BeIR/webis-touche2020 huggingface dataset:
Women serving in combat

Let me affirm to my opponent that this is not as much about the well-being of female combatants as it is about the well-being of the military in its entirety. The downfalls of having women in the military not only put the individual women at risk, but also puts the strength of the military in jeopardy; let us not forget this. Contrary to the opponent's statements, his past arguments have been effectively refuted. Furthermore, I believe that I have said all that I need to say, so no more sources will be provided. .. Only some refutations and clarifications of my stance. Performance of combat duties/physical/mental strengthThese increased risks show that women are not as physically adequate to partake in combat as men. This weakens the military, holistically. A woman's minimum number of pushups gets her through. If a man can only the minimum number of pushups for women, then he fails. Why is this the case? This is a hole in my opponent's logic. Clearly, there is a double standard, when, in reality, when it comes down to actual combat, there is a single, real standard. .. the standard that would enable one to survive. The opponent brings up overgeneralized personality traits that have never been studied in the context of this debate. I don't see how they are valid. PregnancyIt is certainly a problem. Why else would they attempt to make a formal rule prohibiting it, then? Pregnancy directly affects army readiness and effectiveness in a negative way. Because of this prominant issue, women should be barred from joining the military. Female POW's Indeed, men do get tortured, but they do not face as much brutality as women do. Enemy combatants, who are oftentimes male, tend to sexually exploit woman captives and physically hurt them more brutally, strictly due to views of the other gender, which they may see as subordinate. ---Men would foolishly defend female counterparts because due to established stereotypes in modern society, men view women as more emotional and vulnerable people (which is in part true, from an objective standpoint. ) There is a double standard when it comes to physical tests. The minimum bar is different for both genders. .. The opponent hasn't addressed this as of yet. Yes, women would have less job possibilities if women were not allowed to work for the military. But this argument is about whether or not they should have such a possibility in the first place! Completely irrelevant. Again no studies have been shown to indicate how women's personality traits (which are overgeneralized by the opponent) would benefit the military, specifically. And in regards to the opponent's last point about women being fired: Again, this debate isn't about the effects of taking away such a possibility for women, but rather about whether or not such a possibility should exist in the first place. ---In conclusion, women should be barred from the military due to the issues of lacking of physical ability, pregnancy, and the risks of being a female POW. Thank you.
Women serving in combat

Should women be allowed to serve in combat roles in the armed forces?Pro argues that they should be allowed to serve in combat roles in the armed forces. Con argues that they shouldn't.It is assumed that the burden of proof is shared and equal. KEY DEFINITIONS:Women: an adult female person [1]Serve: To fight or undergo military service for [2]Combat: Active fighting in a war [3]Role: a function or part performed especially in a particular operation or process [4]Armed forces: the combined military, naval, and air forces of a nation [5][1] http://www.merriam-webster.com...[2] http://www.thefreedictionary.com...[3] http://www.merriam-webster.com...[4] http://www.merriam-webster.com...[5] http://www.merriam-webster.com...First round is for acceptance, definitions, and terms of debate. Thank you.
the problem of suffering, and God - a loving God can still exist

you ask why God chose to create sinful nature, or the possiblity thereof, if it would lead to suffering. to that, i answer that we are co creators with God. and the truest expression of God is love. love is an act of free will. he cannot create the ultimate expression of love, without creating creatures with teh capacity to not love, sin. and, for us to achieve maximum autonomy and possibilities, we cannot be mere machines that God created as non sinful. on a side note, some speculate that angels are like those nonsinful machines. humans have free will. hence, our condition as opposed to theirs. but there are disadvantages to having no choice in the matter, nonoptimality as discussed. you say i didnt respond to your point about why God doesn't intervene. i did respond to it. i said that he cannot intervene cause the lack of light is inherent given our nature. in fact, i would argue you didn't respond to me. perhaps you did, but to that, i reiterate the above points about why God didn't just make us robots. as to the example of making a child's life miserable cause the mom wronged me. i would argue this isnt analogous enough, cause we arent talking about things our parents did. not oriinal sin as catholics teach, but the 'propensity to sin' and sinful nature, as eastern christians teach. as to the example of a baby starving and not reacting cause the baby has a sinful nature. that is a great counter point, i admit. i almost have to concede the debate. in fact, for now, i cannot think of a decent rebuttal, so i will concede the debate and maybe restart it later. note: if we chose to take the traditional western understanding of sin and suffering, we would conclude that we are being punished for our sin. (i argued suffering was a natural consequence ot our sinful nature) this would better explain it, cause then God could just claim to be 'hands off' while we sort out our mess ourselves. it doesn't solve the problem, but it in a way does answer it better given the dificulties involved. i really don't like this perspective, so don't really argue it, personally, though.
the problem of suffering, and God - a loving God can still exist

