BeIR/webis-touche2020 huggingface dataset:
Churches Shouldn't Spend So Much Money on Buildings

I will follow Pro by making a brief introduction to my argument and then letting Pro make his arguments.The word sanctuary comes from the Latin word Sanctuarium - meaning a container for holy things. [1]The oldest Christian denominations are arguably Catholicism and Orthodoxy which both believe in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. As such it is believed that on the alter and in the tabernacle the God becomes truly present in our world. The purpose of the art in the church and sanctuary is two fold.First it is to make the church and especially the sanctuary a place of transcendence to glorify God with our best fruits. The second is to instruct the faithful through the use of imagery. If you actually believe that God is physically present in this location would it not be incumbent on you to make it beautiful?Additionally, it is believed that the reward of heaven will be the beatific vision whereby we see the face of God who is more beautiful than all else. As such, art and beauty are prefigurements of what we will experience in heaven.Finally, beauty attracts. People want to be somewhere where they can experience beauty. It is an innate desire in everyone. If I were to ask you would you rather be poor, but be surrounded in beauty, or be rich but be surrounded always by uglyness I think most of us would rather live in poverty. In fact in poorer nations, a place like a beautiful Church is the only place where the average person will have the opportunity to experience art and beauty and as such the community pool their resources to create such.Finally the purpose of the Church is to get souls to heaven. While works of Charity are important, we must consider what Pope Francis meant when he said, "The Church is not and NGO."The two great commandments are to Love God first, then to love your neighbour. Beauty helps the first, and the first leads to the second.If we read about the temple of Solomon we find that no expense was spared in the construction of the temple that housed the Ark of the Covenant. The entire interior was lined with the finest cedar from Lebanon carved with the patterns of gourds and open flowers. The Holy of Holies was overlaid with gold from top to bottom. The altar in the holy of holies was overlaid with gold. Statues of Cherubim were carved out of olive wood and covered with gold. And there was more more carvings of olive wood and more gold on the walls and floors and carvings and more and more and more.I look forward to Pro's argument.[1] http://en.wikipedia.org...
Churches Shouldn't Spend So Much Money on Buildings

I have burden of proof, Only accept if you're a Christian, please, and post your argument during the 1st Round. I do not believe that all those churches should spend thousands of dollars making their sanctuary more beautiful when that money could be spent providing ministries to the poor or funding foreign missionary projects. Stained glass is a waste of money, and a building that will fit 1000 people is only of use if your church has 1000 members of your congregation. The early churches were not huge fancy buildings. They probably met in each other's houses, or perhaps outside. Jesus's sermons took place outside. So why is a huge fancy church building needed? We are the Church, the building is not!
Veronica Roth should change the ending of Allegiant.

I have debated this often with good friend of mine and look forward to debating it with you. I believe the ending of Allegiant was a valid ending. It was truthful and it completed the book. It made Tris whole as a character and, as upset as it made me when she died, I quite liked the fact Mrs Roth did give her the ability to survive what was impossible to do so. Tris sacrificed herself making her a noble character and I believe that this fact only built up her character and her death brought her story size.
A mine field on the border would be much more effective than a fence.

So your suggesting that a fence would stop more people from crossing over? Personally I feel that a minefield would be much more effective, and it would slow the flow of illegal immigration more than a fence. You state that the head of a house hold who is determined to provide for his family will find a way. That is very true. But to use Cuba as an example, the numbers that cross the border in Mexico dwarf the numbers that come from cuba in a raft, simply because it is more dangerous. Now the debate isn't whether it is moral, or humane to do so, and I recognize that or "free press"(which isn't free at all, but that is a different debate) would be down there to try and shutdown the minefield. But they have been trying to take our guns for decades, it hasn't happened yet. But it would be more effective and that is my point. A head of a household would think a lot harder about coming to America illegally if it meant he may die. Also a gang banger, a drug dealer, and a rapist may think twice before trying to cross the border as well. If the mines were placed at random, and that was common knowledge there wouldn't be maps sold to families. It would also prevent illegal immigration INTO Mexico. A win win for citizens on both sides. Hell, it could get the ones who want a better life for their families to try and fix their own country rather than trash ours. To close, the debate topic is "A mine field on the border would be much more effective than a fence.". That is true. It would be. Cruel, inhumane, fairly extreme, but much more effective than a fence. A mine not only stops the person who steps on it, but the people with him that see it happen. Mines are pretty nasty.
A mine field on the border would be much more effective than a fence.

