BeIR/webis-touche2020 huggingface dataset:
There is a historical lack of interest in African music among American and European music scholars.

To start with, I'd like to point out that when one observes the primary scholars of African Music one mainly finds these scholars to be of African descent. They include Hugh Tracy of South Africa, Nketia of Ghana, Mngoma of South Africa, Maraire of Zimbabwe and Makabuya of Uganda. One is quite hard pressed to find any American or European scholars of this type of music. The field is almost completely dominated by those who have resided mainly within Africa. Throughout history this has been the case. Ruth M. Stone, in her book Africa (Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, Volume 1) states, "as Europeans began to study Africa, and in particular its music, their interpretations emphasized a music that was rather monotonous, static and inactive". She then says that this misconception came from the Europeans' lack of appreciation of African Music's subtleties. If those Europeans instead chose to educate themselves on the subtleties of this music, they wouldn't have had the impression that African music was as dull as they had believed. As Impey Angela points out in the same book, ". .. within a socio-cultural context. .. the music of Africa can be seen as dynamic. " Along with that African music has not been analyzed properly through the lens of Europeans or American scholars. The Western scholar has set views on analyzing music. Usually this is through a song's rhythm and harmony. Unlike the 7 tone scale of Western music, African music encompasses a wide range of different scales. Not only that, but unlike the simple, stately rhythm of Western music African music contains several different rhythmic subdivisions simultaneously. Due to the complexity of African music Western scholars have left it alone. Thank you for your time,NBhat
There is a historical lack of interest in African music among American and European music scholars.

Hello, For my first debate I will be arguing the following statement: There has been historical lack of interest in African music among American and European music scholars. I will be arguing the pro side of this. The BOP is shared. The first round will be acceptance. The second will be an explanation of why each side feels this way. The third round will be a rebuttal. The fourth and final round can introduce new ideas, rebut the retbuttal and have closing remarks. Good Luck, NBhat
chevy VS. ford

PLAGIARISMMY OPPONENT STOLE HIS ENTIRE ARGUMENT, WORD FOR WORD, FROM THE FOLLOWING SITES:His entire ford argument is copieD and pasted from this site:http://articles.philly.com......His entire Chevy argument from this site:https://media.gm.com......There is one last paragraph at the end where he posts a link, however the link does not work. He does not credit either of these sources.I will post my arguments in the next round, giving my opponent a chance to form his own arguments and cite his sources.Conduct and sources vote should go to Con.
chevy VS. ford

I will use this round to establish (1) definitions, (2) purpose of the debate, (3) debate parameters, and (4) argument structure in light of the fact that my opponent has failed to do any of these things. I should not have to use my charcter limit because of Pro's failures.1. Definitions.A. Ford: Ford Motor Company and their vehicles.B. Chevy: Chevrolet and their vehicles.2. Purpose of the Debate/BOPThe BOP is obviously split equally.To conclude which is "better," two aspect will be argued:A. That the majority of Ford/Chevy's vehicles are superior to their Chevy/Ford counterparts.B. That the company itself is superior (for whatever reason). 3. Debate ParametersA. 8000 character limitB. No semantics.C. No new arguments in the 4th or 5th rounds.4. Argument StructureRound 1: Definitions, Purpose?BOP, etc.Round 2: Arguments (and arguments ONLY).Round 3: Rebuttals of previous round's arguments and any new arguments.Round 4: Rebuttals.Round 5: Rebuttals. Back to Pro.
Is a unborn baby tangible? Without harming the mother

That is not what applies to the definition of "tangible." Just because the I can't touch the Empire State Building right now does not mean that the building isn't tangible. The definition of tangible is "perceptible by touch." So if the object in question can by perceived by the use of touch by anyone, then it is tangible. For that matter, even if it is possible for the object in question to be perceptible by touch by anyone, then it is tangible.So if the mother can feel the baby, it is tangible. No matter what. That's just basic reasoning.Going by what my opponent said, none of you are tangible because a certain unspecified person can't touch you. You are all, therefore, intangible, meaning " unable to be touched or grasped; not having physical presence.:By my opponent's flawed logic:You do not really physically exist. Thank you and goodnight!
Is a unborn baby tangible? Without harming the mother

Definition of tangible according to the Oxfor Dictionary: "perceptible by touch" My opponent admit that "Yes you can feel the baby kick." Pressure is a part of the sense of touch. Along with temperature and pain. When you feel that baby move, you are using your sense of touch. Case closed.Sources:http://oxforddictionaries.com...http://www.dartmouth.edu...Thank you and goodnight.
Here"s why god of the bible cannot possibly exist unless he is pure hate and evil

