BeIR/webis-touche2020 huggingface dataset:
It's More Likely That God Was Made Up, Rather Than Naturally Observed

I'd like to point out, Con, that you have NOT explained the resolution in your own words. The reason I asked you to do this, is so that we are both aware of the resolution we are debating. I'm not convinced that you understand what you are debating against.I'll proceed anyways. But next round, you HAVE to meet item 1 of the T&C (obviously it will be round 2 though, there is nothing we can do about that now).---So the resolution is that the thing that Muslims, Christians and Jews pray to and worship, is made up. The "big man" has only been described through written and spoken word. I am not aware, nor is the scientific community aware, of any independent method to arrive at the same conclusions as Islam, Christianity, or Judaism. In saying this, I open the chance for you to provide any evidence to the contrary.Jesus was man. If he were born of a virgin, he would have been a woman because virgin birth, or parthenogenesis in mammals results in only XX (female) chromosomes, not XY (male) chromosomes. And according to this article in the journal Nature [1], (referenced in National Geographic [2]), the conclusion was:"Until the role of imprinted genes—many of which have been implicated in disease—is better understood, it is safe to say that Dad is still an essential part of reproduction."So in short, there's evidence against Jesus being born of a virgin. You have not provided any evidence FOR Jesus being born of a virgin, as according to Christianity. Well, you only said 3 words, "evidence of Jesus", which is frankly pitiful. I would hope you would put up more of an argument than 3 words.---In response to your claim that the Bible was not written for no reason, I have to ask, what reason was it written for then? To paraphrase you, you said "the Bible was written for a reason" ... ok ... what reason?---So, in the next round, please support your arguments, and read the terms and conditions of this debate and familiarize yourself with them. Thank you.---[1]http://www.nature.com...[2] http://news.nationalgeographic.com...
We should euthanize people who breaks a major bone

"Yes of course I agree that people should be killed if they are in severe pain but without their consent, is pretty much murder" But their in such severe pain. I keep on saying they have to live with this. They have to live all through their lives in complete suffering. I must ask what if a mentally ill person is in such pain and is dying but they don't wanna get euthanized? Some actions must go through and we have to euthanize the people with fractured bones due to their severe pain,disease,or even they just can't afford the treatment. "People with osteoporosis just need to be more careful when they walk or move around and they should be fine." Osteoporosis people are already careful. They live a careful life but their falls are bound to happen. The average person takes 18 thousand steps a day. No matter how many people are careful you are bound to fall. Their is about 13 million trips,slips,falls injury's. Were not even accounting that their is about 10 million Americans with osteoporosis,and another 18 million with low bone mass making them acceptable to falls. No matter how careful they are they will be bound to fall. "How can you assume that they will break a bone?" We can assume they will a break a bone based on surveys,and doctor visits. Thats how we can assume people will break a bone at a certain age because it shows a trend based on doctor visits and more. Good luck to Con. Sites and Sources: http://ehs.utk.edu... http://www.news-medical.net...
We should euthanize people who breaks a major bone

"Many people go through way more painful things than this. " I agree with my opponent that people experience way more painful things than breaking a bone. But this is a problem when 1 in 2 woman over the age of 50 will break a bone. They are experiencing pain that would be better if you would euthanized them. Again following my first round I explained that breaking bone cost a lot of money,a lot of pain, chances of deformities as I explained in round one. Would it be better to relieve them of their pain? " I think if a human wants to live they should live." With that logic do you believe that serial killers should live. Do you agree with suicidal people should die because they don't want to live. Just because they want to live doesn't mean it would be beneficial if they were euthanized without feeling any pain. "How are you to say we should kill someone without their consent just because they have a disease" The disease osteoporosis causes a lot of problems for their lives. As I said 42% of people with osteoporosis that experience bone fractures has pain that never goes away. 1 in 3 people with osteoporosis says their long term pain is long and unbearable. Would it be better for them if they were euthanized and don't have to experience the long term and unbearable pain. I await my opponents next arguments. Sites and Sources: https://nos.org.uk...
We should euthanize people who breaks a major bone