The idea of using landmines to prevent unauthorized entry into our nation strikes me as ludicrious. To inflict violence and death upon individuals to prevent them from them from entering the country seems mildly abhorrent to me. People seeking entry to this country assume that they can provide a better standard of living for themselves and their family. A family head who is determined to provide for his/her family cannot be deterred from doing so, it is often human nature. People try to navigate their way to Florida from Cuba on inflatable rafts combating basic human needs(water, food, toliet), dangerous ocean faring, and highly organized Coast Guard patrols. And some still get through. Individuals would attempt to brave this new set of dangers as they always have in inventive and not so inventive ways. And some would get through. Others would not. These others who were not as lucky would be the biggest reason why said minefield would be almost immediately shut down. We still have freedom of the press in this country and our televisions would be full of bodies painfully exploding on American soil. Maybe a small family who bought a phony map of a minefield section from a former immigrant smuggler who lost his flow of cash would find one of these nice wooden shrapnel mines. Footage of a dead mother with a child riddled with sharp pieces of wood in his face and body crying in confusion and heartbreak would look very nice on international news programs. Our own country, not to mention our allies would force the government to discontinue the minefield after the first signs of continued human tragedy. Then the military gets to be called off important work making former war zones safe across the world to come clean up our own house. Immense amounts of tax dollars would be wasted building and disarming something that critically wounds our credibility worldwide. All that because you'd rather have some people violently killed than live in the same country as you? There are a few words and labels that could be applied to that sentiment, but I don't want to go there...
A mine field on the border would be much more effective than a fence.

A fence on the border is not security. A person with a pair of wire cutters can get past that little obstacle. Eventually there will be large sections of the fence that have been knocked down and cut to pieces. A fence will also be harder to maintain. A mine field will not only be more secure, but it will be a deterrent! That is a 2 for 1 deal. I know what you are thinking, can't they just use a metal detector? That is why we use all sorts of different mines, plastic mines, metal mines, mines designed to injure, mines designed to kill, they even have wooden mines that throw nasty splinters everywhere. Once a person decides to enter our country illegally and sees his buddy blown to pieces, his priorities will change quickly.
From a debate judging standpoint Yraelz should win the "Jesus vs. Buuda..." debate with i-win-347.

First, my opponent uses the argument "You know what he meant, and he meant Buddha." He brings up the fact that I spelled something differently than the resolution in one of my older debates as evidence. However, this is irrelevant, since it is not a fact of this debate that I was indeed being topical in that debate. Perhaps from a debate judging standpoint I should lose that debate. My opponent claims that resolutional intent should have some meaning. However, the intent is not as clear as my opponent insists it is. Also, the audience clearly did not understand as easily as my opponent suggests. If this was indeed a debate about Jesus vs. Buddha, then Yraelz would have a crushing victory. However, he does not. He is winning by 2 votes - 18 to 20 - as I type this. Clearly, it was not 'clear' to the audience that Buuda really means Buddha. Nor is there significant evidence to show that i-win-347 equated the two. He only uses the word Buddha once, and it's in response to a point about Buddha that Yraelz made. The reasons he did not bring up Buuda again in round 2 was because Yraelz never defended Buuda in R1, so there was nothing more to say. And we cannot say Yraelz won based on the "Jesus is a pacifict" argument, since i-win-347 made a similar argument about Buuda which was never rebutted. Those two points balance each other out, then we have the powers given about Jesus versus nothing about Buuda. Even if not explicitly extending his round arguments equates to dropping them [which sounds kind of odd], his round 2 points still outweigh the lack of anything good about Buuda. And if we decide that one must explicitly extend points, we cannot count Yraelz's treasured point that Jesus is a pacifist, either. In conclusion, words that are spelled similar are not always the same, and a judge should not simply 'assume' this point. Since the resolution gives Yraelz the task of defending Buuda's victory over Jesus, and Yraelz makes no points in Buuda's favor, Yraelz has not met his burden. He has failed to uphold his side of the resolution/break the opponent's side of the resolution. GG
From a debate judging standpoint Yraelz should win the "Jesus vs. Buuda..." debate with i-win-347.

My opponent, the esteemed Beem0r is once again, mistaken. His interpretation is rather simple. He is advocating that everything should be examined exactly how it is written/spelled. This kind of logic however is rather faulty as it would simply lead to debates in which debaters nit picked at each other's arguments for grammatical mistakes. In fact, my opponent doesn't even actually support what he is saying. If we look specifically to the following debate which he participated in we can see that his opponent made the resolution stating: Do High school councilors really care http://www.debate.org... Thus his opponent in the first round uses the wrong kind of counselor for the word councilors instead. Then in Beem0rs own first the third word he types is: "councelors" a fictional word meaning nothing. However it is apparent through reading the round that both debaters take the misspelled words to mean what was intended in the first place: counselors. This type of debate is much more feasible then what my opponent advocates for. Debate in which spelling errors is allowed makes for a far more honest debate. Both debaters, and the audience, quickly understood what i-win-347's intention had been. In honest debate resolutional intent holds stock. However I am going to briefly humor my opponent for fun. If we are to consider that I was being untopical throughout my debate with i-win-347 then we must also consider that i-win-347 is also being untopical by never mentioning buuda once in his 2nd and final round but by only using Buddha. Thus, i-win-347 in his final round proves no reason why Jesus would beat buuda and instead attempts to prove why Jesus would beat Buddha. Furthermore he drops all the points from his first round and fails to pull them through. Finally i-win-347 never takes issue with my claim that Jesus is a pacifist. Thus Jesus would be incapable of hurting anyone. YO SOY EL FIN!
From a debate judging standpoint Yraelz should win the "Jesus vs. Buuda..." debate with i-win-347.

