Illogical and Unfair *Debating*

[Starman]

What has quite remarkably been overlooked by everyone, and in particular atheists, who lay claim to intellectual and rational superiority, and who obviously outnumber Christians here, is the utter lack of fairness.

During every debate I have watched or read about, rules provide equal numbers of participants, who are given equal time to make their points. Clearly that is not the case on this, or any other atheist/religious forum I have encountered online.

How could so obvious an unfair practice be permitted, for so long?

To the extent that anyone has previously made this point, I have never read it, here or anywhere else. Please provide the link to the topic elsewhere in this forum, if it exists.

How can debate said to be either fair or rational when one side is argued by dozens of people, who pose far more questions, points, and challenges than the other side? This is only too often reflected in comments such as, "You never answered"...(participant #100.)

Debate rules need to be modified in the interest of fairness and rationality. Many ganging up on one, or a few, has long been considered to be bullying, and rightly so. Has any rational atheist proposed equal numbers of debaters, with each side given equal numbers of posts, of equal length here? If so, where? If not, why not?

There is no love, no civility, in repeating ad nauseum, "There is no god and you cannot prove it.... (to our satisfaction), but please try. (snark)"

The Christian equivalent to that irrational position is, "You're going to hell if you don't change (snark)." But that Christian position is not something Christians fabricated. It is fundamental to the faith, perhaps in the same way that Christianity cannot be "proven" to the satisfaction of virtually all atheists.

[Starman]

And another thing! Tokens. I want more tokens. Let the token count be redistributed.
It's only fair!

Gimme, gimme, gimme, you greedy rich token owners.

[A little levity, far too scarce in these here parts, if you ask me.
Which you did not.]

[DanieltheDragon]

[Replying to post 2 by Starman]

Invite more Christians to debate then. This forum has always been open to anyone who wishes to civilly debate and has never been about the censure of individual thought. If you want more organized debate there is the head to head section. If you feel like you are being piled on pick a debate topic challenge someone and ask one of the moderators to mediate the debate.

There is no requisite for you to respond to all of the posters, if you feel there are to many questions for you to field just focus on the ones that you feel are most pertinent and ignore the rest.

I would very much enjoy a more active theistic base, which is why I would encourage you to not grind your personal axe against atheists here and stop generalizing and stereotyping in such a pejorative fashion. If you wish to engage in a civil debate of a topic of your choosing head to head let me know.

[acapiz]

hi Starman.

This is a very simple situation to assess. On C&R, theists are losing. There is again a simple reason for this. They have nothing. Theists are well advised to stay within their comfort zones and to continue to preach to the converted on more contained sites. They will collect no change here. Jesus would have survived well on this forum. He would have been up for it and confident in his convictions. What you express in your above OP is a lack of personal conviction that I cannot or will not help you with.

[Regens Küchl]

So Hell and the damning of unbelievers into it is not something christians fabricated ???

Orthodox Jews and christians like adventists or Jehovahs witnesses would explain to you anytime that it is in fact a christian fabrication.

I did not until now know that you, an experienced attorney, belong to that part of christians who believe in a literal hell.

[FarWanderer]

[Replying to post 1 by Starman]

Is there some reason you haven't tried to do a head-to-head?

[FarWanderer]

The Christian equivalent to that irrational position is, "You're going to hell if you don't change (snark)." But that Christian position is not something Christians fabricated. It is fundamental to the faith, perhaps in the same way that Christianity cannot be "proven" to the satisfaction of virtually all atheists.

I don't see much difference between "I think you deserve hell" and "The God of my religion thinks you deserve hell and he's always right".

[Starman]

Invite more Christians to debate then. This forum has always been open to anyone who wishes to civilly debate and has never been about the censure of individual thought. If you want more organized debate there is the head to head section. If you feel like you are being piled on pick a debate topic challenge someone and ask one of the moderators to mediate the debate.

You are begging the question. First, you did not provide any link as evidence that this consideration originated with any rational, intelligent atheist. Nor did answer why that is so.

As to "inviting" more Christians to debate here,
1. Most atheists treat anything said by a Christian with derision and rancor.
2. If atheists do not wish to drive Christians away by their consistent derision, rancor, and condescension, they certainly fooled me.
3. Atheists generally provide little by way of evidence of their own intellectualism and scientific acumen, while claiming more than believers.
4. I am not long for this hellhole, considering the treatment and incessant demands that I "prove" everything and document a very great deal. Meanwhile pontificating atheists simply snipe, snark, giggle,and say "evidence, proof."
Repeat.

There is no requisite for you to respond to all of the posters, if you feel there are to many questions for you to field just focus on the ones that you feel are most pertinent and ignore the rest.

I try to do so. In the process, comments arise such as, "This has previously been answered." and "Why didn't you respond to him!"

I would very much enjoy a more active theistic base, which is why I would encourage you to not grind your personal axe against atheists here and stop generalizing and stereotyping in such a pejorative fashion. If you wish to engage in a civil debate of a topic of your choosing head to head let me know.

What you call my "pejoratives" I call "descriptions." Calling a spade a spade is not pejorative.

You want a "more active theistic base," begin by modifying the rules, as I suggested. When atheists begin treating those dreaded ignoramuses whose God is no different from "fairy tale creatures" and the "Flying Spaghetti Monster," you might make some progress. But not until.