I am pro I believe we should euthanize people with a broken bone. You can start debating immediately. Breaking a major bone is a problem. There is about 3.5 to 4.4 million emergency department visits for bone fractures which translates to "You screwed up you broke a bone". Heck there is about 529,000 fractures to the femur,tibia,and fibula. This is a problem. How do we solve this problem easy with euthanasia. It is a cheaper option for low income family's and family's that doesn't have health insurance. There is about 33 million Americans don't have health insurance. Now breaking a bone is not cheap. A broken arm typically cost 2,500 dollars and that is not accounting for surgery. The surgery for the broken arm cost about 16 thousand more without life insurance. A X-Ray cost about $190 dollars. Note there is 33 million Americans that don't have health insurance. So there is Americans that can't even afford a surgery for a broken arm. Now how much does euthanasia cost? A mere 75 dollars to 100 dollars. Much cheaper than 2,500 dollars. Now note there is about 529,000 fractures to the femur,tibia,and fibula a broken leg will cost much more than a broken arm. The euthanasia will be less painful than breaking the bone. The pain of breaking a leg is very severe. There can even be deformities of the leg thanks to breaking the leg. Such as shortening where the leg appears shorter than the unaffected legs, Rotation where the legs below the break is twisted or angulation where the bone bends at the break instead at the joint. These are very painful and cause even more pain if the leg moves. Look at people with osteoporosis. Do they deserve a life of breaking a bone falling where a normal person can get away Scot free? May I remind you how painful it is to break a bone. The euthanasia will be a way to end their pain of constant suffering. Look at spine fractures in some cases with spine fractures muscle spasm happens and you have to pay extra money for the brace. The cost for a brace can be 40 dollars to 1,000 dollars. Lets look at people living with osteoporosis. Over 42% of people who had experiences fractures have pain in which it never goes away. 1 and 3 people describe their long term pain as unbearable. 42% of people say their osteoporosis has made them socially isolated. These people don't deserve this pain. This is why the euthanasia will help them. They won't have to deal with these constant struggle of paying money for their bone fractures, and dealing with the long term and short term pain. The euthanasia will help reduce spending for hospitals. Every year of hip fractures is equivalent of 1.5 billion pounds in English hospital care. 1.5 billion pounds is equal to 1865647500 billion dollars in American Money. We are saving hospitals money with the euthanasia since euthanasia again cost about 75 to 100 dollars. Cites and Sources: https://fivethirtyeight.com... https://fivethirtyeight.com... http://health.costhelper.com... http://euthanasia.procon.org... http://www.webmd.com... http://www.webmd.com... https://nos.org.uk...
Free Health Care is realistic for the United States in 2009

I'll go down the flow here: Okay, my first contention is not that the economy is stable, in fact I didn't waste my precious space getting research to prove it, I thought it was a given that the economy is crap. I just prove that we CAN afford to fund free health care, even if it hurts the economy. Let me give you another example: I have only five dollars. I spend three dollars on candy. Although the act of getting the candy was generally stupid since I need to use the money to pay for more important things, but it didn't kill me or cause me to go completely broke. Because he has no longer an attack against my first contention, it flows through and proves that Free Health Care is indeed realistic. As great as my opponent's stats may be, we have to look at exactly which is more legitimate: THE US GOVERNMENT or A random third party. This shouldn't be to difficult to decide. Minus the conflicting stats, he simply claims that it would not make health care any more realistic. This, as I've proven, is unwarranted. Lets go back to the metaphor I've stated before: I am about to buy that three-dollar candy, but because the demand for candy is low, I buy it for two dollars instead. This greatly lessens financial load I have by having that extra dollar. My opponent makes a final and BRAND NEW argument in his last speech which should be dropped just because it is new (and COULD have been presented in the speech he conceded), but nonetheless you reject this argument for three reasons: 1) Nothing is free, this is an unfair and abusive argument against the affirmative. 2) Like Volkov clarified in the comments before the debate started, it is impossible to debate over this unless we agree that taxes aren't a part of this definition 3) A political power is not obligated to abide by webster's dictionary, for instance, the definition of liberty is the power to do as one pleases (http://www.merriam-webster.com...) but that doesn't mean that we let people do whatever they want. (Hence laws and guidelines) 4) While we're making unwarranted and abusive arguments, you MUST vote PRO in this debate because my opponent COLD CONCEDED TO EVERYTHING I SAID IN HIS SECOND SPEECH. If you accept his final argument, than you must accept this one as well.
Free Health Care is realistic for the United States in 2009

Alright, well I will first apologize for my lack of argumentation last round. School is almost out, and I will have plenty of time then. On to the debate! I agree with AFF's observation, that he only needs to prove that free HC is realistic. His first contention is a bit hard to follow. His opening and closing statements are drastically different from one another. His first, that Obama has given out a lot of money, is true. His closing, that our economy is stable, is not. "Henry Paulson, the US Treasury Secretary, has warned that the American financial system remains unstable and indicated that the world's largest economy will not return to growth until well into the next administration." http://www.timesonline.co.uk... As I am sure you all have realized, our economy has taken huge hits in the past months. Malls are no longer crowded, businesses are closing, and people can afford to buy fewer things. Does that sound like a stable economy to you? In his second contention, he states that HC would only be given to legal citizens. I fail to see how this makes a difference. The US Census Bureau estimates around 306,346,328 legal citizens inhabit the US at this time. http://factfinder.census.gov... OK, so HC would only be given to legal citizens. Does that bring down the number of people that HC would be given to? Yes. Does it make free HC realistic? Absolutely not. I would like to revisit a key definition in this debate, that of "free." It is defined as: provided without, or not subject to, a charge or payment. What you must realize is that going to see a doctor is very expensive. Do you really think that they would provide their services for free? Of course not. Well, my opponent says that Obama will pay for it. Where does he get the money? Taxes. Who pays the taxes? The American citizen. If the American citizen pays, is the service free? Again, of course not. Someone always have to pay. Since this is the case, the resolution is negated.
Free Health Care is realistic for the United States in 2009