My opponent seems to have conceded my entire case, which is that Buuda is not Buddha. Whereas the resolution referred to the former, my opponent solely referred to the latter. He likely just got confused, since the sound so similar when spoken [at least when I say them]. However, it is clear upon reading them that these two words are quite unequal - one does not refer to the other, and if they are somehow the same thing, my opponent never showed in his debate that they are indeed the same thing. Here's a quote from my Round 1 to show that I did indeed make this argument: "Buddha might be able to do it, Yraelz gave no reasons why Buuda should automatically be considered as good of a fighter as Buddha. He didn't explain who Buuda was or anything." His only argument is that his opponent rebutted one of his points about Buddha, and thus he automatically must have agreed that he indeed meant Buddha in the resolution. However, let us refit my Buddha = Cats, Budda = Dogs scenario, with this new information added. Topic: Jesus vs. Dogs who will win? PRO=Jesus Neg=Dogs" Pro: Here are reasons why Jesus is good in a fight and he would beat dogs Con: Here are reasons why cats are good in a fight, and would in fact win against Jesus Pro: Actually, cat's wouldn't necessarily win against Jesus, and here are some reasons for that. Con: Actually, cats still would win against Jesus, and here's why. ONCE AGAIN, we see that PRO is the only one who has argued for his side. Rebutting an irrelevant point does not concede that the point was relevant. Just as arguing that cats couldn't beat Jesus did not mean PRO was agreeing that cats now counted as dogs, arguing that Buddha could not beat Jesus does not constitute agreeing that Buddha counts as Buuda. While responding to irrelevant points does not show well for PRO, it does not change the fact that PRO argued for his side of the resolution while CON did not. It is a judge's duty to decide who upheld their side of the resolution better, and the only viable answer here is PRO. I shall allow my opponent one final act; he deserves as much. Full power to the showmanship cannons, let's see some flair!
From a debate judging standpoint Yraelz should win the "Jesus vs. Buuda..." debate with i-win-347.

My opponent has two main points as to why I should not win. I will refute them both. ========= Point 1 ========= My opponent states that I give no reason why Buddha could beat Jesus. Let me quote a couple arguments from that round. "Buddha can turn into a fireball and shoot fireballs, this owns Jesus." "Buddha can split things when he commands it, Buddha would split any cross near Jesus on command. Jesus would never resurrect. " "Plants come to the aid of Buddha, he controls the Ent army!" "When the serpent shoots fire at Buddha he himself just turns into a fireball and shoots fire back. Thus Jesus not being able to turn himself into a fireball would render hims as dead as the Serpent." "Thus Buddha can quite literally do anything, and if somehow he did manage to die he would just be reincarnated." These as we can see are all compelling ways in which Buddha could beat Jesus and the last one is a way in which he could never lose. All of these were unrefuted by my opponent. ========= Point 2 ========= This would be a compelling point by my opponent if it did indeed pertain to the resolution. However it does not. The resolution states from a debate judging standpoint, as this obviously was not a point within the round on either side it cannot be judged in the round. To judge such a point would simply be the judge bringing in his/her own opinion which is unethical for a judge to do and is outside of the ideal debate judging standpoint. Furthermore in my opponent's (i-win-347) second round he quite clearly states, "To refute Buddha's power of making things out of matter all you have to do is secure him in a nom-matter container." Thus he himself in the debate realized his spelling mistake and agreed to the actual spelling. Back to you Beemie!
From a debate judging standpoint Yraelz should win the "Jesus vs. Buuda..." debate with i-win-347.