He has never successfully proved the existence of an objective good and evil and is using ad hominems constantly. He has shown to be unable to see the difference between black and knight, he is in such denial that he is filled with constant rhetoric, unable to refute any of my rebuttals. Nothing he has said has disproved the non-existence of an objective good and evil, rather he has proven it to all be in his gaze. He has made claims presenting no evidence, I know quite a few people that believed in national socialism and more that think that the death of people is neither good nor bad. The truth of the matter is that pro is delusional, all his arguments have been focused on the existence of God and he is having a conflict with himself. I also want to make it clear that I am not a Christian, rather I came here for a good debate, not some delusional man making statements about how God is evil without proving the existence of an objective good and evil.
Here"s why god of the bible cannot possibly exist unless he is pure hate and evil

My opponent once again tries to represent an objective good and evil, which we have already established can not be known. We can therefore not carry out any other ideas or principles into this debate as it will just lead to our views of morality. My opponent once again views certain actions as objectively good or bad, take this thought experiment. Was the death of Hitler objectively good? Was the death of a child in Africa objectively good? No, neither were objectively good or bad, as my opponent is a moral realist, he will disagree, which I am fine with. But we must first and foremost, establish that the existence of anything is objectively good or bad is not only illogical but impossible. I will now move onto refuting all his arguments at once: There is no way of knowing what is objectively good, no way of thinking what an objectively good or bad God may think, there is only perception. Now we must establish the existence of God in this scenario to be given If we are to look upon the existence of an Evi or Good God, we must establish his existence in this scenario to be absolute. The existence of God must be taken as absolute as for a reason to critique the course of his actions. Summary: Nothing my opponent said came close to refuting my arguments and he based himself on the idea of an objective good and bad.
Here"s why god of the bible cannot possibly exist unless he is pure hate and evil

My opponent may deem that I must attack his premises and disprove them, unfortunately, I do not as all his premises take the existence of God as given. "Indeed if you believe in God, the only way he can possibly exist is if he is nothing more than pure hate and evil" These words, in themselves, "Here"s why god of the bible cannot possibly exist unless he is pure hate and evil" We can not, and will not, argue the existence of a God in a debate arguing the morality of a God. This can not be done as you can not find one without presupposing the other, hence in this debate, we will take the existence of God as a given. Therefore, my argument of objective good and evil is not disproven as he may have hoped. This is also to stop the argument from becoming a straw man (About the existence of God where we would have to diverge into quantum fluctuations & such). "So if you have any trouble in agreeing with any of the answers from the above questions and saying for whatever reasons as a "yes", then this conversation is over and I will no longer be speaking to you and you automatically lose this debate. Period. " No, I don't, this was not set in the rules beforehand when I agreed so I have full power to win this debate no matter my opinion on this matter as what I see to be morally correct is not necessarily what a God would see as morally correct. My opponent bases himself on how he views an objective good or bad, rather than what a God would view as objectively bad, therefore a majority of his arguments are invalid. I will address the ones that I view as valid, for now. "Do you really think that if god can create the universe in 6 days, that he is NOT going to control your Free Will? Are you insane? Of course he is. " No, hence why the God of the Bible is seen as a loving and caring God rather than the ones in Roman times or any other God for that matter. Summary: Nothing my opponent said came close to refuting my arguments and he based himself on the idea of an objective good and bad.
Here"s why god of the bible cannot possibly exist unless he is pure hate and evil

Your text presupposes the existence of an objective evil or hatred, I will explain why this can not be. Morality is simply what you regard as "right" or "wrong", there can never be a set number of ideas or principles that a collective group agrees upon. Everyone feels differently about certain things, it is simply a matter of human perception. I will support such a statement with factual evidence, it's simple really. Take the laws of physics, set laws that everything in the known Universe must follow Take morality, A set of bound principles to differentiate what we perceive as good or wrong Now that we've established that morality is subjective/relative, we can move onto my arguments. 1. Perception It is very well likely, that we simply do not understand the principles that an omnipresent God possesses, this, of course, would have to accept the idea of an objective good or evil. If we do not know how an omnipotent God works, then we would not know the set good or bad. This, in turn, would lead us to be inconclusive, as the set good and bad are not known, thus we can not conclude that God is pure hatred. 2. The argument of free will This will no doubt be the shortest of my arguments, it'll follow a premise conclusion argument rather than one consistent of words. Negative choices will just suggest what causes harm upon others. Positive choices: Choices we can make that do not cause harm to others Premise: We are able to make choices Premise: We have free will Premise: If we were unable to make negative choices then we wouldn't have free will Conclusion: We are able to make negative choices due to our actions being able to uphold positive or negative choices
Here"s why god of the bible cannot possibly exist unless he is pure hate and evil

Inside Edition: “Man Will Spend Life in Prison for Killing 5-Year-Old Stepdaughter After She Asked For Food” “A Michigan man who stabbed his 5-year-old stepdaughter to death and then burned her body will spend the rest of his life in prison, a judge ruled Friday.”That was a headline from what happened to a little girl for all she asked for was for some food because she was hungry. There’s absolutely no possible way that god according to the bible can possibly exist if he knowingly creates everybody if he is supposed to be kind, caring and loving. Incidences like these happen far too often, well like on a daily basis or even more often than that here in this country. And if god is god and is omnipotent, he knows all too well that incidences like these are going to happen quadrillions of years in advance, long before they will happen. To knowingly create children to suffer is as evil and as hateful as it gets. You cannot get more evil and hate more than that if you wanted to.
DDO Tier Tournament 2 (Round 1): Homosexuality Is Immoral!

