BeIR/webis-touche2020 huggingface dataset:
The existence of God is unlikely

(: Introduction The argument I will be using is an argument from evil. In the God debate, there are two types of arguments from evil against the existence of God. One is the logical argument from evil, which states that it is logically impossible for God and evil to coexist. The other is the evidential or probabilistic argument from evil, which states that it logically possible for God and evil to coexist, but given that there is so much evil in the world, it’s highly unlikely that God exist. I will be using a probabilistic argument from evil NOT a logical argument from evil. With that said, let me begin. Probabilistic Argument from Evil P1) If God exist, then gratuitous evil does not exist. P2) It is likely that gratuitous evil exists. Conclusion) If it is likely that gratuitous evil exist, then the existence of God is unlikely. Defense of Premise 1 Premise 1 is true given the definition of God. If God allowed evil that would not bring about a greater good or prevent a greater evil, he would not be morally perfect. In other words, God would only allow a certain evil if he had a good reason for it. Defense of Premise 2 If I can show that gratuitous evil is more likely to exist than not, then it will be reasonable to accept premise 2. There is much suffering and evil in this world. So much in fact that it makes it very hard to believe there is an all-loving creator deity. There are two types of evil in the world: moral evil and natural evil. Moral evils are actions committed by human beings. Natural disasters such as hurricanes and tsunamis are what philosophers call natural evils. The moral evils in the world are: genocide, murder, rape, child abuse, animal cruelty, totalitarianism, and slavery. Natural evils in the world are: hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes, forest fires, and droughts. All this evil and suffering runs rampant and it seems so pointless. What good could come from allowing Hitler to kill millions of innocent people? What good could come from letting a small child die from starvation? It’s not exactly clear why God, if he exists, would allow these terrible things to happen. Therefore, given the evidence we have, I think it’s safe to conclude that gratuitous evil probably does exist, and because of that, the existence of God is unlikely.
The existence of God is unlikely

Second round is for opening statements. Third round for first rebuttals. Fourth round for second rebuttals and concluding remarks. Pro (myself) will argue that the existence of God is unlikely. God will be defined as the omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, eternal creator and sustainer of the universe. Omnipotent means all powerful. Omniscient means all knowing. Omnibenevolent means all loving. : - )
Jury Nullification is a Constitutional Right in the United States

I concede to my opponent. I suggest to all, read the sites JBlake posted and pursue more knowledge on jury nullification. More importantly, tell everyone you know about this and encourage them to do the same. It is evident to me now, through my opponents sources and what I've found so far, that it is a "check and balance", maybe more valuable than any other, against the tyranny of an oppressive government. One that seems to have been ALMOST completely erased from our history and current procedure. Hats off to JBlake.
Jury Nullification is a Constitutional Right in the United States

There is no support in law or prececedents for jury nullification of law. There are processes in our system for the people to create and change law. I cannot support this resolution. The three sections of the US Constitution my opponent cites are restrictions on the federal government alone. Therefore, all trials within' the authority of the several states are subject to state law. As for the feds, my opponent trys to imply an intent that has never before been practiced in our history. First, the right to appeal should demonstrate that never has the jury verdict reign supreme. The remedies for judges who may direct a jury to a false interperetation of the law are many. For starters, the peoples' representitives may impeach and remove the judge from his bench. The President may pardon the accused or commute the sentence. The people also have many avenues to repeal what they consider unjust laws or unjust decisions from judges. California's marriage amendment is a good case in point. A verdict should be based on the law as decided by the whole people, not the few who make up the jury of a particular case. One could only imagine the troubles that would be encountered. The numerous cases dismissed because one or a few people on that jury didn't like the law. The process of finding members would be a circus. Every potential juror would be asked if they support a law susequent to the case. If they affirm, one laywer will except and the other will reject, and vice-versa. It could be said that the idea would actually destroy the "trial by jury".
Jury Nullification is a Constitutional Right in the United States

I affirm the resolution: Juries have the constitutional authority to nullify laws. ---------- My position is simple: Jury Nullification appears in the Constitution of the United States of America and any attempt to take it away would be unconstitutional. I reserve the right to make additional arguments in the second round of debate. To support my position I intend to cite the following portions of the constitution: Article III Section 2 [1] Sixth Amendment [2] Fifth Amendment [3] 1. http://www.law.cornell.edu... 2. http://www.usconstitution.net... 3. http://www.usconstitution.net... --------------- Definitions: Jury Nullification - the ability of a jury to ignore a law that it finds unjust in a specific case. --------------- ARTICLE III SECTION 2 and the SIXTH AMENDMENT Article III Section 2 and the Sixth Amendment both guaruntee an trial by impartial jury: "The trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall be by jury" [1] "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed" [2] These two guaruntees imply that the ultimate decision of guilt is to be decided by a jury. To require a trial by jury is to imply that jury's ability to come to its own conclusion regarding acquital or conviction. That means that a jury can acquit a defendant for any reason, however illogical. In other words, the court is prohibited from overturning the verdict of a jury. This should be enough to show an implied power of jury nullification. However, another portion of the constitution, the double jeopardy clause in the Fifth Amendment, prohibits the government from attempting to circumvent a jury by reprosecuting someone who has been acquitted. If we put both of these implications together we get a jury that has the ability to acquit on any grounds (including that they find a law unjust), and a court that is powerless to overturn this acquittal. THEREFORE, Any attempt or any law removing the power of jury nullification is unconstitutional (such as the law requiring judges to inform juries that they must decide a case based on the law, as described by the judge).
The 2003 liberation of Iraq was the right thing to do.