My opponent believes, from a debate judging standpoint, he should have won the debate he linked in his R1. I must disagree. First and foremost, Yraelz did not show at any time in the debate any way in which Buuda could beat Jesus. His opponent stated many helpful powers Jesus had that would give him an advantage in a fight, but Yraelz thought it was enough to show that Buddha would be able to deal with all these advantages. Buddha might be able to do it, Yraelz gave no reasons why Buuda should automatically be considered as good of a fighter as Buddha. He didn't explain who Buuda was or anything. The his arguments were just one big irrelevance. The resolution makes clear that CON, Yraelz, will be arguing for Buuda as the winner of the Jesus vs. Buuda fight. Now I now this might sound confusing, since the words Buddha and Buuda are so similar. I will therefore give a summary of the debate replacing the word Buddha with cats and the word Buuda with dogs. Topic: Jesus vs. Dogs who will win? PRO=Jesus Neg=Dogs" Pro: Here are reasons why Jesus is good in a fight Con: Here are reasons why cats are good in a fight, and would in fact win against Jesus Clearly, Pro is the only one who has supported his side of the resolution. Con was supposed to argue that Dogs would beat Jesus, but he argued that Cats would instead. With this reasoning, an ethical judge would vote PRO. Back to yeezy.
From a debate judging standpoint Yraelz should win the "Jesus vs. Buuda..." debate with i-win-347.

Here is the debate: http://www.debate.org... I challenge someone here to show me why my opponent should win this debate. Offer me reasons and I will rebut them either by showing that i-win-347 didn't say the points you put forward or by showing why your analysis is contrary to ethical debate principles. (Or any other option I can think of.) I stand in firm affirmation that I should win that debate.
India is REALLY independent

India became free on the 15th of August 1947. Our constitution was brought into force on the 26th of January 1950. From this day onwards, India was free from any outside interference. According to 'The Free Dictionary' , an independent country is a country that has "the right to exercise freely the full range of power a state possesses under international law". This definition shows that India is really a free and independent nation, without any doubt.Some points to support my view are: India is independent in all spheres. It has its own defence, foreign, home, finance, trade & commerce, and information and communication policies without any foreign pulls and pressures. India provides its people with some basic rights, also known as Fundamental Rights. They are - Right to Equality, Right to Freedom, Right against Exploitation, Right to Freedom of Religion, Cultural and Educational Rights, Right to Constitutional Remedies. India has its own judicial system with zero tolerance towards any outside interference.Onto you Con
gender equality is critical to development and peace of every nation.

yes your definition is definitely right. First, i shall state why i believe that gender equality is critical to development and peace of nation. Gender equality is a basic human right that entails equal opportunities for men and women in all facets of life, be it political, social, economical and developmental. It is a fundamental condition for the full enjoyment of human rights by women and men and is critical for the development of every nation. Many regards gender equality as a human right. It points out that empowering women is also an indispensable tool for advancing development and peace of nation. I find it self-evident that men and women have the same intrinsic value. This is simply the basic moral insight that all people have the same intrinsic value, regardless of race, sex, religion, sexual orientation, etc. Research has shown that the male and female brains are sometimes good at different things, but there is no overall difference in brain capacity. This indicates that the two genders have equal potential to be valuable. Men and women still have very or somewhat different roles in most societies, with men more often fulfilling roles in the public sphere, and women more often fulfilling roles in the private sphere. Regardless of whether you think this will change in the future or not, and regardless of whether you find this division of labor desirable or not, I"d say it"s safe to presume that men and women are equally valuable to society. Society would not function without the roles that men perform or without the roles that women perform. Equality between the sexes means that the sexes are valued equally, and given equal opportunities, as outlined above. But this need not mean that men and women become the same! Men and women may continue to make different choices when it comes to work, family and hobbies " while still being perfectly equal. In fact, it is irrelevant to gender equality whether men and women make the same choices, as long as each man and each woman is truly free to choose whatever path seems right to him or her. We know that biological differences between the sexes exist, but we do not yet know to what extent these differences would influence the choices of women and men in a culture that allows you to go beyond stereotypes. However, it would be naive to assume that men and women would start making exactly the same choices, even in a society that is completely open-minded. By dropping the criterion of sameness, gender equality becomes much more achievable, and does not limit individual freedom.
gender equality is critical to development and peace of every nation.

I accept, and state that gender equality is not critical, or not the most important factor, to developing and maintaining peace in a country. By having the word development, I am inferring that having gender equality for developing countries is critical for their social advancement. For this, I provide a few definitions. Gender equality - the measurable equal representation of women and men. [1] Critical - being of high importance Development - the act or process of growing or causing something to grow or become larger or more advanced [2] Peace - a state in which there is no war or fighting [3] nation - a large area of land that is controlled by its own government [4] I will start my arguments next round and I would kindly ask if my opponent would like to change any of these definitions, to do it now because It would not be accepted after round 2. I await my opponent's response. [1] https://www.google.com... [2] http://www.merriam-webster.com... [3] http://www.merriam-webster.com... [4] http://www.merriam-webster.com...