BeIR/webis-touche2020 huggingface dataset:
It is unreasonable to believe in atheism.

Welcome to debate.org, and thankyou for posting up a debate that I personally find extremely interesting. Its usual here to state the structure of the debate before the rounds start, (but don't worry this time!), but here i was I imagine the structure will be: 1.Introduction of principal arguments 2.Rebuttals and questions 3.Rebuttals and development.4.Closing statement/Summary.My main reasons for for disputing the statement 'it is unreasonable to believe in atheism' are as follows:1) Firstly this statement makes the huge leap of assumption that atheism denotes a 'belief'. True atheism is however a 'non-belief'. Although there are those (who would be considered 'strong atheists') who affirm that there is NO God, true atheists (and I believe the majority) merely assert that there is no proof of a God, and therefore a belief in one is irrational. While I understand that this would mean that I too am pro the statement 'it is unreasonable to believe in atheism', I will actually focus on countering your main argument that 'a perfectly reasonable man would not an atheist', while supporting a self-definition as an atheist. 2) I highly dispute your statement that 'to believe in atheism, one must believe in evolution'. Thats like saying that 'to believe in God, one must believe in creationism'. Evolutionists are atheists, but that does not necessitate that all atheists are evolutionists. It is simply incorrect to state so. 3) The argument that 'an atheist does not benefit from being an atheist and therefore being one is not reasonable' makes no sense. Simply because I can imagine in my head a land of milk and honey where beautiful naked women are in plentiful supply, beer flows on tap and I play for England's football team does not make it unreasonable for me to not believe in it. Even if I would only be allowed to take part in this magical world if I had believed in it, it would really be rather hard for me to commit to a belief in it, knowing full well that my brain is telling me that its existence is completely illogical.
It is unreasonable to believe in atheism.

In this Debate I will be arguing that a perfectly reasonable man would not be an atheist. There are three main reasons why. 1) To believe in atheism, one must believe in evolution. Evolution is a theory which has a severe lack of evidence. The chances that evolution are true are very small, thus a reasonable man would not believe it. 2) To believe in atheism, one must believe that all matter, life and energy originated in the big bang. However, what caused the big bang to go off? What caused that source of the big bang to do what it did? What caused that? etc. There has to be something or someone who started the whole chain of matter and energy. 3) There is no reason to be an atheist. If atheism is true, then when both the atheist and theist die, they both will merely disappear and become the same dust. The atheist did not benefit from being an atheist. If God exists on the other hand, then when the atheist and theist both die, one goes to heaven and the other goes to hell. The atheist suffered for being an atheist. So, there is no possible benefit to being an atheist, only a possible harm, so a reasonable man would not be an atheist.
Freedom of speech should become more free than it is in today's society

People already have the freedom to threaten the president. I can threaten to kill the president right now and I promise not to be convicted of any crime. I might be more closely monitored by the secret service and experience some legal intimidation, but threats against the president are legally protected speech. The courts have to prove I have the willful intent or determination to kill the president. http://content.time.com... President Obama. If you are reading this.. Watch you fvcking back bro!!!! My opponent needs to advocate for some sort of freedom of speech which is not already legal, which he has failed to do up to this point.
Freedom of speech should become more free than it is in today's society

I just think that with certain people say like the president no one is allowed to be as open with their opinions without being looked down upon for not agreeing with what is being done. Now i do agree that any and all threats are not a use of freedom of speech but with some things that are said and then blocked from public view because they go against the president that that is wrong to not let it be seen. and why do you think that their should be less freedom of speech?
The Christian religion is a big part of the great Whore of Revelation13

I believe that most ignorantly mock God and the Word, because they do not understand what they are reading. I will explain. The bible speaks in parables. Figures of speech are often used. 1. Out of the sand of the sea is not some beachfront ocean view. It means out of the people's of the earth. The human body is 90 % water. With salt added. 2. The beast is a one world political system (That will, and is turning religious! ) that will form itself and control the world. Or you could say NWO,NAFTA,CFR, Trilateral Council, etc. . Will come out of the sea of people. 3. The horns are powers or ten mighty army's controlled by ten kings. (Or Presidents) . Much like NATO operates today. 4. And these political issues are becoming religious wars. With Israel as the short fuse. Finally I have no gay agenda at all. Plus the religious right is lukewarm with no backbone. And it has accepted perversion just like the political system has.
The Christian religion is a big part of the great Whore of Revelation13