I'm afraid that to have a more serious and productive debate, we're going to need to avoid using metaphors and be very clear about the definitions of the words we use. Presumably by 'light' you don't mean the electromagnetic phenomena, so things like 'shining in the darkness', and 'light can't shine where it is shielded' are very vague without proper definitions. From what I can understand though, somehow you feel that we are inherently deserving of or doomed to suffering. The Christian doctrine of original sin, and therefore god cannot or should not intervene. I'll try to untangle and respond to these ideas. First of all, you are correct, if god is all powerful, then it doesn't have to be that way. You then implore me to assume we have a sinful nature, and that explains why it has to be so. But this only pushes the problem back and raises a new question: if god is all powerful, why did god give us a sinful nature, if it will necessarily lead to natural evil and suffering? The idea that we have a sinful nature and therefore must suffer flies in the face of our moral intuition and even what Christians would consider moral obligation. This ties back to my original argument that you have no addressed fully yet. My argument was that god, or another source of moral law, dictates that we should help those who suffer, but that since god does not help those who suffer, he is immoral/inconsistent/incoherent/non-existent/not loving. So if we have a sinful nature and even from birth we are deserving of or doomed to suffering, if I saw a baby suffering due to a natural evil such as starvation, I am not obligated to feed the baby, because they have a sinful nature and that is their fate. Clearly this is in conflict with our moral intuition and the moral teaching of Christianity. So if it is not okay for me to do it, why is okay for god to do it? The very idea of being born into sin is also incompatible with moral intuition. If I am hurt by a pregnant woman, and therefore choose to make her child's life miserable when it is born, that would not make any sense, and you would call me immoral. Why is it immoral for me, but okay for god? So the challenge I give you is the same as my original argument. What coherent picture of a loving god can we paint if we are morally obliged to help those who suffer when we can, but god himself, who is infinitely able, chooses not to?
the problem of suffering, and God - a loving God can still exist

1. it does say why he doesn't help those suffereing. it's because he can't. as we both agree God can't do evil, God can't cause everything to be light. free will dictates that there can be dark. notice, i didn't say "God can't cause light to shine in the darkness". that is mostly a play on words, cause intitutively we can always cause light to shien in the darkness. but he can't cause light to shine where it's shielded. he has from a chistian perspective, come to spread the good news, thus doing what is possible to reduce the darkness. if we of our nature have diminished light, we have more problems, and pain. in a certain sense it's true "it deosn't have to be that way, especially if God is all powerful". but, if we assume free will and our sinful nature, our situation reflects the light we have based on our nature. God must follow his own rules and be inherently consistent iwthin himself, as i touched on. 2, 3. you didn't specifically address why those extreme cases don't just illustrate the prior point, that we have diminished light, and problems and pain tehreby. perhaps you did intend to respond to it, in asking why God doesn't do anything. but, to that, i respond with my lsast paragraph. i will just concede point 4, cause it is weak. it doesn't mean the lives are fleeting and like dreams, in the bigger picture, of even themselves, but i concede it's true. as to the free will point. it does come into play. i admit it doesn't come into play in the way it does with evil acts etc, which i chose not to discuss. but it comes into play in that we are born sinners. that is our nature. and it's our nature because of free will. as such as our nature, only so much light is shone. the lack of full light causes problems, and pain. i thank con for commending me for taking such a difficult debate. and trying to defend it. i concede it is a difficult subject.
the problem of suffering, and God - a loving God can still exist

