Discussion thread for: Battle Royale XIII

[WandererInFog]

If you think it is worth addressing further, then a clarification on the issue might be in order in round 3.

And it most likely will be. The way that the rebuttal portion is spread out over a number of rounds (rather than just being in a single around like in a typical formal debate) as well the time limit mean that it makes it certain degree of sense to take the time to build a case piece by piece rather than all at once.

 

[genuineoriginal]

And it most likely will be. The way that the rebuttal portion is spread out over a number of rounds (rather than just being in a single around like in a typical formal debate) as well the time limit mean that it makes it certain degree of sense to take the time to build a case piece by piece rather than all at once.

Your team was the clear winner in both of the first two rounds.
Team NW's first round post was well thought out and presented.
I would have liked to have seen all the posts by each side done as well as that one.

Team NW's second round post seemed to be defensive as if team GG had taken the lead.
Too much time was spent trying to defend against the statements made by team GG, not enough time was spent trying to solidify the lead and extend it.

(These opinions are from one individual and may not express the consensus of the people following the Battle Royale.)

 

[Stripe]

I don't understand how someone can defend the morality of voting Republican without holding up the consequences of not doing so.

Are WIF and NM going to claim that voting for McCain is amoral?

 

[GodsfreeWill]

Team NW then answered the questions posed by Team GG, proving that the questions did not have any relevance to the topic of the debate.

This has to be the funniest thing I've ever heard. So now in a debate, when you answer someone's questions, that proves them to be irrelevant?

 

[Redfin]

Please show me the scripture where God advocates and rewards Rehab for lying.

Matthew 1:5 - she was admitted into the ancestry of Jesus (the seed-line)

Hebrews 11:31 - her life was spared; her faith commended

James 2:25 - she was justified (considered righteous)

:think:

 

[genuineoriginal]

This has to be the funniest thing I've ever heard. So now in a debate, when you answer someone's questions, that proves them to be irrelevant?

The questions asked by team GG were not relevant to the topic.

If you cannot understand this, you cannot win the debate.

The proof that the questions asked were irrelevant was in the answers, not in the act of answering the questions.

I am really hoping that team GG steps up their efforts.
I think that team GG has some powerful arguments to bring to the table, but so far team GG hasn't even been able to find a way to say why voting for McCain is immoral.

Would you mind stating why voting for McCain is immoral in round 3?
I have been waiting to find out for two rounds so far, but your reason seems to have something to do with giving a bank robber a ride.

 

[Lighthouse]

He put them under Nebuchadnezzar to punish them for turning away from Him and to get them to repent and turn back to Him, according to the prophecies.

He put them in Egypt to save them from the famine.
He put them under Pharoh to show His mighty power and to force them to leave Egypt so they could go into the land flowing with milk and honey that He promised to give to them.

I believe He put them under Hitler to cause the world to bring forth the nation of Israel in a single day to fulfill the prophecy.

Americans are not God's people, but there is a percentage of Americans who actually believe in God.
That percent is not large enough to vote in a godly candidate, but it is large enough to be heard.

The day of the return of Jesus is close at hand, and God is making sure that all the pieces are in place to fulfill the prophecies.
The job of the people who believe in God is to make sure that God's word is heard, whether anyone listens or not.

We are entering into a time in history where the people who believe in God will have to take a stand against the evil in the world or reject God and follow the world.
God may (or not) be setting up an evil person to take command of the United States.
If so, it is for His purposes, and all we can do is speak out against the evil and overcome through our testimony of Jesus.

You are sadly mistaken.

 

[Lighthouse]

Knight-
Is there a way to make it possible for those not participating in the Battle Royale to quote the posts in the battle so to post responses to things here, without having to type a bunch of code?

 

[Stripe]

Knight-
Is there a way to make it possible for those not participating in the Battle Royale to quote the posts in the battle so to post responses to things here, without having to type a bunch of code?