The concept that you present is clearly absurd. You have failed to give any statements backing up this claim, but I can assume your primary point will be Gay Marriage and that Christianity's opposition is terrible. Excuse me for arguing a straw man, as you have not yet made this claim, but Christian opposition to gay marriage is not opposition to gay people. Homosexual actions are substantially more dangerous than heterosexual activities. While I myself personally believe government ought not define marriage either way, I believe that homosexuality is morally wrong for religious as well as scientific reasoning. The concept that because Christians don't believe the same thing as you, or are different, they are the whore of the earth is backward thinking that belongs in a previous century. You need to be more tolerant.
Social media should replace newspapers

Journalists can use social media to report their findings. Here is my argument in detail- Saving ink and paper Social media won't require ink and paper, newspapers use up a lot of resources daily. If production of newspapers is stopped, there will be lesser deforestation and lesser global warming. Lesser printing machines, transports and offices would be utilized as well. Faster connection with the audience In the case of newspapers, we have to wait until the next day to get the recent news, but with social media reporting news, we would have it instantly, as soon as the reporter writes it, it remains online. Languages Some newspapers come only in English, and others in the regional language. All these newspapers have different content. Online, we could have a flimsy but useful translation of the article. Space Sometimes newspaper articles can't be too long as there is a limit to the number of pages a newspaper has. But there shall be no such limit on social media. Locations Many newspapers are constricted to a region, such as Delhi times to Delhi and Times of India to India. Online, it could be shared around the world to all the curious viewers out there. Reactions People can react to different articles on social media, such as questioning the article's validity or expressing support for it/disapproval. With the paper, you can only contact the reporting agencies or discuss with nearby readers, which is not a great audience, as it is hard to put in all the efforts to find and contact the journalists, and it doesn't seem very realistic when you go up to a neighbor and start talking about the newspaper. Implementation All newspaper agencies must stop production and go online on social media. On social media they can use their usual ads to generate revenue or charge the viewers for premium content/full articles. Waiting for con's rebuttals.
Resolved: The US should tell Russia that Ukraine is gay so that the Russians leave

Reasons why this proposal is a good idea 1) Minimal backlash The US has an extensive history of doing things that later turned into a complete quagmire for them that annoyed every nation in the world and exploded the national debt. However, saying that Ukraine is gay doesn't have NEARLY the same scale of potential consequences if it doesn't work. The only thing that could happen is the US being found out to be a liar, which the US was already known for.... (NSA doesn't spy on allies, Iraq had WMD's) 2) Russia is hugely afraid of gays As you could tell from the Sochi Olympics, Russia and Putin hate gays with a passion. If we could convince them that Ukraine is gay, it would play to one of the worst fears that Russia has, that they themselves are gay! We all know that Russia invaded Ukraine through their back door (which sounds gay in itself already). If Russia though invaded a GAY country through their back door, then that makes Russia not just gay, but super-duper-mega-gay. Like gayer than Prince and Freddie Mercury having butt-sex on a unicorn flying over a rainbow level gay. 3) There isn't much else to beat the Russians If two invasions from Germany and a 50 year nuclear standoff didnt bring Russia to its knees, then there aren't many other things that will. A deep fear of gays though could be that surprise weakness that shakes Russia to their core, because fearless countries could turn out to have surprising fears of minor things. Just take women: women can pour hit wax all over their leg, put tape over that wax, and then rip off that tape to rip out their leg hair at the root, and not be scared at all...... But put a ladybug the size of a dime on the wall and they are completely helpless + paralyzed with fear. Russia could be the same way, since they are acting as crazy as a typical woman these days anyways :P 4) What else can the US really do? Apart from the Russians not having any other weaknesses, the US doesn't exactly have any other options. Invading countries historically doesn't work, negotiation isn't its strong suit, the NSA can only do so much, and Obama is probably too pissed off at Congress for their continued idiocy to care about what's going down in Ukraine. Trying to sell the idea that Ukraine is gay though is cheap, not risky at all, and is clearly the most effective option the US can pursue in this situation....
Feminism is inherently bigoted.