Firstly, under Saddam Hussein, Iraq was one of the worst (in my opinion, the worst) countries to live in. Routine torture, amputation, branding, executions at which the (usually petty) criminal's family were forced at gunpoint to applaud and the secret police raping & maiming thousands of innocent citizens were all commonplace in Hussein's Iraq. Whilst the rich lived in palaces (Saddam himself had one built in every single province of Iraq), ordinary citizens lived in poverty, starving. On humanitarian grounds alone I think liberating the people of Iraq is morally justified. However, even though Iraq was worse than the rest, you may say we can't go wandering into every country with similar regimes, so I will continue.A state is said to be subject to intervention leading to a regime change if one of the following conditions is met: 1) Violation of the Genocide Convention al-Anfal Campaign (1986-1989), the ethnic cleansing in which Hussein ordered the extermination of every living thing in the Kurdish North, killing over 180,000 Kurds. Marsh Arab massacre, the purposeful destruction of the marshlands, destroying the (mostly) Shiite Marsh Arabs' food supply. In the 1950s they numbered half a million. Since Hussein fewer than 20,000 still remain. 2) Aggressions towards a neighbouring state/occupying their lands Iran - Iraq war (1980 - 1988), starting with Iraq's invasion of Iran on the 22nd September 1980. Invasion of Kuwait (1990) 3) Aiding/harbouring international gangsters or terrorists Abu Nidal, the most ruthless of Palestinian political leaders ( "I am the evil spirit which moves around only at night causing ... nightmares.") operated for years out of Iraqi office. Abu Mussab al Zarqawi (Al Qaeda's deputy) lived for years n Baghdad by personal invitation of Saddam Hussein. 4) Violation of the Non-Proliferation treaty (NPT) In 1990 Iraq was clearly in violation of its NPT and safeguards obligations, and the IAEA Board of Governors ruled to that effect. The UN Security Council then ordered the IAEA to remove, destroy or render harmless Iraq's nuclear weapons capability. This was done by mid 1998, but Iraq then ceased all cooperation with the UN, so the IAEA withdrew from this work. Iraq was a serial offender on all 4 counts (only one of which has to be committed one time to be subject to intervention) and also committed many other war crimes and crimes against humanity.Iraq occupies a key space in the Arab world and in the world economy and it could no longer be left in the hands of an evil, sadomasochistic crime family. "I think it's a certainty that historians will not conclude that the removal of Saddam Hussein was something that the international community ought to have postponed any further (indeed, if there is a disgrace, it is that previous administrations left the responsibility undischarged)" - Christopher Hitchens, No Regrets, Slate 1/19/2009.Sources: - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Saddam_Hussein's_Iraqhttp://www.amazon.co.uk... - All Hitchens' debates, summed up here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcvgAMnMne0http://www.amazon.co.uk...
Best book series

This isn't so much a debate as it is a discussion, but I don't really want to put this on the discussion page for a lot of spam on my part. Here's what this is all about: what is the best book series? There are many ways that one could look at this, but I'm looking at a variety of factors to constitute my choice. 1. Entertainment level 2. Quality of sequels 3. In-depth thought 4. Author's goal 5. Level of immersion My choice for this debate is the Ender's Game series. I assure you, I will not use anything not found in the series as evidence, but feel free to check on my facts if you wish. I will also trust you, but if I feel something is farfetched I will fact check you and call you out on it. There are only 3,000 characters, so be brief. I look forward to my opponent/ discussion partner's response. Please, take this seriously.
White supremists should prefer Democrats over Republicans in most federal elections.

