BeIR/webis-touche2020 huggingface dataset:
there is no objective morality

My opponents first paragraph from R2 appears to be a complete misrepresentation of me, he is attempting to create the implication that I hold to some standard of objective morality, or bait me into an expression of objective morality. At no point do I believe that I used the term unfair, but the term logically invalid. A position that my opponent agrees with and refers to as "Shifting the Burden of Proof fallacy", which he uses to justify his refusal to make positive arguments for the non-existence of God. Even if I had used the term 'fair' this would only be relevant if I was referencing an objective standard of fairness. which I have not expressed, I don't believe and I have disproven. My opponent is attempting to place objective moral statements into my mouth. My opponent does not directly address either of my arguments against the existence objective morality, instead he side steps the issue by saying. "Next, let me attack his actual arguments, he says objective morality is self refuting, in order for one to believe that their can be a right position in this debate we must presuppose truth. Then we must presuppose we are morally obligated to believe truth" Firstly as my opponent is arguing in favour of objective morality he must by defintion presuppose truth, however what he fails to indicate is why we are morally obligated to believe truth, and how this would affirm his position or negate mine. "before we go further you must explain, by what standard are we to be objectively obligated to not just believe whatever the hell we want and in which case we can very well believe in objective morality and it could be correct." I do not see how the onus is on me to provide such an argument. I do not believe we are objectively morally required to believe in the truth, I have in fact shown how objective morals can not exist. My opponent fails to understand that if objective morality exists then it would exist independently of whether or not it was believed. My opponents counter-argument does not logically follow, he has ignored and is therefore conceding my two arguments. Arguments extended.
there is no objective morality

He has accepted the debate on these terms and then complains about the unfairness of the rules. I mean he is arguing a position that states nothing is objectively wrong or right and he can't make it out of the first portion without complaining about something that he has no reason whatsoever to complain about as this could be subjectively fair to someone. Seriously, this is his position, he has stated we can not know murder is wrong, but he then asserts that a debate needs to be fair. I need clarification on that. Maybe he should give me an objective reason it is unfair. Next, let me attack his actual arguments, he says objective morality is self refuting, in order for one to believe that their can be a right position in this debate we must presuppose truth. Then we must presuppose we are morally obligated to believe truth. He can not hold this position, if someone just wanted to guess he would be morally equal as their is no way to determine morality. So, we must presuppose we are morally obligated to believe in truth. That is outside of us. Sorry, he has no reason whatsoever, before we go further you must explain, by what standard are we to be objectively obligated to not just believe whatever the hell we want and in which case we can very well believe in objective morality and it could be correct.
Jesus of Nazareth was raised from the dead and was the Jewish Messiah

Well, I do appreciate my opponent putting in the time to debate, although I am a little upset that there are absolutely no sources cited to back up the validity of his arguments. There were no real arguments to refute, and at this point it would be in bad taste to make any new arguments to negate. However, Since the pro bore the burden of proof, and failed to affirm the resolution in any way, I urge a vote for the Con. There was no evidence provided for the resurrection of a human being, and furthermore, there certainly was no evidence provided that there even is such a thing as a "messiah". In order for my opponent to have won this debate, he would have to prove both parts of the resolution in some kind of convincing fashion. I will simply end with this. There is no evidence to support that anyone has ever been brought back to life after the brain has died. Since it takes 5-10 minutes for the brain to die(due to lack of oxygen), and my opponent claims Jesus was resurrected after 3 days, he left much to be desired. http://www.nlm.nih.gov... Again, I thank Charles and the readers for your time.
Jesus of Nazareth was raised from the dead and was the Jewish Messiah

