God is guilty of collusion to sacrifice a child in the case of Jepthah

However, there is something lacking from your opening argument. In order to understand if God is guilty of collusion we must first understand what collusion is. Dictionary. com defines collusion as "–noun 1. a secret agreement, especially for fraudulent or treacherous purposes; conspiracy: Some of his employees were acting in collusion to rob him. 2. Law . a secret understanding between two or more persons to gain something illegally, to defraud another of his or her rights, or to appear as adversaries though in agreement: collusion of husband and wife to obtain a divorce. " [A]Since it is clear that the second defintion is not what Pro is refering to, we can assume that his resolution refers to the first. Now, I could mount a semantic debate based on the fact that collusion by definition is secretive and this is a very public situation. However, I will not. My opponent makes several sigificant fallacious mistakes in his opening round. I shall briefly address them before moving onto my primary argument, and will go further indepth later if needed.1) My opponent seeks to show how "what Yahweh would do if he didn't agree to a sacrifice" and proceeds to use the instance of Abraham and Isaac as an example of how Yahweh would act. However, the situations are not analogous. In the case of Abraham God was the initiator of the sacrifice, and since he later stopped it it is likely that he never intended for the sacrifice to take place at all. Regardless, it is not an equivalent circumstance. Rather, we see people committing child sacrifices throughout the Bible, and Yahweh allows people to exercise their free will to do so.2) My opponent seeks to show that the sacrifice in the New Testament of Jesus Christ proves that Yahweh is not opposed to human sacrifice. However, Christian doctrine teaches that the Son was pre-existent and willingly sacrificed himself. This situation is also not analogous.3) My opponent seeks to argue that Yahweh accepted the "deal" that Jepthah suggested. However this does not present itself in the text. Yahweh is markedly silent on the topic. In addition, the fact that the Spirit of the LORD was already with Jepthah prior to his vow is significant. Every other place in the book of Judges that the Spirit of the LORD is with a judge, that judge has already been comissioned to defeat the enemies of Israel. Paradigmatically, it appears as though the LORD already intended to defeat the enemies of Israel and Jepthah made an uneccesary vow. Furthermore, there is no evidence present in the text that indicates that he LORD was pleased by the sacrifice or would have been displeased by it. If I say to a person "If you say nothing I will take it to mean that you hate me" and the person says nothing, it does not mean they hate me. It simply means they are not responding to me for some reason.4) My opponent makes a comparison to prostitution. However, this again is an unfaircomparison. If it is consistent with my established behavior to give a given type of person money, that person then has sex with me and I give them money it does not logically follow that the money was for sex. This is a hasty generalization based on partial evidence. Perhaps I owed the hooker money for something else. There are many ways that the scenario presented does not equate to a person paying for sex.5) My opponent seeks to show that Yahweh enjoys the smell of burning flesh. However, the passages he refers to are exclusively animal or plant sacrifices. I enjoy the smell of a good steak (burning fesh), but that is a far cry from saying that I enjoy the smell of burning human flesh.6) Finally, my opponent appeals to the so-called problem of evil to show that Yahweh was obligated to stop this tragedy. He implies that if Yahweh did not stop the sacrifice he either could not stop it or did not desire to stop it. There are other alternatives. Perhaps the sacrifice served a greater purpose, perhaps Yahweh favors allowing free will over stoping sin. Regardless of the reason, it does not prove collusion, it simply proves that Yahweh had a reason not to stop it. My opponent has proven nothing in actuality. The facts of the text show that Jepthah made a vow. The text does not indicate that Yahweh was aware of the vow, endorsed the vow, accepted the vow, or interacted with the vow in anyway. My opponent supplies faulty analogies in an attempt to show something the text does not. Thank you, I look forward to the next round. [A] . http://dictionary.reference.com...