If Satan exists then we as a people should not follow the teachings of the bible.

I'd like to begin with a round of thank yous to my opponent for posting a most interesting response to this debate. However I sense some logical fallacies within his arguments so I'm going to begin. My opponent has three arguments, I will cover each in turn. SATAN WAS CREATED FOR A WORTHY PURPOSE ================================ This is an interesting argument indeed but I have a small litany of arguments in opposition. 1. First off I don't think that Love necessarily needs hate. My opponent says that if hate did not exist then love would just be the natural state of things. That doesn't however make love being that natural state of things a bad thing. For instance I exist right now in my current form, there is no alternative form which I can have, thus my current form is the natural state of things. That does not mean that because there is no alternative that my current form is a bad thing. On the contrary I am content as am because I know nothing better or worse. In much the same if Love only existed we would be content with it because we know nothing better or worse. 2. Secondly however my opponent draws a non sequitur fallacy and a straw man fallacy. For starters he assumes that my premise is that because god made Satan (which he presumes I think is bad) we should not follow the bible. Thus if my argument does not hinge on god being bad what-so-ever, then his argument means absolutely nothing. Thus the claim that -since god needed to make Satan we should still read the bible- is a non sequitur fallacy. Especially considering that my argument has nothing to do with God's reasons for creating Satan. EVEN IF GOD IS BAD, WE SHOULD NOT REJECT HIS GOOD TEACHINGS ============================================= 1. I'm not saying god is bad, in fact I'm not saying anything about god. 2. My opponent interprets the plural word "people" in the resolution to mean all people, thus the plural word "teachings" in the resolution will also be interpreted by myself to mean all teachings. This is only confirmed by the word "the" that is placed in front of teachings, implying the entirety. 3. My opponent once again straw mans my position by saying that I am advocating, "that NO ONE should read the bible since God created Satan". This is not what I am advocating, in fact I think that people SHOULD read the bible, I just do not think that people SHOULD follow the teachings. Thus once again my opponents entire argument as no meaning, I support his position that people should read the bible fully. 4. Satan, as my opponent points out, is intended to mislead people from love into hatred. Satan leads people away from god on a regular bases, or trys. God allows Satan to do this as my opponent points out. 5. Satan has created many different religions in order to accomplish the goal in point 4. Considering the fact that there are so many different contradicting religions out there they cannot all be "of god". The true religion from god would be the truth, thus it is impossible for god to have more than one religion as they all contradict, some in big ways some in small ways. It therefor follows that god possess one religion and Satan has created multiple other religions to lead the people away from the true religion. 6. Satan sends himself to earth far more often than god does. Considering that only one religion is of god, the prophets and god-like embodiments of that religion would never be more than the prophets and god-like embodiments of every other religion combined. Thus Satan sends forms of himself or messages from himself to earth on a far more regular bases than god does. 7. Satan's goal, being to mislead people from the true god, would be best fulfilled by sending someone who appears to be an embodiment of love to earth. This person would of course preach away from the true god and would then be unfortunately martyred thus creating a religion. It would therefor follow that Jesus Christ was actually an embodiment of Satan. This is supported statistically by the fact that Satan sends embodiments to earth more often than god does. 8. The bible, being a bi-product of Jesus, would therefor be of Satan and a purposeful intention to lead the people away from god. This is supported statistically through the fact that Satan posses more religions than god. Furthermore though it is supported logically in the change from the bible between the old testament and the new testament. Where as many things advocated in the old testament are considered to be bad or evil today the new testament strayed away from these things. Thus we can see Satan's first attempt at misleading the people replaced by an attempt where he tried to appear more good. 9. It would therefor and finally follow that FOLLOWING THE TEACHINGS of the bible would probably not be a desirable thing to do. THE BIBLE MIGHT NOT BE HIS TEACHINGS ANYWAYS SO WE SHOULD STILL READ IT ====================================================== Yeah, you're right. In fact I postulate that the bible includes the teachings of Satan. Either way though the fact that we should read it remains in tact. Luckily for me I'm not advocating that we don't read it, I think reading it and learning the information is a great thing. I'm advocating we as a people do not follow the teachings of the bible. Thus once again this point doesn't actually link at doesn't actually matter. Now on to my own arguments....... Which will probably be updated later since I can only think of one right now. MAGNITUDE ======== The bible is massive and includes a great deal of teachings. However the resolution is talking about all of the teachings which means even if my opponent somehow disproves everything I said above he is still going to prove that we should follow every teaching. I think this is a patently bad idea especially when looking at some of the teachings in Leviticus. Have fun!