gandharan Buddhist test, and Qur"an are all in fact written text reasonably suggesting strong evidence to base an argument only on the existence of God as fact. The curve that will be provided by Con to Pro, the Universe does not imply that God exist, God exist in fact because time and space are absolute and neither are created or destroyed and openly violating the law of relativity. It is beyond me to provide all the answers in this debate. The basic idea here will be to expose two absolutes for what they are, Time and Space. They are around us, they are here without any rational logic to support them, and even with us they still rest outside of relativity in full view of us all. Premise one: Time does not move it is motionless and void of all known expression of energy. Premise Two: Space as the absence of matter between all objects in the Universe, the one substance that shares one basic principle of time. It does not move. Cites https://www.merriam-webster.com... https://www.amazon.com... https://en.wikipedia.org... https://www.lds.org... http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org... https://en.wikipedia.org... http://www.thesaurus.com... The argument of debate defined: The glass is neither half full, nor half empty. It is always full whether transparent or opaque.
Gay Marriage

I am one hundred percent for same-sex marriage and always will be. My main argument that I will ALWAYS stand by is that we are all human beings living on Earth together, and at the end of the day we are all equal. If two people are in love, no matter the sex of these two persons, what right, as one human being to another, does anyone have to take this away? Let's just say that being homosexual was the way to be...Would some be against heterosexuals? Would some still oppose homosexuals, though that was the "normal" way of living? There is not a single person that has the right to steal another's chance at happiness, and if happiness means being married to someone of the same sex then so be it. Living in the US, where "Liberty and Justice for all" is repeatedly declared, I find it extremely paradoxical that same-sex marriage is not permitted in every one of the states.
Rights for All sexual orientations

With all due respect, your argument doesn't make sense: Firstly, the deities did write the Holy Books otherwise they're not holy. Secondly, if a deity handicaps a person to punish their parents then why couldn't that same deity make them gay in the first place. This is at least consistent with what deities usual say about H. I think your OP is too weak and not fact based to support your claims. If you can't understand religion in the same way as religious people then you can't use it as an argument.
Rights for All sexual orientations

Well most people are born with arms and legs and a brain, for most people with these ligaments or a muscle in their head, it is up to them to determine how they will use it. Unless there is a birth defect in them that handicaps the child at birth or later on in life then that I guess one would say is an act of the deity to punish his or hers parents. These deities did not tell them anything, man wrote the Bible, Koran, and etc. How can we trust mans word if it lies constantly, we cant, we just cant. Take everything people say with a grain of salt because the underlying fact in this is that man lies and can write anything in a fancy way and say "god made me do it" same thing in regards to if man kills someone. It cannot be an act of god if he says "god made me do it" god (or deities) harming his own children. The creator (god) does not have to be removed. Just the church's of these gods need to conform a little. I am know catholic but I sure as heck think the pope is heading in a right direction in his new papacy. God is good, to an extant that everyone is equal just close minded people who run religion like to brain wash people into thinking that it is wrong.
Rights for All sexual orientations

Well, not all people have arms or legs or even brains; and certainly not everyone has these things in equal strength. We are certainly not clones! That said, you seem to have ignored my original argument; that deities are a non-starter regarding equal rights. They have explicitly ruled against equal rights. So you cannot blame the individual Muslim or Christian for following what their God has told them. It is only through removing God (or most deities) from the equation can you properly conclude that homosexuals have equal rights.
Rights for All sexual orientations

We are all created equal, do others not have a arms or legs or a brain to think. I am a man I have arms, legs and a brain to think. So if we have have these similarities why does it matter whom we choose to share are love with? It doesn't we are created the same through a person or people. We come into this world not knowing how to act or what to think, but we learn how to be a good human. To judge a human on what he or she chooses to love is in-human, to be classified as a homosexual is wrong. The creator (who that may be) made people and people have free will they choose whom they can love and if so be loved in return. In addition since the creator gave free will to people does that not in tell whom they may choose to love. Yes it does, they may love and choose whom they want to share their life with. Homosexuality is not wrong, due to the fact that they were born and made like all of other humans. We are created equal because we are all of one race, the human race. To be gay, that is not wrong I say others may say it is, but stick and stones. Islam and Christianity frown upon this and say it is "sin" or "wrong" but it is not, being closed minded is. The fact of the matter is that too few have wanted to challenge the religious on this topic due to their morals or their churches high ground in the world. either way gay is the new way for some. We as humans must learn to deal with it or be stuck in a time period where the idiocy still rules.
Rights for All sexual orientations

The underlying premise of your argument is wrong. It is clear that the Abrahamic God has never treated people equally: From the Old Testament, when he was the God of the Jews, he has always treated his 'chosen' people as special and everyone else as pretty much disposable as those millions that died in The Flood would attest. Sodom & Gomorrah showed his lack of tolerance for other sexualities as do the rules that he wrote for the Jews to follow. The Christian religion is no different with some being condemned to Hell, explicitly for homosexuality mind. Islam is also similar, as is practically every religion, regarding homosexuality. So I believe the OP is faulty using for a deity as a basis for equality: it is clearly not true that "we were all created equal".
Short Debate Series: Space Junk Should Not Be Removed