In between the lines, there's a lot of obscurity; I'm not inclined to resign to maturity; If I'm all right, then you're all wrong; But why bounce around to the same down song? You'd rather run when you can't crawl... I know, you know, that I'm not telling the truth; I know, you know; you just don't have any proof; Embrace the deception, learn how to bend; Your worst inhibitions tend to psych you out in the end!
DDO Tier Tournament 2 (Round 1): Homosexuality Is Immoral!

Ashk ankhoon me kaab nahe ata, Lahoo ata he jab nahee ata,Door behta ghubar e Mir us se,Ishq bin ye adab nahe ata! It goes something like these:When do tears not streak theses eyes,When tears dont blood does,I am far from my beloved, Without love this mastery cannot be learnt!Mir Taqi Mir
DDO Tier Tournament 2 (Round 1): Homosexuality Is Immoral!

"If you want what visible realitycan give, you're an employeeIf you want the unseen world,you're not living the truth.Both wishes are foolish,but you'll be forgiven for forgettingthat what you really want islove's confusing joy.Gamble everything for love,if you're a true human being.If not, leavethis gathering. Half-heartedness doesn't reachinto majesty. You set outto find God, but then you keepstopping for long periodsat mean-spirited roadhouses.In a boat down a fast-running creek,it feels like trees on a bankare rushing by. What seemsto be canging around usis rather the speed of our craftleaving this world."Maulana Jalaludin Rumi,A Muslim Saint.
Direct representation should be adopt for legislatures

While direct representation may seem like an ideal form of democracy, it has its fundamental flaws. 1. It will involve more procedures and slow down the entire decision-making progress. The Congress is already inefficient as it is, further procedure that will involve careful calculation of EACH member will be time consuming. 2. Democracy is all about representation of all groups. In the system of direct representation, minority voices still will not be heard. Given that a minority representative was elected, his/her power will be limited when compared to that of a white representative because less people voted for that minority representative. Thus, he/she already has less power when he/she is on the field before he/she can speak. This will lead to isolation of the minorities because they have less power from the majority. It will also lead to a polarization of opinions between those two because of that lack of incentive to compromise. 3. If all voters have their choice represented in the legislature, it will lead to mayhem. With so many groups in the legislature, the public will not have the incentive to compromise, which will lead to a highly polarized society. For instance, I am for the Health Care and I have a representative in there representing my interests. Joe is semi-for the Health care and believes only a certain group should get free health care. Susan is also for the Health care but she believes the government shouldn't give it to the elderly. We would all have people representing our interests in the legislature and we don't need to compromise because we do. However ,if only one representative in there is for the health care. That representative would have to compromise all of our interest in order to get all of our votes. In other words, a representative will deviate towards the middle because it wants to represent all the interests and get reelected. If a representative can get elected by representing a highly adamant force that refuses to compromise, it probably would and we would have gridlock. The sad truth is, compromise is needed to achieve an overall goal. The other sad truth is, if each representative can get elected by being highly polarized, he/she will compromise. Thus, no change happens.
Batman is better than superman

If only I was done the courtesy of my opponent actually took the liberty of expressing why he believes the notions he expresses instead of making such lazy arguments. I still await a rebuttal to the reason as to my rebuttal stating why batman would beat superman in a battle. Plus my opponent never wished to illustrate as to why he believes superman required more effort to write, I did my best efforts to express why the visa-versa is true. Very lazy of him. I wished a more worthy opponent as to the laughable batman cartoon. I only mean to express that superman is laughable without even trying. Illuminated in my very first argument. Who cares who came before who, which comic book is written better. It is too bad that this is the last round. Otherwise I would have stressed again that my opponent didn't keep on making lazy half witted arguments. Not once ever giving a proper rebuttal to any of the arguments I posted. Holy Knock-out drops batman! Try again!
Batman is better than superman

Your title said is batman better than superman, you have to take the good with the bad Batman and Superman are more than just comic books. Superman would kill him I made that clear in my first argument Batman is quite silly in his old cartoon show little kids use to laugh at it there was nothing serious about it. http://davelandblog.blogspot.com... I love me some Batman, but more effort was put into making Superman The first true superhero. (without Superman, Superhero never would have been invented therefore, Superman made Batman, in a sense.)
Batman is better than superman