My opponent states, "From what I gather, my opponent has made an ad populum argument to prove that a man was resurrected from the dead, and that he was "the messiah." This argument is invalid, obviously, because just because someone believes something certainly does not make it so. Furthermore, there are more Non-Christians in the world than Christians, so the ad populum argument can go both ways." I apologize if anyone took my argument the wrong way. I meant that at this faith spread so rapidly at its initial point because people saw Jesus. And yeah, there's more people that believe in a God than people that don't. That's not what I was arguing. Population has nothing to do with it. I'd still be a Christian whether there's 2.5 billion of us or just 1 million of us. My opponent also states, "Also, sources would be useful in this debate, as I have no point of reference for my opponents arguments. I do know, however, that none of the authors of the new testament had any contact with Jesus, thus the bible is strictly a second hand account." I'm using the Gospels as my sources, as well as what should be common knowledge. And saying that none of the authors of the Gospels didn't have contact with Jesus is just not true. John and Matthew were both disciples of Jesus. In fact, they lived with Jesus for three whole years. Mark worked closely with Matthew, and Mark also ran around with Paul a lot. Luke used second hand sources. Also, James, you know, the guy that wrote the book of James, was Jesus's half brother. If you're going to attack the accuracy of the Bible, don't attack it by saying the authors weren't sincere. Most scholars agree that these men did indeed write the Gospels. You have to say that they were misguided or had something to gain. Here's a newsflash for everybody, they lived with the guy for three years, so no, not misguided, and they had nothing to gain. Every single disciple (except for John, he was exiled on the island of Patmos) was martyred in a very, very painful fashion. Constantine was no idiot. He was the guy who organized the Bible at the council of Nasea. He, along with all the other leaders of the Christian faith, went through hundreds and hundreds of documents and found the most reliable ones. We've believed in these books for 2000 years and running. I have one more thing to say. I didn't really go into the prophecies too much about Jesus being the Messiah. Really, if Jesus did rise from the dead, then I'd say it's basically a given that he was the Messiah given what He said and did.
Jesus of Nazareth was raised from the dead and was the Jewish Messiah

From what I gather, my opponent has made an ad populum argument to prove that a man was resurrected from the dead, and that he was "the messiah." This argument is invalid, obviously, because just because someone believes something certainly does not make it so. Furthermore, there are more Non-Christians in the world than Christians, so the ad populum argument can go both ways. Also, sources would be useful in this debate, as I have no point of reference for my opponents arguments. I do know, however, that none of the authors of the new testament had any contact with Jesus, thus the bible is strictly a second hand account. I suppose I will simply let my opponent try one more time to make a proper argument to affirm the resolution. If he is unable to do so, a con vote will certainly be in order.
Jesus of Nazareth was raised from the dead and was the Jewish Messiah

Thanks, Gavin, you too. Allright. I'll start off with talking about the gospels of Matthew and John. These two men lived with Jesus for three whole years, and they eventually wrote these books. In a point in history where Christians were getting killed for their beliefs, why would Matthew and John risk their lives to write this down? Do you think both Matthew AND John were liars? You have to remember that they had had no contact with each other for roughly 15 years, and their stories are basically the same. Based on what Matthew and John said was true, we know that Jesus's tomb was guarded by a watch of guards which is roughly 2-6 men. I doubt some fishermen and tax collectors could kill off some Roman soldiers, move a stone that weighs a ton, and steal Jesus's body. According to the Gospels, hundreds of people saw Jesus after he was ressurected. The fact that the religion spread like wildfire is proof enough. Why did the religion spread so rapidly? It's simple; people saw Jesus alive after he had been crucified. I'll leave it up to you, Gavin to refute these arguments or to make your own. Again, good luck, and I'm looking forward to a great debate.
Jesus of Nazareth was raised from the dead and was the Jewish Messiah

It is very rare that I accept religious debates of any kind, but Charles seems like a nice enough guy, so let's have a little fun. My opponent has a huge burden of proof to meet in this debate, so I will leave it to him to lead the way, here. He must prove, somehow, that a man was in fact raised from the dead and that he was the "Messiah." I will be arguing that not only is this story most likely false, but also that it is not even an original story, and uses all of the same fallacies as many other religions of today and the past. With that, I will pass to my opponent to start his arguments. Good luck, Charles.
Jesus of Nazareth was raised from the dead and was the Jewish Messiah

This debate was made for gavin.ogden. Since he's not accepting debates at this time, I had to leave it in the challenge period. If you aren't gavin.ogden, please don't accept this debate. Thank you. I will be arguing as Pro, that Jesus of Nazareth was indeed raised from the dead, and Con will argue that there is not enough evidence. I would like to start out that the Gospels are four, independently written books that tell us the true picture of Jesus's life. These men had absolutely nothing to gain from writing the Gospels, yet they put their lives on the line for this truth. There is more evidence that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead than there is for Alexander the Great's existence. The Bible tells us that the Jewish people were afraid that the disciples would come and steal Jesus's body, so Governor Pilate sent "a watch" of Roman guards to protect the tomb. Most think that a watch is around 2-6 men. How could a bunch of tax collectors and fishermen kill Roman soldiers? According to the Bible, hundreds of people saw Jesus after He was ressurected in the 40 days before he ascended! The faith spread like wildfire because people really and truly saw Him. There's also the case for Paul. Paul was a strict Jew. In fact, he ran around persecuting Christians all day long. Paul had some sort of divine experience and converted to Christianity. I don't think someone would make such a drastic turn in their lives for nothing. And you have to remember that Paul was executed for his beliefs. Why would he give his life for a dream? Also, you have to remember that Jesus was only 33 years old when He was crucified. Why would He give His life for a lie?
We were created by Aliens, not a divine being