Hello, and thank you for the opportunity to debate. This is my first attempt on this website, so I hope that you'll be patient with me. You've chosen to defend a very difficult problem, and I have to commend you for that first of all. I will present my argument, and then respond to your points. 1. There exists a moral law or obligation to help or protect people who are suffering if they are able. 2. Moral laws are universal - no one is exempt from them. 3. God is able. 4. Therefore, god is morally obliged to prevent natural suffering. In defense of my first 2 premises, I say that whether you think the moral law is given by god, or is natural, does not matter greatly. Regarding the first premise, since you seem to be arguing from a Christian perspective, Christian morality is quite explicit in that we should help and protect those who suffer or are in need, such as the parable of the good Samaritan, and Jesus' keenness to heal the sick. On the other hand, most secular moral systems oblige us in some way to prevent suffering when possible. In defense of premise 2, if we take the Christian view, I assume that you would say that god cannot commit evil and therefore cannot break his own moral law. Now I will respond to your points. 1. Appealing to pain and suffering being a natural part of being separated from god doesn't address why god does not fulfill his moral obligation to help those who are suffering. 2 and 3. You are correct in that point 2 doesn't address extreme suffering. I don't think point 3 does either, however. Even if you could argue that, on balance, god could be justified in not prevent every minor misfortune that occurs to everyone, you cannot brush extreme pain and suffering under the rug. Extreme pain and suffering do exist, and there are many existences where you could reasonably say that it would be better not to have been born at all. There are children who are born, live lives of extreme pain for perhaps a week or, and then die. They are not able to spread god's love, and if you could ask them, they'd probably say their lives weren't worth it. I think you would accept that humans are morally obligated to help these kinds of suffering children, so why is not god? Perhaps god could allow small amounts of suffering, within the context of a full and varied life. But surely there is no way to defend allowing a child to be born into a brief lifetime of misery and pain? God could step in at that point, but he does not. 4. I'm afraid the briefness of a human life compared with the age of the universe. It is true. The human life is 0.0000007% the total age of the universe. But it is 100% of the life of that individual. And if human lives and problems are really so small and insignificant, does that mean that we should not help those who suffer from natural evils? At the end of your post, you appeal to our inherent nature and free will. But this is about natural evils, so free will does not come into it. Thank you for reading, and I look forward to your reply.
the problem of suffering, and God - a loving God can still exist

it is often argued that God doesn't exist or doesnt care, due to the problem of suffering. here i am mostly looking at suffering of people who did nothing to cause it, and not at issues with evil acts. mostly natural suffering like being born in pain or dying in pain due to disease. i admit this is a tough philosophical problem. here are some ways i reconcile this with a loving God: -first, it's important to note that i do not argue that we are being punished for being sinful, as some traditionally argue. 1. we are born in the condition where we belong. we are sinful, by our nature, so we only have so much of his nature to sustain us. without all of it, there are problems, including pain. we are imperfect pictures. we can will ourselves in God's light and move on into a better picture. 2. for the least innocent, it might be seen as maybe permissible to allow pain. but for the most innocent, how could God allow that? id argue that if they were so great, they would want to be put into an existence with the possiblity of pain, so they could spread the news of God's love and help bring the problems to an end. this doesn't really address extreme situations, that's in the next point. 3. if you were to ask almost anyone, would they rather never live or live a somewhat pained life, almost everyone would say live anyway. there is an extremely small fraction that would say never live, especially for extreme situtations of suffering. but i could only chaulk that up to demonstrating that we are put here to conincide with the level of God's light in us. without it all, we have problems, and pain. 4. if you look into physics, there are theories that say our life is fleeting, and in reality could be seen to have occurred in the blink of an eye. i've looked into the theories and it makes sense, if the theories are true. this points out that it's almost a dream, that our life may be pained, but it's really of extremely little consequence in the bigger picture. this is my weakest argument, cause it is still of some consequence. i concede my biggest weakness is that God even allows any of this stuff to begin with. which is why i still struggle with the point. but, God can only allow for what coincides with our inherent nature and free will decisions.
Mosques Should be Monitored in the US

Thank you for the response con and please stick to the aforementioned debate format. What is the one of the biggest threats to the USA right now? ISIS. What does ISIS stand for? Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. What types of people do they recruit from? Muslims who have been radicalized. Where do Muslims meet and talk amongst themselves? Mosques. Is it better to prevent an attack or to defend against a current attack? These are all important questions to be asked, but they all are under one big question. How do we stop an attack from ISIS before it can happen? Well if you look at all the previous questions and answers you will see that the mosques are where the problems are starting. Using the NSA, I am stating that mosques should be monitored, whether alone or along with everything else does not matter to me. The safety of our nation is at risk and this is a risk that I and many others are not willing to take. Around the world countries have slowly been coming to their senses and have been raiding suspicious mosques. http://www.dailymail.co.uk... http://www.telegraph.co.uk... How many more people have to die before they start to take action? I look forward to con's case.
Everyone oughta be vegan.