Different forms of white supremacy have different conceptions of who is considered white, and different white supremacists identify various racial and cultural groups as their primary enemy.Flint, Colin (2004). Spaces of Hate: Geographies of Discrimination and Intolerance in the U.S.A. Routledge. p. 53. ISBN 0-415-93586-5. First round acceptance. The definition of federal election is limited to those with-in the United States.
White supremists should prefer Democrats over Republicans in most federal elections.

ah! I am terribly sorry to have missed that round. Here I arrive half an hour late to post during the 3rd round. I must thank you for giving me another chance to respond to round 3. I will not attack Republican policy in this round, as you would have no chance to respond. On the topics of Abortion and Welfare, I stand by my earlier arguments. Assuming that both of these are negative (which is another debate), I think the gross number matters more than the percentage. From a pro-life view, abortion is murder. Given that there are more abortions of whites, that would mean that more whites are killed than blacks. I cannot see how a white supremacist could support that. From a pro-choice view, abortion is not a negative at all! In fact, the large population increase that would result if abortion were banned would result in a huge economic drain on the black community. Raising a child costs on average 300k. With minority families making less money than Whites on average, there is an economic benefit to abortion, especially for minorities. http://tinyurl.com... As for the validity of your sources: I personally would not trust such heavily biased sites. The "abortion-cancer" idea has no evidence to support it. As you said, at best studies are inconclusive. With no conclusive evidence, why would I believe it? Given that these policies impact both whites and minorities, I do not see why a white supremacist would support them. Even if these policies were harmful to people, why would they want to harm white people along with blacks? It certainly would not seem ideal. I feel I must address a Min. Wage, as I said I would. Although it is true that some people would lose jobs, many would also get out of poverty due to higher wages (900k). Many of those who would benefit most from the higher wages would be minorities. http://tinyurl.com... This has been my first real debate on this site. I hope that I have not made any "unfair arguments". This was enjoyable. GG
White supremists should prefer Democrats over Republicans in most federal elections.

Abortion- Con misses the point. He says white people have more abortions, but this does nothing to negate that a disproportionate amount of Blacks have abortions. This is what would be favorable to white supremacists. My opponents source actually confirms my view. Black women"s abortion rates are 49 per 1,000, Hispanic women"s are 33 per 1,000 and non-Hispanic white women"s are 13 per 1,000. https://bound4life.com... Blacks are being prevented from being born faster than whites. This is certainly preferable to racists. My source is certainly credible. The article quotes several scholarly studies. The mention of a link to breast cancer was cited back to a study. The sources you claim debunk them actually don't. They just claim that when all the studies are taken together, the results are inconclusive. Welfare- It doesn't matter if my source is biased. It quotes a ton of numbers from scholarly work done on the issue. Those citations are fine. The point I was making is that welfare contributes to many factors causing poverty and poverty is a major contributing factor to crime. Here is a debate where I discuss these issues with welfare. http://www.debate.org... I understand the difference between causation and correlation and Welfare actually does a lot to perpetuate the contributing factors to poverty and thus crime. My opponent points out that more whites are on welfare, but once again misses the point. A disproportionate amount of blacks are on welfare. This means, since welfare is harmful That it is harming a disproportionate amount of black people, which is a good thing for racists. Republicans- The article mentioning the poll you cited has some problems. These numbers don't accurately reflect the demographics of the Republican Party. About 70 was over 46 years old.the true demographics are close to 50% by my estimate. http://www.people-press.org...
White supremists should prefer Democrats over Republicans in most federal elections.

You have made some interesting points. I will counter them before providing my own. Abortion: First off, there is nothing here that would be convincing to anybody with a pro-choice view, as from that view these are not lives to begin with. However, even if you accept that these are children, it should be noted that more whites have abortions than blacks: https://bound4life.com... The link shows: even if a higher percentage of black children are aborted, a higher number of white children are aborted. In terms of sheer numbers, white supremacists do not win here. Finally, your source of information is a highly biased organization that cites refuted claims such as the "abortion-breast cancer link", which was disproven by the American Cancer Society: http://tinyurl.com... And National Cancer Institute: http://tinyurl.com... With falsehoods like that, why should we take your source seriously? In fact, you even misquoted your own source! You claim that there would be 50% fewer blacks, but your source actually says "[the black community] would be 36 percent larger than it is" without abortion. Welfare: Again,your source is extremely biased. However, the key problem with your argument is that correlation does not equal causation. You mentioned that welfare was launched, but there is no evidence to connect it to a certain percentage of rapists being black. In addition, blacks and whites actually make up a statistically equal percentage of welfare recipients. Because whites make up more of the population,a higher number of whites receive welfare. http://tinyurl.com... I will address Min. Wage in the next round. Republicans: However, the GOP is actually welcoming to racists, at least in some states, as evidenced by the plurality of Republicans in Mississippi who want to ban inter-racial marriage: http://tinyurl.com... I believe a racist would want to be in the company of other racists. Due to character limitations, I must stop here.
White supremists should prefer Democrats over Republicans in most federal elections.