This will be divided into two parts, one part to challenge the pay-gap theory and one to argue it's irrelevant. I dislike how you use data. Just because women are in majority in campuses today, does that mean they should make more money? If anything, the opposite. More of them obviously work low-paying, part time jobs between semesters and on the weekends. What is relevant is how the work force looks. In order to get a high paying job, you typically need experience and and a good education. Just for the sake of argument, let's say 20 years of experience. If college is four years, that means we have to look at enrollment levels from 1991 and earlier, not today in order to find out who is likely to make a lot of money. Here (1) you have enrollment levels, and as you can see all through the seventies and somewhat in the eighties, more men enrolled in college. A majority of the well educated, experienced workers in America should therefore be men. This probably increases, since men are much more stable in the workforce, this (2) isn't brand new but as late as 2010 women worked around 21 hours per week compared to men's 37 hours. The reasons for this is irrelevant for this discussion. It's also relevant what you study at higher levels. Guess who dominates the liberal arts and women's studies programs, compared to engineering and mathematics. Demanding equality of opportunity is fair, demanding equality of outcome is not. Another perspective would be the legal aspects. If anyone who reads this know of any employer that does discriminate, I'm sure that happens from time to time, there are authorities who should be contacted. Also, if a company could save a quarter of their salary budget by simply hiring women instead of men their shareholders would be able to sue any board who hires a man for anything. That would be a completely irresponsible way to treat the shareholders investment. Once you start asking some questions around this theory it begins to look like paranoia. Why would anyone hire a man if this was true? The same can be said about senate, strange bit of cherry-picking to single out the congress by the way. The majority of voters in America are women, more women are born and the sentencing disparity makes more men ineligible to vote. It would seem they do not vote based on genitalia, but rather policy or affiliation. Since there are 18% female members, there is obviously nothing structural that hinders them from applying or from winning. They simply seem less interested as a whole. The real question still has to be "who cares?". A few more of a couple of hundred privileged people are men. How is that relevant to the other 300 million citizens? How does it benefit men as a whole? Regardless of if there is wage discrimination or not, you proved my initial point. Feminists do not care about men. It's about self interest rather than equality, like it's always been. I guess that's ok though, since there is freedom of speech and you can always arrange your own meeting if you want to battle suicide rates. Oh wait (3). 1: http://www.census.gov... form 226 2: http://www.pewresearch.org... 3:
Feminism is inherently bigoted.

I would like to point out that the feminist movement does not "not care about" the problems men face. If you were in a group that loves McDonald's and your city does not have one and their is a group who wants a Taco Bell, your not going to think the people who want a Taco Bell are wrong, your just more focused on your McDonald's because you just happen to like it more. This translates to prove that what Ferare thinks is flawed, its not that women necessarily don't care about these issues its just that they are more concerned with their own problems and they have plenty of those in which they need to fight for, including their rights and their equality. Lets use America in sake of consistency with Ferare, men have almost all of the power in America's government. In the US Senate 19% of the people in the Senate are women and women only make up 18% of the Congress. Statistically women have a higher GPA when they get out of high school than men do, women have an average of 3.10 while men have an average of 2.90. Women are also more likely to go to college, 70% of women have either gone to college or have their bachelors degree, while 61% of men have gone to college or gotten their bachelor degree. Despite this gap in education men still hold more power than women and on average women only make $.77 of every dollar men make, meaning that men make 23% more than women on average despite women having a greater education. http://thisnation.com... http://money.cnn.com... http://www.nationsreportcard.gov... http://cnsnews.com... http://www.huffingtonpost.com...
Feminism is inherently bigoted.

I would argue the core of feminism is to organize in support of women's rights and interests. No one denies that such areas exist where that is valid, but if you only care about one in a subset of two those will not be equal. That does not mean equality, unless it is your view that only women suffer from gendered problems. If we use America as an example, the male- to female suicide rate is at least 3-1 (1), two thirds of the homeless are males (2), 90% of work related deaths (3) and 93% o prisoners (4) are males. These problems are not seen as gendered, despite obviously being such, because they benefit the right sex. I'm not blaming feminists for these problems, I'm saying their lack of empathy becomes visible by their complete lack of interest in them. I was drafted, talk about objectification. Once again, my argument is not that women are privileged, these are just examples that feminists do not care about. The only laws that discriminate based on sex are instituted by feminists. Duluth policies created by feminists seem designed to ignore men being abused. The sitting foreign minister of America has the audacity to say that women are the primary victims of war, because they lose their husbands, sons and fathers in war. (5) Could you imagine the reaction if Obama had came out and said men were the primary victims of breast cancer, since they might miss their relatives? Feminism is not about equality, it never has. Could you think of one onerous situation where women wanted the obligation and the right, and not just the right? 1: https://en.wikipedia.org... 2: http://www.endhomelessness.org... 3: https://en.wikipedia.org... 4: http://www.bop.gov... 5: https://en.wikiquote.org...
should We Repeal the Second Amendment