I'm gonna just debate this impromptu style...wish me luck. I affirm "Resolved: Free Health Care is realistic in the United States in 2009" Observation 1: The resolution asks if free health care is realistic for the US, not that it necessarily is in the best interest of the US government, citizens, or macro-economic structure. Because the resolution is lenient on this issue, it is not the affirmative's burden to provide an economically sound or good-looking point of view on the issue of free health care. Contention 1: "Obama has already given out sh*t-loads of money" President Barak Obama has, before even completing his first 100 days in office, given away several trillions of dollars to economic stimulus and other similar issues that were aimed at aiding the average American citizen. Although it is easily debatable on weather or not this is a good idea, we are here to debate about health care. According to "The Liberty Papers" in January, 2nd 2009, "...free health care would cost less than the latest economic bailout did, and unlike the bailout, it would give back by allowing Americans to spend more freely, get out of their debts, ... maintain domestic security in their jobs, no matter how low paying or dangerous they may be." When taking this into consideration, we can see that Free Health Care for American citizens would not only be realistic in cost, but would be overall beneficial to the US also. Even if you don't agree or buy that free Health Care (HC) would be beneficial, the Affirmative has still fufilled its burden by proving, at this point in time, free HC is realistic because America has the economic stability to fund said program. Contention 2: "Health care would only be given to legal citizens" According to the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of Immigration Statistics, there are over 11.6 million illegal immigrants in the US out of the 300 million total in 2006 alone! This is a ratio of 1 illegal for every 30 legal citizens. When you subtract all the illegals from this population equation, the idea of free HC becomes far more realistic, since we are only paying for LEGAL citizens. And furthermore, any American who can afford their own health care is not forced to, meaning any good Samaritans or financially stable persons in the country will be paying on their own. Although we cannot realistically measure how many citizens this would be, even if it is ONE, we get one baby-step closer to having a financially stable HC system. After removing all these variables from our economic situation, it becomes not only realistic to have free HC, but beneficial. Because our nation can take the financial burden of providing free health care, providing health care is beneficial to the economy, and because we don't have to pay as much as you would think, I urge all of you to cast your ballot for the Affirmative. Thank you.
There is something fundamentally wrong with the media in the United States.

I'll accept your premise that when compared to a baby being thrown off of a rail car, the death of Heath Ledger is not something over which it is appropriate to show a ton of emotion - after all, from what I've heard, Ledger had at least some part in contributing to his death, most likely by overdosing. However, an integral part of your argument seems to be that members of the news media should show appropriate emotion as it relates to the stories which they're reporting. I don't believe this is a feasible idea for members of the media. Even a local news reporter is faced with the job of going into work everyday and relating the news to the citizenry, and let's face it - the kind of news that sells the most is bad news. If we expected news personalities to react the same way that someone casually watching at home would for every story on which they were reporting, the would most likely develop a wholly depressing view of the world, and it would negatively affect their lives. Because their job deals with gruesome and shocking news all day long, every day, it is appropriate and necessary to develop some kind of detachment from (at least most of) the things they're reporting. This is similar to the kind of detachment that's developed by those work with crime and crime scenes. It's not that reporters aren't capable of being empathetic or sympathetic to these situations, but if they did allow the stories they reported to affect them the way you think they should, it would probably psychologically damage a whole lot of reporters.
There is something fundamentally wrong with the media in the United States.

I watch the news every day. It is almost all I watch on TV. Anyway, today I realized something very disturbing with the media. Here is what disturbed me. Not to long ago I was watching MSNBC and there was a 10 second story on a baby that was thrown over a highway rail and killed. They then totally switched gears and went to talking about politics. No one had anything to say about this incident, there was no emotion shown by anyone except the girl giving the news actually laughed and smiled as she turned things over to Joe Scarbrough. Today, (actually I am watching it ss I write this) on Morning Joe, they were talking about the death of Heath Ledger. They spent a good 5 minuties talking about his death and saying how sad it was (including the same women who didn't show any emotion about a baby being killed). This really pissed me off. What is wrong with the media? They can report a story about the most disgusting of murders and talk about it showing (and feeling) no emotion about it, but then you have something happen to a celebrity and all of a sudden it is tragic. Don't get me wrong, obviously Heath Ledger's death was tragic but without a doubt, so is the murder of an innocent baby.
It should be legal to fire gay people from businesses because they are gay.