EDDE SystemThe bulk of my opponent's argument revolves around the use of this EDDE system (ElectroDynamic Debris Eliminator) however, this piece of technology has not been actually completed. According to the website this is still a "vision". It says things like "propellantless" vehicles [1] that can move freely throughout low Earth orbit but that makes no sense. To change vector and level in orbit takes a lot of energy. When digging I find that this technology described is in early planning and there is no real information about the technical details of this system. That being said, the statement saying that it can clean up "all" space debris is false. It can only clean up the LEO debris which is ~2000 of the 22000 total debris in space. Using undeveloped tech in an argument is like me saying "We should colonize Mars if we had..." but we're talking about current day technology options. There is no guarantee this technology comes to fruition so we can't say we should do something based on tech that is undeveloped. I could say we should start an interstellar colony program because we might have warp drive soon but that's not a good basis for an argument.This being said we must assume that space junk clean up must be viewed within the frame of present day tech as I described in the previous round. We also have to remember that anything in orbit must use a lot of energy to change orbital vectors to even approach different space debris. Calculations, fuel and precision to get two small objects in different orbits to end up next to each other in a single orbital trajectory, EDDE system included, would still take a lot of man power and resources.Benefits Again, the odds of space debris ever striking a human population is infinitesimal. Humans only occupy 2% of the Earth roughly. [2] Most of the Earth is ocean which and most debris won't even make it to the surface. My opponent didn't refute these points earlier so I am rehashing them. As for his point about Kessler Syndrome and the ISS, the great thing about orbits is that they're static. It's hard to change them. We can make sure the ISS stays on a path free of debris. The benefits of doing such a massive clean up in this day and age are so tiny it's not worth the money and time right now. 50 years from now? Maybe. But that's not what this debate is about, it's about cleaning up space junk now. But Space programs are on the decline. Conclusion1. The tech described by my opponent is not fully developed or in use so it can't be used as a solid foundation for debate.2. The odds of space junk causing harm to people on Earth is tiny. It has never happened before.3. Space programs are on the decline, space junk is not a problem for us in this moment, the resources needed to develop and maintain the tech is too great and the benefits too small. Space junk should not be removed. Thank you. [1] http://www.star-tech-inc.com...[2] http://geography.about.com...
Short Debate Series: Space Junk Should Not Be Removed

My opponent seems to base his arguement around costs and weather or not that we have the technology. In this round I'll proove that we have both.Contention 1: Technology The EDDE system solves – Full cleanup by 2017 Dilliow in 10 (Clay, Writer for popular science, Popular science, DARPA’s Giant Space Junk Net Could Remove Almost All Debris August 16, 2010, http://www.popsci.com..., NU) Once EDDE has a piece of space junk cornered, it can either hurl it into the South Pacific where it has little chance of doing any harm, or put it on a trajectory to burn up during re-entry. Or, Star insists, the pieces of junk could be recycled right there in space to create raw materials for the construction of future orbiting space stations or satellites. It sounds pretty out there, but Star has already begun testing the tech and should conduct a test flight in 2013. If that succeeds, EDDEs could begin a full cleanup operation in LEO by 2017.Also to note that 12 EDDE vechicles can clean up all space debris. http://www.star-tech-inc.com... http://www.star-tech-inc.com... we can see that we have the technology in the EDDE system, but what about costs?Contention 2: CostsPro states that there will be a launch cost but this is false, because it folds to fit into a box that is 60 cm by 30 by on a rocket so it can launch with another protect that NASA plans to do! http://www.star-tech-inc.com... As stated in the last contention these are long lasting systems that it takes 12 not hundreds like Pro is stating to clean up space debris.Contention 3: Advantages EDDE can dragg the space debris into a 'Space Junkyard' instead of dropping them into LEO to burn up. How much will this recover you may ask? $20,000 per killiogram of matterials! (source is also the one from above) Kessler Syndrome http://www.youtube.com...;In a nut shell the Kessler Syndrome is since that we have so much Space Debris that it starts to collide and falls into millions of other pieces and it continues to do this. You may say that it has no affect on us but in reality it can destroy our rockets into outer space and even endanger the ISS (International Space Station). You may also think that this is inpossible but it has happend before. http://news.bbc.co.uk...
Short Debate Series: Space Junk Should Not Be Removed

