God does not exist.

It is disappointing that an opponent with such an immaculate debate record would make the argument just submitted. I'm not referring to the semantic argument that is my opponent's case; I'm referring to the overwhelming lack of sportsmanship demonstrated by my opponent. His recent argumentation strategy seems to be to take everything the opponent says out of context, quoting the most misleading of sentences without bothering to explain what they originally meant. I suppose I really shouldn't be surprised that my opponent is doing this, as his entire argument rests upon using words in a different context than they were evidently intended. For clarity, I'll run through the opponent's recent arguments and demonstrate a) why they are wrong and b) why they are particularly underhanded. Then I will bolster my argument. In navigating through the round in this way, I will prove both that the opponent's case is not topical *and* that the opponent is actively going against the most fundamental principles of discourse, deserving a loss. Superhuman The opponent opens his argument by claiming that I *should* have focused on the word "being" rather than the word superhuman. In his mind, because I did not explicitly attack the word being, my argument regarding "superhuman" is moot. But let's remember -- my entire argument is that "superhuman" can only modify intelligent beings, logically implying that "being" must be intelligent. The fact that I did not explicitly state this logical connection in Round 1 doesn't mean the logical connection doesn't exist. Recall that in Round 1, I had not seen the opponent's argument yet. It would be a foolish waste of space to attempt to draw every logical connection related to the debate before reading what the opponent's case is. The opponent continues by quoting me out of context. I stated, "The opponent's definition seem reasonable and are certainly commonly understood terms." He argues that this is a blanket acceptance of these terms, no matter how they are used. What he doesn't mention is that I go on to explain that the word "superhuman" requires extra attention and I follow this with my demonstration that "superhuman" only modifies intelligent nouns. Either the opponent didn't read my opening arguments or he is hoping the voters don't. Again, in my very first round I took issue with the term superhuman, demonstrating that it can only apply to intelligent beings. This directly implies that the "being" in question must be intelligent. The opponent then chose to present an argument which is clearly non-topical, despite my argument regarding the word "superhuman". The opponent did present common sense definitions. The issue is that he is not using these words in common sense ways. ------- In the previous round, I presented a lengthy argument concerning what gives words meaning. (Recall, I argued that words only have meaning in the context of how humans use them and that how words are commonly used is exactly what they mean. Words come to have meaning based upon how people use them.) The opponent swiftly ignores this argument and merely asks "Why?" The previous round has, in detail exactly why this is. The opponent's unwillingness to read is not a valid defense against my arguments. Nor is claiming they are "lame" without any even a modicum of logical justification. -------- What follows is the most egregious "out-of-context" statement I've ever seen, and I watch the news regularly. I pointed out that all examples I found online of the word "superhuman" all had the adjective modifying intelligent nouns. I had many of these examples. The opponent then says something to the effect of, "Oh yes, you have many examples. Here they are:" and begins to list a very specific quote from my argument. This quote was: "A lighter would be superhuman because it can quickly produce fire by itself, whereas humans cannot. A car would be superhuman because it can move faster than humans. Tungsten would be considered superhuman because it can withstand greater temperatures than humans." Let's look at the entire quote. "If "superhuman" could refer to non-intelligent beings, then literally anything that could do something better than a human, or that a human can't do at all, would be considered superhuman. A lighter ... temperatures than humans. Clearly, this definition of superhuman causes the word to become overly broad and of questionable usefulness." In the exact paragraph the opponent cherry-picked that quote from, I am demonstrating why it's ridiculous to use the word superhuman with non-intelligent nouns. It creates sentences which have a confused and inexact meaning. All the examples directly above serve only to bolster my argument; they are a demonstration of the fact that words serve a purpose -- to illustrate meaning. And when words are used incorrectly, sentences can become incoherent, exactly as those sentences above are. The voters are asked to consider whether they have ever used superhuman to describe something that isn't intelligent. If you haven't, it's because you understand that "superhuman" only makes sense when applied to intelligent beings. ------ "Abilities =/= Intelligent" Here the opponent makes his first argument of the round that has a logical, coherent basis. He argues that one can refer to certain abilities or features as superhuman. This is actually totally reasonable and I hadn't considered it. One can have "superhuman strength" or "superhuman hearing". Unfortunately, this argument is not relevant to this debate. The sun is a physical object, not a "feature or ability". Perhaps it is more exacting to say "when superhuman modifies a physical noun, that noun must also be intelligent". The voter will note that dictionaries do have at least two definitions for superhuman, one which describes a physical object (that I proved must be intelligent) and the other which describes features or abilities. [1] This reflects that superhuman has different meanings in different contexts, as most words do. Clearly the context here isn't referring to an ability or feature -- it's referring to a physical object. (The sun is a physical object.) It might be reasonable to claim that the sun has superhuman abilities, but it does not follow that, therefore, the sun is also human. "Intelligence is Contingent on God" The opponent's argument here is best defeated by restating it as a single sentence: Human intelligence could not exist without the sun, therefore the sun is superior to human intelligence. Let's assume that the premise is true. It's not clear how the conclusion follows. "Superior" here doesn't seem to have any clear meaning. Does superior mean that the sun has a "greater rank" than human intelligence? Given that nature doesn't assign rank, the answer is no. Does superior mean that the sun has a higher status than human intelligence? Again, nature doesn't assign status. That's a uniquely human term. Maybe superior here means that the sun has a higher "quality", a purely subjective term? I suppose some might feel the sun is of greater "quality" than human intelligence. Does this relate to the debate? In no clear way is it relevant. In fact, the only way I can imagine the sun being "superior" to human intelligence is that it's "higher up", and this entirely depends upon your physical frame of reference. The reason why it's so difficult to meaningfully say that the sun is "superior" to human intelligence is that both things have very different and unrelated meanings. It's easy to understand what somebody means when they say "Red Bull is superior to coffee", because they are very similar objects. However, statements like "fear is superior to paper clips" has little meaning, because the nouns in question have too few similarities to make a meaningful comparison. In short, one can't say that "the sun is superior to human intelligence" and, even if one could, it doesn't relate to the debate. I argued that superhuman can only apply to intelligent objects. This does not imply that it can also refer to "all other objects which are superior to intelligent objects." Example: Assume that coffee is superior to Red Bull and that Red Bull is "full of sugar". It does not follow that, because Red Bull is full of sugar and coffee is superior to Red Bull that coffee must, therefore, be full of sugar. Adjectives to not magically apply to "superior" objects. I think we've had enough of this argument. Summary I demonstrated that the first half of the opponent's recent response is composed entirely of out of context quotes. I posted the entirety of these quotes, revealing why the opponent's argument had no justification and that, instead, each of these quotes only serve to prove my point. The opponent then stated (correctly, I think) that superhuman can also be used to describe certain qualities and features. I quickly pointed out that the sun is not a quality or feature. Finally, the opponent attempted to argue that, because human intelligence couldn't exist without the sun, the sun must be superior to humans. And this superiority somehow implies that the sun is superhuman, despite my arguments. I suggest that the opponent can do the following thought experiment. If he created a wood chipper, turned it on and jumped inside, would he be justified in claiming superiority to that wood chipper? Note that the opponent didn't touch the majority of my arguments. My argument that the unethical practices of the opponent warrants a loss for him was not mentioned. My argument concerning *why* "superhuman" can't apply to non-intelligent physical objects was only briefly mentioned, and this was only to take something out of context. The debate, at this point, is clearly to me. Source: 1. http://www.dictionary.com...