Secular ethics ought to be prioritized over religious ethics in the legislative process.

== RESPONSE to QUESTIONS == 1. Con dropped his ridiculous argument that I was the only secular humanist. There have been innumerable throughout history. 2. Con says I have never read the Bible. This proves just how ignorant he truly is; I attended Catholic school for many years of my life and was required to read the Bible many times over. Therefore Con's ad hominem attacks (bad conduct) are not even relevant. Nevertheless, Con absent mindedly writes "This negates Pro's futile attempt to assert an inconsistency in Christian values." Of course this has nothing to do with what I said in the first place, thereby making it an entirely irrelevant argument. What I said was that in this debate Con has only referenced Christian ethics. However, this resolution applies to religious ethics as a whole - not necessarily or only Christian ethics. Therefore while Con keeps trying to make HIS futile point that Christian law is not contradictory, my point was that one might try to espouse non-Christian religious ethics while voting, meaning his point about consistency has absolutely nothing to do with what I said or responds to my concern in any way. What if one tried to impose Muslim ethics into law? Considering Con is not Muslim, I doubt he would like this being forced upon him. However he's completely ignored every single one of my requests to explain why that would be fair (for other people to force their religious standards upon him via law if they did not vote using Christian ethics) and Con just ignored it, instead babbling on about how Christianity is apparently consistent. Extend my argument. 3. Here Con uses fallacious reasoning by completely straw manning my entire point. He tried to say that logic failed Aristotle, while my point was that Aristotle did not fact check his idea using the laws of logic (which were not yet in existence). He straw mans the argument to say that "everything during or before Aristotle's time should be discredited" which I NEVER SAID. Simply because the laws of logic hadn't yet been derived does not negate everything we learned before those laws at all whatsoever. Some were right regardless of not being fact checked via logic. Here you should further note Con's bad conduct in manipulating the points, and also his failure with the Aristotle analogy because I've proven it does not apply. 4. Con once again says I'd have to prove "every secular philosophy without a doubt" in order for him to agree with me. In the last round I pointed out that this is a completely non-sensical demand, considering the ONLY philosophy secularism espouses is using reason, ethics, and justice as the basis of morality and decision making instead of a deity. Con once again repeated his non-sensical demand and did not respond to my point. He was trying to say that there are various secular philosophies including objectivism and utalitarianism. In other words, he said I'd have to prove them both correct. I said that I only had to prove secularism itself was correct; in other words why the secularist ideal was preferable for law making, which I have. 5, 6. Con says he does not have to respond to all of the questions he asked me, and that's true. Therefore I'm assuming he realized it doesn't matter whether or not it's possible any religious book is true, and concedes that it's not possible to know if god's desires have been accurately portrayed. 7. Con writes, "My opponent introduced evolution as an example, and I negated it." Let's just make it perfectly clear that Con in no way, shape or form at all whatsoever negated evolution in any way. If he insists that's true, I will debate him on evolution asap. Moving on, this point was about religion being used to oppress people and their freedom of choice. I pointed out that religious people today suppress those seeking abortion, gay marriages, etc. Con *completely ignored this* and did not respond to this reality meaning I have completely won this point. (No #8) 9. Con's point is ridiculous. He writes, "You assume the choice is between killing 9,999 and killing 10,000. It's not. It's between killing 9,999 OR LETTING 10,000 die." IN THIS EXAMPLE (debating utalitarianism) IT MEANS THE SAME THING. Utalitarian ethics posit you should do what's best for the greatest number of people. If that means killing 9 to save 10, they'd say it was okay. It would be perfectly reasonable for a utalitarian to debate why they would kill 9,999 people to save 10,000 and NOT be considered a homicidal maniac, if one indeed understood the concept of utalitarianism which Con obviously does not. Nevertheless, this point was about whether or not secularism can have devastating effects. Con never proved that it was; he simply went on a random tangent about utalitarianism that did not even make sense. Moreover, he ignored the reality that religious ethics can also have devastating effects, i.e. religious wars among other tyranny [1,2]. == RESPONSE to ARGUMENTS == 1. Con's point here is that one should be free to choose to prioritize their religious ethics over secular ethics when being active in the legislative process. However, I pointed out that laws exist not to dictate morality, but to protect people's rights to act according to any ethics they please so long as they do not infringe on another's rights. Throughout this debate I have explained how religious ethics and ideals can be used to oppress other people. For instance, if Con being a Christian wanted to vote against gay marriage because it violated his religious ideals, it's NOT FAIR to the non-religious people who are affected by Con's morality. The law has no business trying to dictate morality for anyone. Once again, the law's only purpose is to protect people's rights. Con NEVER PROVED OTHERWISE. Con insists (attempting to insult me in the process, but really just looking like a fool) that I have ignored or not understood his point that people should be free to prioritize their religious ideas if they please. On the other hand, I have explained why people should NOT try to impose *their religious ideals* onto others via law. Instead, they should respect everyone's moral convictions so long as no one's rights are being violated. That's the point. Con has never once addressed this at all. 2. Con says we should apply Pascal's Wager. He never said why. I told him about the Atheist's Wager. He ignored it. He concludes with, "The people who make the laws in this country have an obligation to do the greatest good they can to their citizens. Therefore, religious ethics should be imposed to ensure the eternal life of the citizens of this country." This is a horrible argument considering (a) he hasn't proven in any way whatsoever that secularism would result in lesser good -- remember unless he's proven that god and hell exists, then hell cannot be used as an argument -- (b) this ignores almost every single one of my contentions - including the fact that it imposes ideals onto others (tyranny), that he's only taking Christian ideals into consideration, that he can't prove to know god's desires, etc. Essentially Con has ignored every one of my fundamental arguments from the first round and then tries to snidely say I have abandoned my arguments while it's obvious he's ignored them. == CONCLUSION == Con says I debated as if the government is the agent. I have not. Con has not given us any answers as to why people should impose their oppressive standards onto others, when our government is founded on ideals advocating the opposite. Con says that democracy will be overthrown if you force people to prioritize secular ethics, but this is not true at all. Justice is best served in letting people live under whatever standard they please (this is what the law should protect!) so long as nobody else's right to do the same thing is violated. [1] http://www.lepg.org... [2] http://www.wsu.edu...