Cost vs. BenefitThe costs of removing space junk would be tremendous. Not only would you have to design a craft (probably unmanned) that can meet up, catch up or intercept space junk you would have to give it a mechanism to capture the junk, store it and then bring it back down to Earth. So you have an initial, expensive, large hurdle to overcome before you can even begin to think about collecting space junk.Then you have fuel costs, maintenance costs and program costs among other things. You need to buy the material, build the craft, fuel it, hire scientists, bureaucrats and managers to run the program then you must launch the thing into space successfully and bring it home. These are massive costs. Then there is a size requirement. You might be able to bring home one satellite sized object per run. There are 22,000 objects 4 inches or larger orbiting the Earth [1]. To even start to make a dent you'd have to run hundreds of runs, thousands if you really want to clean up the junk. That's a lot of fuel and a lot of chance for mistakes. Rockets explode periodically which creates more problems on the ground. So what benefits would we get from cleaning up space junk? Not much...A lot of space junk is small and slows down considerably when it enters the atmosphere before burning up. While there have been a handful of documented cases of space junk actually hitting the Earth from large orbital junk the odds of actually getting hit by space junk was 1 in 20 trillion [1]. Since the Earth is over 70% ocean and a lot of land is uninhabited the odds of it even hitting a populated area is quite small. The one instance where a woman was reported to be hit by space junk, it was lighter than that of a soda can and felt like a "tap on the shoulder" [1]. So should we spend millions, perhaps billions in costs in the long run running vessels into space to collect the junk to bring it back to Earth to dump in a landfill when most of the junk will remain in orbit or burn up anyways? Should we act on the 1 in 20 trillion chance that someone gets tapped on the shoulder by the weight of a soda can?No, we shouldn't. Space junk should not be collected. We have enough garbage on Earth and the costs just do not even come close to justifying the imperceptible benefits.[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com...;
Short Debate Series: Space Junk Should Not Be Removed

Contention 1: EDDE SystemIn contrast to it using a lot of energy as I said in last round that it uses clean energy. Thus meaning that it won't be harmful to our envirnment. Secondly he states that it can't clean up all space debris. He does not have a link or source for that as I have several. So extend my arguements here. Benefits It does not matter if space debris hit human population, not once do I bring this up. But I have brought up the Kessler Syndrome and it destroying out satellites and hurting our people. It also destorys our military satellites which hurts our military defense to our nation. Debris Destroys Space Readiness Scheetz 6[LoriScheetz: J. D. Candidate, Georgetown University Law Center,Georgetown InternationalEnvironmental Law Review Georgetown International Environmental Law ReviewFall, 2006 19 Geo. Int'l Envtl. L. Rev. 57, Infusing EnvironmentalEthics into the Space Weapons Dialouge, lexis] Ultimately, these collisions could lead to a chain reaction,creating a halo of debris and making space virtually unusable for peacefulpurposes, such as communications and GPS satellites. n85Furthermore, space debris could harm or destroycurrent military space applications and thus actually compromise the use ofspace for national security purposes. Steven Mirmina, a seniorattorney with NASA, asserts, "Maintaining the environment of outer spacefor future use may also be considered an issue of national security. If certain orbits in outer space becomeso laden with debris that they are no longer usable, the U. S. may encounterdifficulty in achieving some of its national security goals. "Space JunkyardMy opponent dropps the arguement so extend all points here. It's thousands we can be making a proffit of and Pro dropps it.
Same-sex Marriage Should Be Legalized Throughout the United States of America

Though not drawn much attention to at this point in time, gay rights in general are constantly under debate. Though most people believe off the top of their heads that homosexuals should have the same rights as heterosexuals, as soon as the topic of marriage comes up, most jump to say 'no'. I've been pondering the matter myself for a while, and I hope I'll have a good opponent in that case. You may start.
Same-sex Marriage Should Be Legalized Throughout the United States of America

With many thanks to my opponent for her eloquent and impassioned reply, I can't help feeling that this debate has drifted away from the narrow issue of same-sex marriage and on to the broader issue of homosexual rights in general. Therefore, I should just like to make it clear that I agree with my opponent that gay men and lesbians should be afforded most of the legal rights enjoyed by heterosexuals. That said, there must be a few exceptions, particularly relating to family matters, for example, same-sex civil unions and gay marriages. Marriage is a matter of personal choice; it is not a right. Nobody HAS to get married. Indeed, marriage is becoming less and less popular in Western countries with most couples satisfied with just cohabiting. One of the few reasons people do get wed though, is the tax-breaks that are given to married couples. These are designed to help young couples build up a stable home in which to raise children. Since homosexual couples are not able to have children themselves, the extra income these tax-breaks give to married gay men is not spent on cots, nappies, prams and pushchairs as intended, rather on studded leather caps, KY Jelly, bottles of poppers and signed photos of Christiano Ronaldo! At the end of the day, this is not about prejudice against gays – some of society's most celebrated personalities are gay – and let's face it guys, if a couple of busty teen lovelies cornered you in a hotel bar, invited you upstairs and offered to lez it up to sweeten the pill, you wouldn't say "no" would you? Whilst liberal-minded people like myself are all for social reform, we must recognise that we are in danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater with regard to same-sex civil unions and remember that some cultural institutions are worth preserving, and marriage is one of them. Thank you.