Abortion-Democrats are typically pro abortion, which is a good thing to consider if you're racist. 50% of black children are aborted, before they are even born. Black women are around 15% of the female population yet they have 35% of all abortions. http://www.blackgenocide.org... You can bet white supremacist's are happy knowing there is 50% less black people than there should be. Welfare-This is another thing racists are happy about, because welfare hurts black families. Ever since LBJ launched his war on poverty. LBJ's push for more welfare has caused a tripling of out of wedlock births for black families. It's now at close to 75%, and that's not the only way welfare hurts black people. Children raised in fatherless homes are far more likely to grow up poor and to eventually engage in criminal behavior, than their peers who are raised in two-parent homes. In 2010, blacks (approximately 13% of the U.S. population) accounted for 48.7% of all arrests for homicide, 31.8% of arrests for forcible rape, 33.5% of arrests for aggravated assault, and 55% of arrests for robbery. Also as of 2010, the black poverty rate was 27.4% (about 3 times higher than the white rate), meaning that 11.5 million blacks in the U.S. were living in poverty. http://www.discoverthenetworks.org... Racists are probably loving those stats. Minimum Wage- Increasing the minimum wage disproportionately increases black unemployment. http://www.prnation.org... This is something racists, will enjoy knowing. Conclusion-As you can see Democratic policies seem to target blacks in extremely harmful ways. The fact that liberal policies are so harmful to blacks, should encourage white supremacists to vote Democrat.
Athiests have nothing to gain and everything to lose.

Athiests claim to believe God does not exist. If this is true, how do athiests gain if they are right? When do they gain? If there is no God, we won't know till we die. The athiest can't even gloat, not even for one millisecond, about how right they were. There's no chance of winning...anything.If they are wrong, and they (presumably) lived their lives as if God doesn't/didn't exist, they lose everything - for eternity.Theists claim to believe God does exist. If they are right, they gain everything....for eternity. If there is no God, they lose nothing - not even the athiest vs. theist debate. The theist will never even suffer that they were wrong.So, in the final analysis, athiesm is like going to a casino and playing roulette, betting everything on black - with full-knowlege there's no potential pay-off...ever.As for theism, they go to the casino and bet everything on red - but they know red has the only chance of winning. If it turns out black wins, neither theists or athiests win anything. But if red wins, the theist wins everything - the athiest loses everything.Only a perfect fool would bet everything on black. It CAN"T win - anything. It can only lose - everything.It's the best example of perfect folly I can think of.It's a good bet that in 100 years, everyone reading this will be in eternity...eternally. What possible argument exists to be athiest? It makes infinitely more sense to adopt theism (at least agnosticism), even if it requires pretending to believe.There are some very intelligent athiests on this site. To them I ask "Why, in this life - the dead center of two eternities, where you place the ultimate bet - would you bet on black?"
The Color Blue

I am happy to be of assistance. * * * I would like to point out that my that the resolution states that: "The color blue (being all colors) is a popular color due mainly to other reasons besides peer and societal influence. " My opponent never specified the time period so I will assume that he is talking about the current society. However, my opponent goes on to say that "As the study has shown, color preference has become differentiated between sexes due to our ancient job roles. " Now, the definition of society (taken from dictionary. com) is: "an organized group of persons associated together for religious, benevolent, cultural, scientific, political, patriotic, or other purposes. " or, in biology, it is: "a closely integrated group of social organisms of the same species exhibiting division of labor. " Therefore, our ancient job roles belong in the definition of society and fall under the category of "societal influence" because men only like the color blue because of what their gender-role in society. With that, my opponent has just went against his own side in this debate. Next, my opponent went on to talk about bumblebees preferring the color violet because (as quoted from the site): "The favorite color of the buff-tailed bumblebee (Bombus terrestris), violet in its case, could help it find more sweet nectar, scientists now find. " The reason for the bumblebee liking violet is because violet flowers produce the sweetest nectar. This is another example of societal influence because a worker bumblebee's role in its society is to find nectar in order to make honey. If it did not complete that role, then it would not be able to survive. While the bumblebee has evolved to like the color violet, evolution happened because of societal influence. Also, with the sexual dimorphism example, males prefer the color blue due to their survival instincts. However, as the biological definition of society stated, a society is a group of organisms who each have their own role. Therefore, any preference of color due to sexual dimorphism is an example of societal influence. Finally, my opponent goes on to say that "the whole idea of "pink for girls and blue for boys" was not common practice in the US until the 20th century. " Since my opponent has not specified time period (as stated earlier) I am assuming that he is refering to "now. " Therefore, the idea of pink for girls and blue for boys is a result of societal influence. If the study by Dr. Hurbert was done in the early 1900's, the results might have been different and might have showed that men liked pink because "blue was considered delicate and exquisite and pink strong and masculine" in the early 1900s. My opponent ends by saying: "Regardless of how children were dressed, it seems like girls all over the world have always liked the color pink. " This would be because of societal influence.