lol, ok. The human anatomy is a complex but simple concept in its self, the way we are built is the perfect way to create anything, the reason i know we were created by extra terrestrials is because there is no other logical answer to "who created us?". Was it a divine being? no, that is IMPOSSIBLE, it goes against everything of logical sense, there is literally no other answer. we could have been created by extra terrestrials, hell! for all we know the planet we walk on could be the being who created us. I have thrown the burden of proof on the con and he must disprove my claim that "there is no other logical answer to "who created us?"
We were created by Aliens, not a divine being

PRO's entire argument is predicated on the notion that ancient civilizations devised rationalizations for their existence through the lens of a deity--in the process, he *completely* misses the point of the resolution, and attempts ot change the goalposts. He needs to prove--and has the burden of proof to do so--that we were created by an alien civilization. There is no dichotomy such that not having been created by a deity--and PRO can only establish a degree of probbility, but cannot refute this entirely, meanin that he cannot meet his burden, and thus you vote CON--means that we were created by an aliens. There are other scientific explanations, and as science progresses, as PRO even admits, these issues become clearer and clearer. Much of this boils down to a discussion of burdens, which PRO clearly fundamentally misunderstands. The entire burden of proof is on him because he is affirming a positive statement. There are two independent claims he must be able to prove: (1) We were created by aliens (2) We were not created be a deity He has not done anything at all to prove the first of these claims, and can only cast doubt on the second. I do not need to prove that we were not created by aliens or that we were created by a deity, but only to prevent PRO from fulfilling his burden of proof. However, neither of these statements have any truth value, nor has PRO advanced a single argue to establish either of them.
We were created by Aliens, not a divine being

They're are thousands of religions and cults on this planet. We create these groups in order to feel safe, but there are common things in all of them, DIVINE BEINGS, what is a divine being in the first place? Divinity or godhead is the state of things that come from a supernatural power or deity. Over time peoples common sense has changed the more answers we solve with science the less we conspire about them, we mostly take them as fact. The more technology we create the more realistic these future tech seem, so in essence we are immune to this divine affect until they show us something we could never imagine. This is what happened to the ancients, their common sense was so different to ours, they didn't even know it would ever be possible to do these advance things in the first place. So when these aliens came to meet their creations they showed them great and amazing things, which the agents deciphered into wall paint and books. Remember the story of Jesus healing the blind man with "saliva" on his hands? And you noticed he had to do it twice? I know he was using some sort of chemical mixture that could only be described by the Ancients as "Saliva". There are many other stories in the bible that can be thought about like this, like the boy being possessed or Noah's ark.
Metaphysics Debate

I assume my opponent is okay with my parameters. Here's my case: In syllogistic form: 1. If one does not know whether there is or isn't a god, there is the possibility that there is an evil god. To explain this, agnosticism allows the existence of an evil god, as it doesn't a) believe in no god or b) believe in a good god. 2. This evil god could mess with logic and the empirical world. The evil god would be omnipotent, omniscient, and omnimalevolent, and would be not only able, but prone to to these evil actions. It is a possibility that cannot be proven or disproven. 3. If this was true, all of our knowledge would be false. All of our knowledge is based on empiricism and logic, without these we could not know anything. 4. Agnosticism allows this situation. If you don't know whether there is a god, or what its nature is, this situation can occur. 5. Therefore, if we accept agnosticism, you can't prove anything. To prove the validity of this syllogism, I'll add in variables. 1. If p, then q. 2. If q, then r. 3. If r, then s. 4. x allows p. 5. Therefore x allows s. This is an extended modus ponendo ponens, which is a valid form of a proof. Quod erat demonstrandum.
Metaphysics Debate

Okay, I feel like debating metaphysical stuff, but I don't know which, so here are some topics, if you want to go PRO for the topics I list, we can change them to the negative, so as not to confuse anyone. 1. If we accept agnosticism, you can't prove anything. 2. If life is really but a dream, then we should still live it like it is reality. 3. Empirical evidence is not logically sound. 4. "Beyond a reasonable doubt" is an unreasonable burden of proof. (The argument I have for this will be metaphysical.) 5. Cogito ergo sum is fundamentally flawed. 6. We should not acknowledge metaphysics. 7. The wise man is the man who knows he knows nothing For your r1 post, just say which topic and which side you want, R2 we can discuss parameters, R3-5 are for the actual debate. 23 Hours Ago
Nature vs. Nurture: "Rationality"