Well, It would be much appreciated if my opponent didn't decide to embody exactly what I mean when I say that superman is poorly written character, the apathy that the rebuttal comment displays only reflects the apathy in which I speak of. One only need to read the initial argument to understand that what I meant by "Batman is better than Superman" that I was reffering to who is the better written character. I would call the cons response a lazy rebuttal but it didn't even do that. It was simply a response showing a serious lack of comprehension of the initial argument. All my foe decided to do was spend a minute of his time looking up the abilities and embedding superman's wiki page. Allow me to demonstrate exactly what I mean. Allow me to show you the same apathy in which you showed me. Do you not think batman would have the resources to obtain Kryptonite? All batman would need to do is equip it from his belt. Being better prepared as a man who is experienced in fighting with Human strength, superman would be rendered unprepared. Superman would fall. Now if you would do me some courtesy and adhere to the point of the issue. Which comic is written better?
Batman is better than superman

I believe superman would defeat Batman in combat. heres a list of his powers--> http://en.wikipedia.org... 1. Superhuman Strength 2. Invulnerability 3. Healing Factor 4. Flight 5. Superhuman Speed 6. X-ray Vision 7. Superhuman Intelligence 8. Eidetic Memory 9. Heat Vision 10. Superhuman Breath 11. Superhuman Hearing 12. Superhuman Vision 13. Superhuman Olfaction (sense of smell) 14. Master Combatant Batman a Billionaire philanthropist (CEO of Wayne Enterprise) who has been trained in Martial Arts.
Same Sex Couple Raising A Child

This debate is a challenge to USAPitBull63. In a forum (http://www.debate.org...), PitBull says: "That said, on moral grounds (on whether or not such a law should exist), a child does have a natural right to (be raised by) a mother and a father, and by allowing gay in-vitro fertilization/adoption, that right is potentially violated." Resolution: A child should be allowed to be raised by a same sex couple. This is not a violation of a natural right. Both Pro and Con will have equal BOP, each side attempting to justify their stance while providing counterarguments to their opponent's claims. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) says: "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person." (http://www.un.org...) A same sex couple could easily provide these and not violate any rights set out in the UDHR. With that, I turn it over to PitBull. I hope he accepts and I look forward to a good debate.
Beliefs are inherited and rarely questioned.

This is my first debate. First ever. So be nice. I wanted to bring something up which wasn't already being argued (which was hard to find). So forgive me if this opening argument isn't well thought out and extensive. My argument that beliefs are inherited and rarely questioned, has two points to it: 1 - beliefs are inherited and 2 - once they manifest, they are generally not questioned. POINT ONE To expand on the first point, I will state what I meant by "beliefs" and what I mean by "inherited". To narrow this argument down to a debatable size, the beliefs I will focus on will be those that are political, social and religious in nature. To further simplify the argument, I will only discuss inheritance from parents or immediate carers. Please note that I am not necessarily suggesting genetic inheritance. POINT TWO In stating that the inherited beliefs are not questioned, I am suggesting that the subject does not question them. Rather, they are blindly followed and generally considered as fact. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- My evidence for this argument will generally derived from observation, as I do not have access to surveys or sociology journals. I consider everything I believe in to be rational and genuine. However, my beliefs in all three areas are very similar to those of my parents. (Here lies a problem. How can my beliefs be genuine if they are inherited from others.) I have noticed that my friends and their parents share political and religious views. In fact, it has been a fairly consistent in my observations. Research in the area suggests that there is an obvious transition of beliefs from parents to children. Alternatively, prof. Alan Reifman's (1) research found that college education played a strong roll as well. However there are limitations to this educational influence. Firstly, Reifman's studies focused on a liberal college which accepted mainly republican students - a limited occurrence. Secondly, This education would only be an influence in select courses, such as political science and sociological studies. Lastly, a minority of people receive a college education. Perhaps some broad evidence for my argument that these beliefs are not questioned can be seen during election times. The political spectrum rarely sees a significant change, even over generations. A particular example could examined through USA's red states and blue states. Certainly there must be a reason that a state remains republican or democrat through generational change. (1) http://media.www.dailytoreador.com... That's all I have to start with. Perhaps a response will get the ball rolling....
Resolved: that the Catholic Church should be considered part of the Christian Religion

Resolved: that the Catholic Church should be considered part of the Christian religion. This debate will be formatted in traditional LD format: Round 1: Acceptance & Pro's Constructive Round 2: Con's Constructive & Pro's First Rebuttal Round 3 Con's Rebuttal & Pro's Second Rebuttal Please only accept this debate if you are well informed in this area; I must say I would prefer a Catholic, but would not mind anyone else as long as they know what they are talking about. Also please realize that all definitions and facts will be established in round; just one thing: don't bring up new arguments in the last rebuttal, as I will not have an opportunity to respond. I now await an opponent.