While animal cruelty is a serious issue, for the most part it's not really the fault of farms. There have been multiple laws passed in order to prevent animal cruelty, and by simply following these laws and adding newer ones, this will help to protect those fluffy animals. For the most part, it's not even things such as bears and rabbits that are killed. They're usually cows and other animals that are used for the sake of human consumption. Animals do deserve better respect, but meat is good too
Samsung Galaxy S5 is better than the iPhone 5S

Well, if you want you can join in the debate. The S5 also has more features. It has an Ultra-Power saving mode. This means that when you are running low on battery this will kick in and it will last a lot longer. It is also dust and water resistant. That means that rain won't hurt it. It also has a great health app called S Health and a heart rate sensor. It also has great auto focus and other camera tools.
Samsung Galaxy S5 is better than the iPhone 5S

The S5 is better for many reasons. First of all, the iPhone 5S's A7 chip has only 1 GB 9 of RAM compared to the S5's 2 GB. Also, the S5 has expandable storage with micro SD cards. With the iPhone, however much you buy, you have. Also, the back and front cameras are better quality than on the iPhone.
Riparian landowners should allow the public free access to their property

First of all, for the purposes of this debate (unless disputed) "riparian landowner" shall mean an individual or organisation that owns property that borders either the sea or a tidal river estuary. The Marine and Coastal Access Bill will enshrine the right of the British public to have free access to their coastline and, because the Bill has cross-party support, it is almost certain to become law this year. (1) However, filthy-rich mega-toffs, ultra-orthodox snobs and particularly posh golf clubs that own seaside real estate are up in arms at the thought of "commoners" walking across their private land or beaches. They claim that public access to their waterfront properties represents an invasion of their privacy and could reduce the value of their real estate by up to 20%. (2) "Tough!" that's what I say to critics of the Bill. "That's right: suffer on, you over-privileged, upper-class toffs! 94% of the population agree that our right to access the coastline is more important than your property rights (3) and there's nothing you can do about it, no matter how rich you are." The British are an island race and the British people deserve the right to enjoy their coastline. Certainly, the objections of the privileged few must not be allowed to prevail over the rights of the many. Thank you. (1) http://www.defra.gov.uk... (2) http://www.telegraph.co.uk... (3) http://www.ramblers.org.uk...
Riparian landowners should allow the public free access to their property

Many thanks to my opponent for taking up this debate. If I may, I would like to answer his first two points in one go, as follows: When I was a boy, there was a beach near where I lived in a place called Sandbanks, which is on the south coast of England. The property there is the most valuable in the world after London, New York and Moscow. http://www.overseaspropertymall.com... Why is the property there so sought after? Because it is located on a peninsula, so many of the homes there have sea or harbour views. Real estate in coastal places like Sandbanks rarely come up for sale. However, a three-bedroom house was put on the market recently at ï¿½4.5 million ($6.6 million). http://www.countrylife.co.uk... You will notice in the photograph that the house overlooks an empty beach. That's because the public aren't allowed on it. There is a small public beach at the top of the peninsula, where I used to play, but it was so crowded in the summer there was often no space to even sit, never mind lie down. This seemed ridiculous to me, even as a small boy, as I could see there were miles of deserted sand beyond the "private beach" signs. Once I went past the signs and started to build a sand castle, but a raging toff came out of his house and chucked me off. How selfish was that? What damage would a sand castle do to his beach? Ridiculous. A farce. The man should be shot. The fact is, poor people, or even quite well off people, don't live in coastal properties. They are the preserve of tycoons, aristocrats and master criminals - or all three of the aforementioned in the case of Lord Black! People with that much money should feel morally obliged to share their good fortune with their fellow citizens and allow them to enjoy the Britain's beautiful coastline from the vantage point of their property and, as my opponent pointed out, 70% of landowners already do. It is the nasty, greedy, selfish 30% that will soon be forced to by law. My opponent's third point was that landowners wouldn't receive compensation. He is right, but why should ordinary taxpayers give handouts to the rich? In any case, the land will still be theirs; it is just that they will now be obliged to allow the public free access to part of it. In his final point, my opponent used the emotive terms "infringe on" and "steal". These should be ignored. As I have already pointed out, the public will be given the right to roam on coastal land, but not occupy it permanently. There will be no transfer of ownership. With regard to coastal land owned by the government, I can't think of any, but much is owned by the Queen, who graciously already allows her subjects to enjoy the coastal paths that she owns. In conclusion, the entire population will be given the right to enjoy their coastline without let or hindrance while the privileged few will be obliged to grant public access to part of their land in order to facilitate that right. I can't see anything "unfair" about that. Thank you.