Voters, please note this when making your decision. Also, "If someone is gay and is very well at their job" is incorrect grammar. However, I will assume English is not Con's first language and leave grammatical errors that he makes alone for now. Now, for my arguments. Family businessesA main argument for the side that is opposite mine is that gay people can not control people being gay. Well, people who are not part of a certain family cannot control whether they are part of that family, right? Does this mean that family businesses shouldn't exist? Of course not, as this is absurd. Private businesses should be able to decide who is employedOf course it isn't moral to fire people because of their sexual orientation. This being said, let me paint a picture for the audience:Bob the bigot is a racist. He doesn't want black people in his house. Should the government tell Bob that he has to invite black people into his house or they could sue him? Of course not. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Rebuttals "It should NOT be legal to fire people because they are gay. People get fired based on how poorly of a job they do, or if they do something wrong at a job. If someone is gay and is very well at their job, you think they should be fired just because they like the same sex? "I repeatedly stated that it is immoral to fire someone because of their sexual orientation. This debate is about whether it should be legal. "Ask them at the interview what their sexual preference is, and if it is gay, simply don't hire them. Giving them the job and then firing them just because of it is so wrong and should not be legal. "This argument is extremely flawed. The gay person accepting the job would just lie. When/if the employer found out that he/she was gay, then they would be fired. Side note: It is also illegal NOT TO HIRE somebody because they are gay in some places. "Saying it should be legal to fire someone for being gay is like saying it should be legal to fire someone because they are black, or because they are Jewish. This is not legal, and I think it is obvious why. "Well, if it is obvious, then you should know. "It is obvious" is an extremely bad argument for the reason that isn't even really an argument to begin with. Explain your stance, Con.
It should be legal to fire gay people from businesses because they are gay.

It should NOT be legal to fire people because they are gay. People get fired based on how poorly of a job they do, or if they do something wrong at a job. If someone is gay and is very well at their job, you think they should be fired just because they like the same sex? If you don't like that they are gay, don't hire them to begin with. Ask them at the interview what their sexual preference is, and if it is gay, simply don't hire them. Giving them the job and then firing them just because of it is so wrong and should not be legal. Saying it should be legal to fire someone for being gay is like saying it should be legal to fire someone because they are black, or because they are Jewish. This is not legal, and I think it is obvious why.
The United States of America should lift its trade embargo on Cuba

Rebuttals Pro had made no arguments that supported his side, therefore con should win. Information February 7, 2012 marked the 50th anniversary of the ongoing US embargo against Cuba, an island nation 90 miles off the coast of Florida. The embargo, known among Cubans as "el bloqueo" or "the blockade," consists of economic sanctions against Cuba and restrictions on Cuban travel and commerce for all people and companies under US jurisdiction. Proponents of the embargo argue that Cuba has not met the US conditions for lifting the embargo, including transitioning to democracy and improving human rights. They say that backing down without getting concessions from the Castro regime will make the United States appear weak, and that only the Cuban elite would benefit from open trade. Opponents of the Cuba embargo argue that it should be lifted because the failed policy is a Cold War relic and has clearly not achieved its goals. They say the sanctions harm the US economy and Cuban citizens, and prevent opportunities to promote change and democracy in Cuba. They say the embargo hurts international opinion of the United States. History of US-Cuba Relations, 1800s to 1980s The United States and Cuba have not always been at odds. In the late 1800s, the United States was purchasing 87% of Cuba's exports and had control over its sugar industry. In the 1950s, Havana resorts and casinos were popular destinations for American tourists and celebrities such as Frank Sinatra and Ernest Hemingway. By Jan. 1, 1959, however, revolutionary Fidel Castro had overthrown the US-backed President Batista and established Cuba as the first Communist state in the Western Hemisphere. From 1959 to 1960, Castro seized $1.8 billion of US assets in Cuba, making it the largest uncompensated taking of American property by a foreign government in US history. Depending on how interest is calculated, claims on the seized assets range from $6.4 to $20.1 billion in 2012 dollars. The US government was also concerned about the threat posed by having a new Soviet ally so close to America's shores. On Oct. 19, 1960, President Eisenhower signed a partial embargo on exports to Cuba, the first step towards the US policy that exists today. Eisenhower ended diplomatic relations with Cuba and closed the US embassy in Havana on Jan. 3, 1961, saying "There is a limit to what the United States in self-respect can endure. That limit has now been reached." The former embassy building would later serve as the site of the US Interests Section (a de facto embassy) opened by President Carter in 1977. I am proud to oppose