Resolution: Pro will argue that, on balance, environment is more important than genes in the development of rationality. Con will argue for the opposite position.Definitions:Rationality: The combination of intelligence and conscientiousness.Intelligence: "the ability to learn or understand, or to deal with new or trying situations and/or the ability to apply knowledge to manipulate one's environment, or to think abstractly as measured by objective criteria (as tests.)" Here: http://www.merriam-webster.com...Conscientiousness: "the extent to which a person is organized, careful, self-disciplined, and responsible." Here: http://www.psychologyandsociety.com...Rules:1) Round 1 is acceptance.2) Round 2 is opening arguments.3) Round 3 is rebuttals.4) Round 4 is final rebuttals, no new evidence/arguments.5) No trolling, lawyering, or semantics.I hope that this resolution may come to be agreed upon as the satisfactory one, and look forward to my opponent's acceptance.
Origins of life Via creation not evolution

First, about the origin of amino acids. Some things are necessary for them to pop up. The first is water, the second hydrogen. The Earth had more than enough of those, as my opponent's history seems to agree with. The third is heat, which can be found at any hot spring. The fourth and fifth are methane and ammonia (these are disputed). This has been done repeatedly in multiple experiments, but the most famous was the 1953 Miller-Urey experiment (. http://www.chem.duke.edu...). Since then some scientists have argued that the atmosphere was not rich in methane and ammonia, so Miller took the chemicals formed in a volcanic eruption (which would also explain the heat) instead - carbon dioxide, nitrogen, hydrogen sulfide, and sulfur dioxide. This formed 22 types of amino acids as well as a number of other useful compounds for life (. http://www.sciencemag.org...). There is another possibility - amino acids could have dropped here from a meteor. There exist numerous and quite complex models for how the amino acids got on the meteor, which you can read about here: . http://www.wiley-vch.de.... There is also a surprising amount of evidence for this- for instance, the Murchison meteorite contained amino acids when it fell (. http://en.wikipedia.org...). Note that neither of these alternatives requires divine intervention. Second, about the arrival of DNA. There is now much evidence that DNA was not necessary for early life, because RNA can act as a substitute (. http://www.accessexcellence.org...). DNA probably arose later, as it is more complex than RNA, but it isn't too difficult to turn RNA into DNA. Strangely enough, you can get RNA using nothing but warm water (. http://www.sciencedaily.com...). RNA has also been created using a variety of chemicals available in early Earth (. http://arstechnica.com...). A nifty effect of this is that proteins are easily and naturally created. Even today, RNA is used in almost all cells to create proteins. Third, examples of experiments have already been given. Note the lack of divine intervention. Fourth, an example of non-life producing life? Planet Earth. Once it had no life, now it has life. I know I'm begging the question, but scientists are astonishingly close to creating basic life-forms without divine intervention. It won't occur in the wild anymore because there's too much oxygen out there now (we had this big oxygen explosion thing) but it can be done in the lab. This brings me to my single (though admittedly complex) question for you- do you have any observable, testable, and unfalsifiable evidence that a deity exists? My argument is that in the absence of scientific evidence for God's existence, we cannot believe creationism from a scientific standpoint. Since this debate is to be judged on scientific criteria, my opponent cannot win the debate.
Origins of life Via creation not evolution

Thanks a lot for the warm welcome. This dialog, I hope, will be done in truth. We do Both have a bias going into this. However, my agenda is to show the absurdity of the hypothesis of evolutionary biology. Since were speaking about organic evolution, I want to start off with the old earth. Supposedly, there was a hot, molten earth. Then, it rains for millions of years, this figure isn't even known for sure, and the earth cools, and as we know it, A big sea with a broth of premordial soup is now existing. Right about here, I wish I can get an agreement from my opponent, so there isn't an issue. I'll assume, unless corrected, he's ok with this summary. Now, the earth has cooled, waters are abundant, and conditions of the earth's atmosphere are in tact. There is now an electrical reaction from lightning hitting these waters. These reactions would cause the genesis of amino acids, proteins, and then cells. You first need the building blocks of life, namely, amino acids. Now, amino acids make protein, but only if DNA tells it to. Since DNA is information of unpresedented complexity and volume, here are some questions I have... Please tell me how we get any amino acids, the building blocks of life, to come about from non life, chance processes, without intervention from the giver of information? How can you justify DNA to arise from this soup, and to tell the amino acids to make proteins? Give me any Examples of an experiment that has shown this to happen. Please no assumptions. Please tell me where did the DNA come from, and how the amino acids were told to produce proteins. Give me an example that is observable, testable, and unfalsifiable, of non life producing life.