The Burden of Proof should be Optional, not Necessary

"Debates are civilized arguments, and arguments are justifications of our beliefs." Yes. But remember that in a debate, the goal should be to attempt to do two things. 1. Above all else, find the truth. 2. Convince your opponent. Creating a fantastic argument based on a flawed premise is only second best. Without any evidence, you essentially have no argument at all. "This means that the person only needs to justify their stance, by whatever means they deem necessary." No. Sleazy tactics and logical fallacies ruin the debate. "It is their view, and they thus must be able to decide how to defend it." Precisely. And defending it necessarily involves a proof. "If they chose to not defend it well, by way of providing evidence, then that's their problem. It is not up to the opponent to demand that they provide evidence in a debate made purely for entertainment purposes." Similarly, if two soccer (football) teams are playing a match, one team most definitely has the right to stand there and do absolutely nothing. But if so much as one goal is scored on them, the other team has the luxury of being able to stand there, mock them, and still win when the buzzer sounds. If the opponent makes ONE point, any argument at all, and the person refuses to provide proof of his argument, the opponent wins. "Burden of proof is an obligation in legal proceedings, not 'civilian' debates. " I find this to be a complete untruth. I ask that you justify your argument. Since both legal proceedings and debates involve discovering the truth through presenting arguments and evidence, I find this statement to be false. "I have a college textbook on philosophy, under 'arguments' here are only five: Deductive, Inductive, Argument by Analogy, Logical Possibility/Counter Example, and Reductio ad Absurdum. You can look these up for yourself." All of which involve the presentation of a logical proof. "Under fallacies, it lists fifteen, 3 of which I can relate to Burden of Proof. They include attacking the straw man, distraction, and irrelevancies. Attacking the Straw Man: A debater is unable t refute his opponents points, and will instead continually question his opponent without raising any of his own points. This has been the case, were rather than try and produce their own counter example, debater will say "passing the burden of proof", questioning the legitimacy of their opponents case, and will conveniently not say anything in defense at all." That is a faulty definition. Did you take directly out of the book? Straw man is a single fallacious argument, not a debating style. It is when an opponent misinterprets a point and attacks that point instead of his opponent. Hence the analogy of someone building a straw man resembling his opponent and attacking it to give the illusion that he is victorious in combat. Your explanation has nearly nothing to do with that. I've caught many of these in my time and several on this site. An example would be A: Science does not seek to protect itself. It seeks only to protect religious nuts from harming themselves. B: Are you saying I'm a religious nut? Your personal attack shows that you are biased and therefore, your position is compromised. "Distraction: A debater will make statements that lead away from the main issue. Burden of proof certainly does this, as it makes the opponent have to post links to websites, book references, videos etc, rather than press on with the issue they're defending, in the end weakening their point. Irrelevancies: Arguing a point by arguing everything else (charts, statistics, etc) without attacking the point. This is a fallacy on both of the debaters. Rather than attack he issue, they will have to validate and argue on a chart." Ah. I know where the confusion of yours stems from. You have confused satisfying the burden of proof with citing sources. I am not one to drag out a debate, but since this is round two, I must make this clear. I believe your definition of "Burden of proof" is incorrect. The Burden of proof can be satisfied by proposing a logical argument. It need not be citation of fact or expertise. The burden of proof falls on the thesis statement "All chihuahuas are animals" and can be satisfied by saying "All chihuahuas are dogs, All dogs are animals". Thus, when you propose that satisfaction of the Burden of Proof is optional, it sounds to the rest of us as if though you are suggesting the mere statement of a thesis and no following argument. You mean to say that citing sources and providing physical evidence should be optional. That is completely different from "Burden of proof". I argue now that "Burden of proof" MUST be MANDATORY because otherwise, there will be no debate. Unless you can successfully prove that a debate in which no logical arguments are offered is fine, This debate has been decided in my favor. The burden of proof is on you ;)