Okay, welp, I gotta say, I disagree with you on that one. However, I would be glad to debate with you. So, I'll point out a few points so we debate focusedly. However, feel free to direct any quotes on me. Also, for any evidence, I leave a reference page at the bottom. 1. Why are some of the most gun-controlled cities the highest in murder rates? Some of the most gun controlled cities, such as Chicago, Detroit and New Jersey (as a state) and Alaska have the most violence of all, while other cities, like Plano or Kennesaw, which, by the way, has a murder rate so low it can be rounded down to ZERO (a). Now, correlation does not equal causation, but by looking furthur at how the crimes are commited, we can see that truly no one who actually wants to impose harm will stop when they don't have a legal gun. Finally, California has had severel mass shootings in GUN-FREE ZONES, like San Bernidino! 2. When will it stop? Okay, so you want to take away guns. But what about, more important leading causes of death? Vans have been used, like in the Toronto attack, and, while they may not be common, in your logic, we should ban cars, and I'm not even mentioning motor accidents. Then, some of the top accidental deaths include overweight and obesity, and yet the Left calls for fat acceptance! By simply pro advocating healthy habits, we could save 18% of the population, nearly 58,626,000 people, compared to the supposed number of people saved by controlling guns: 13,286. In your logic also, we should take away heights to prevent the common fall death, and pools, ovens, factories, and food (because of poisoning), which, by the way, are all more deadly yearly than firearm deaths (except for factory injuries). My question is, wouldn't you have to secure all of these things too? These parts are of our daily lives! (B) 3. Will it stop the violence? No. This is built off my previous fact. You see, as I alluded to earlier, if you take away a terrorist, an extremest, or mentally ill person, as they are responsible for the most firearm mass murders, will it stop them? No. Because, in the end, and sadly, there will always be loop holes. These consist of the black market, which by the way, would have an increase of profit if gun control happened, meaning that more people would join the illegal market, a few more examples, are cars, nearby pools, anything that can catch and make a fire, a high cliff AND a van, a plane, a homemade bomb, the list goes on and on and on. This would bring no change theoritically, because the behaviors we've seen in mass murderers, and even generel murderers alludes to this. Overall, here is my final statement, opponent, gun control would fail at protecting or securing the American people. It would simply bring unneeded control, possibly even dangerous. However, I'd like to see what you have to say in response! A-https://en.wikipedia.org... B-https://www.aftermath.com...
We should be trying to prevent species from becoming extinct.

"As many life forms are harmful to human well-being, it is downright silly to say we should preserve the world's biodiversity. We want to exterminate Aids viruses, bacteria that cause tuberculosis, malaria plasmodia that kill millions of children annually, and countless other harmful pathogens. So it is, too, with black rats and locusts. Our welfare relates directly to eliminating harmful forms of life and we are unavoidably committed to modifying our environments to suit our particular needs. Common sense calls for accepting that in many cases, this means exterminating some of its elements. The challenge conservationists face is to keep them as few as possible, and avoiding dogmatic and palpably insupportable claims that all must be preserved. " -Ian Parker "-Oh yeah ? So why not extend this concept further and include weak humans too ? I mean we should be killing off humans that have disabilities, after all they would die in the natural course in nature anyway" Do you consider weak humans as an endangered species? This whole statement is a different debate,therefore is irrelevant to the resolution: We should be trying to prevent species from becoming extinct. 'More species have disappeared from our planet than there are now. Its a natural process. I think that what lays behind the idea of saving endangered species is the wise notion that nature (like anything else) should be treated with respect. Beyond that. .. you are on a mission. .and motivation is less ecological than psychological' "-Every single animal alive may have a vital role in our eco-system that we don't even know about yet, therefore we must preserve them all. " 'Well, look at it this way, the species that are not gone, outnumber the ones that we have about 50 to one. What if you save one, that should have died out, and in that species, say the green monkey from Africa, there is a disease, lets call it HIV, and this disease jumps from monkey to people, the monkeys are immune people aren't. Millions start to die, millions more die, how many should die before we see what a mistake was made. ' No matter how noble your intentions are in saving endangered species is, it doesn't justify the means you go about doing it. Saving endangered species is a perfect modern example of the ends justify the means. The most unconstitutional law we have in the books is the endangered species act. For the reasons I have shown in my arguments I urge you to vote in negation to the resolution. Thank you.
We should be trying to prevent species from becoming extinct.

I am in strong negation to the resolution for various reasons, 'The 'balance' of nature is a myth, everything changes, natural selection is inevitable. We can try to save species, but in the end they will either adapt to our actions and/or perish more slowly, making the philosophy behind our trying to save them the way they are seem kind of silly. ' 1. Saving the endangered species is inevitable, because they are part of the natural evolutionary process. It's simple, fossil evidence shows that mass extinctions (such as dinosaurs) have occurred many times throughout the history of life on earth. If we tried to keep these dinosaurs from going extinct would we have the widely used fossil fuels we use today? No. So lets say we try to save the pandas, and we find that something of theirs we could of used to survive we can't because we continued their existence. After every collapse of biodiversity, it subsequently rebounded, with the earth coming to no lasting harm. 2. Trying to save the endangered species is costly and spend taxpayers' money that could be better used on health care and social services. It simply does not make sense for us to concentrate on other species when humanity has not yet sorted its own welfare out Sources for this argument, (. http://www.realclimate.org...) (. http://www.forandagainst.com...) and some from (. http://www.sciencedaily.com...)