I have generalized and accused in response to atheists. I stand by each and every comment I have made. Atheists are overwhelmingly intolerant and condescending.
Overwhelmingly, not universally. Not everyone.

Nobody would be treated like this in any Christian church in America. But snark is a way of life with atheist groups. Exceptions prove the rule.

I know more about science than most atheists here or anywhere else. Derisive attacks against me continue unabated, intimating ignorance instead. If that is your definition of "rationality" I want no part of it.

[Hamsaka]

[Replying to post 1 by Starman]

I too would prefer a more level debating field, with more Theists willing to participate.

It's not like you have to declare a religion or lack thereof to join this site, so the distribution of Theists and atheists is a matter of chance. Who chooses to debate is a matter of choice.

This 'imbalance' you decry isn't deliberate, for what its worth.

What ideas do you have to to make it more 'fair' for you? Would you speak up on behalf of a Theist dominated forum making mincemeat out of the lone atheist, or would that better reflect the natural state of things ?

[Divine Insight]

How could so obvious an unfair practice be permitted, for so long?

Historically Christianity has been totally unfair in its practice of socially degrading, humiliating and otherwise condemning non-believers. That has been considered "fair" by Christians for centuries.

Debate rules need to be modified in the interest of fairness and rationality. Many ganging up on one, or a few, has long been considered to be bullying, and rightly so. Has any rational atheist proposed equal numbers of debaters, with each side given equal numbers of posts, of equal length here? If so, where? If not, why not?

This site has a special Head-to-Head debate forum. If you would like to debate someone one-on-one propose a head-to-head debate and see how you fair there.

There is no love, no civility, in repeating ad nauseum, "There is no god and you cannot prove it.... (to our satisfaction), but please try. (snark)"

There is no love and no civility in Christian evangelists constantly harping on people to believe in a jealous misogynistic homophobic God either. Yet they have been doing this ad nauseum for centuries.

Moreover, Christianity is a highly proselytizing religion (or have you not noticed that fact?). Therefore it's perfectly natural for the people who are being proselytized to request proof of the God of the religious cult that it doing the proselytizing.

In fact, this is actually done quite politely by many atheists. The only reason this is frustrating to Christian evangelists is because it's an impossible request that they already know they cannot answer.

The Christian equivalent to that irrational position is, "You're going to hell if you don't change (snark)." But that Christian position is not something Christians fabricated. It is fundamental to the faith, perhaps in the same way that Christianity cannot be "proven" to the satisfaction of virtually all atheists.

This is correct. And the claim that some supposedly loving righteous God will hate people who don't cower down to the Christian cult is an oxymoron itself.

Christians claim that their God is loving, but all they do is use him to spread hatred and evil threats in his name. I personally don't see anything loving in the Christian God. He's jealous by his own confession. He misogynistic and homophobic. He threatens to punish people in severely evil and cruel ways for the pettiest of reasons. Like for merely not believing that Jesus was his demigod son miraculously born of a virgin mortal woman. And supposedly rose from the dead complete with all the wounds that killed him, only to take his physical body up to a spiritual heaven where flesh is not even supposed to be required.

Can you blame anyone for not believing such an absurd story?

Yet this Christian God is supposedly so filled with hatred and wrath that he'll do unthinkable evil things to people for merely not believing such utter nonsense.

Even within these fables themselves the authors have God speaking from a cloud telling the disciples of Jesus that Jesus is his son. Evidently this God didn't even expect Jesus' own disciples to believe in Jesus, yet we are supposed to believe these hearsay stories thousands of years later lest this God will do mean and hateful things to us.

It simply doesn't add up Starman.

~~~~~

Also, when you complain about atheists "ganging up" on Christians, here's a little Heads Up for you.

Christians don't last long on this web site because they quickly realize that they have no evidence for the mythology they have come to believe.

They also disagree among themselves. They can't form a coherent coalition because they disagree between themselves and end up arguing with each other over what they each think Jesus and God actually stand for.

In fact, there really is no such thing as "Christianity". All that exists are a bunch of disagreeing people who lay claim to being "Christians". Many of them don't even support the concept of Hell, even though Jesus himself referenced it many times according to the Gospel Rumors.

Many Christians try to distance themselves from the parts of the religion they don't like whilst trying to continue to support it anyway. And this causes divisiveness within the Christian cults. Christians apparently hate each other even more than they hate atheists.

In fact, back in the days when I was a Christian my greatest adversaries in debate were other Christian. I argued for a loving forgiving Jesus, and many Christians take exception to that. They don't like a Jesus who will forgive anyone who doesn't cower down to the demands of their particular Christian cult.

~~~~~

The real problem is yours.

Christianity is a highly proselytizing and accusatory religious cult. It spreads hatred and condemnation to those who refuse to believe. It even causes its own followers to hate each other over disagreements about Jesus and God.

You are apparently frustrated because Christianity itself is indeed indefensible. There is no excuse for it.

And as others have suggested, if you feel that you are being ganged up on then you need to bring in reinforcements. Get other Christians to post here.

I think what you'll quickly find is that if you actually do that you'll see the Christians arguing with each other over various issues. In fact, we already have that here already.

And if they can't even get their own story straight between themselves then why should any atheists even care what they have to say? Which "Christian" are the supposed to listen to? The one with the loudest voice? Or the one carrying the biggest crucifix?

It's an ugly religion whose followers can't even get along with each other.