Yes. Multiquote.

 

[Lighthouse]

Yes. Multiquote.

Not.

You cannot select to quote posts in that thread and then quote them. It won't let you.

 

[genuineoriginal]

You are sadly mistaken.

On which point?

 

[Lighthouse]

Nevermind. I figured it out.:noid:

To bring further clarity on the issue of culpability in sin, we pose the following three cases:

Robbery Case #1

I am in my car at a red light, and a man comes up to my window and says: "Hi. Could you please give me a ride to the bank? I have some banking to do and my car just broke down."

I say, "Sure. Hop in…" and take him to the bank. As I am leaving, to my horror I see him pull a mask over his face, draw a gun from his pocket, and enter the bank.

Gunshots and screams fill the air, and the man I drove to the bank comes running out --- after he murdered the banker, and stole all the money he could carry. He flees successfully.

GGQ4: Did I sin by giving this murderer and robber a ride to the bank?

No.

Robbery Case #2

I am at a traffic light, and a man comes up to my window and says, "Excuse me; I'm going rob the bank, then shoot the teller so that he won't be able to testify against me at trial if I get caught. Would you please give me a ride to the bank?"

I say, "Sure, hop in…" and give him a ride to the bank, and he fulfills his promise.

GGQ5: Given those facts, have I participated in the sin of theft and murder?

Yes.

Robbery Case #3

I am at a traffic light, and a man comes up to my window and says, "I have a friend who intends to rob the bank and shoot the bank teller. I want to keep him out of trouble, so I promised to watch out for him while he commits the crime. If a policeman comes, I will distract him so that my friend won't get caught. Will you please take me to the bank?"

I say, "Sure. Hop in…" and take him to the bank. (On the way over, we discuss how neither of us could ever rob a bank or murder a bank teller.) We arrive and see the thief/murderer drive up, exit his car, cover his face, draw his weapon, and enter the bank. We hear screams and gunshots. Within seconds, a policeman emerges on foot from around the corner with his gun drawn, looking anxiously for assailants or victims.

The man I gave a ride to plays his role perfectly. He jumps out of my car, yelling and pointing; "I just saw a man running down that alley with a gun in his hand and a bag he brought out of the bank!" The policeman takes the bait, and runs down the alleyway, vainly chasing a villain who is not there.

The murderer merges from the bank, glances over at his friend (my passenger), nods appreciatively, gets into his car, and escapes.

GGQ6: Given these facts, have I participated in the sin of robbery and murder?

Yes. And so did the man to which you gave the ride.

GGQ8: Is it immoral to vote for a presidential candidate willing to kill this innocent child?
GGQ9: Is it immoral to vote for a presidential candidate willing to fund the killing of this innocent child?
GGQ10: Is it immoral to vote for a presidential candidate willing to use his power as President to keep it legal to kill this innocent child?

Yes to all 3.

Even the National Right to Life considers him to be pro-life, stating, "Senator John McCain has consistently taken a strong pro-life position against abortion, has a strong pro-life voting record against abortion and opposes Roe v. Wade." (Source)

Do you really trust NRTL? They said the same things of Bush, and he hasn't done one thing to end abortion.

It is disingenuous to say that McCain is lying just because he fails to meet your standard for "pro-life voting record."

What if I say he's lying because he doesn't meet God's standard for pro-life voting?

GGQ7: Which one are you going to support, knowing that eventually one will succeed in getting in? To whom do you give your key?
NWA-GGQ7: Neither. But again, the analogy has nothing to do with the issue at hand.

Neither huh?:think:

GGQ8: Is it immoral to vote for a presidential candidate willing to kill this innocent child?
NWA-GGQ8: Yes. But this is simply more emotionally laden rhetoric, as there is no Presidential candidate involved in this election who has expressed a desire to kill children.

False. Any expression of allowing, or promoting the murder of innocent children through the method of what is commonly known as abortion is the same as being willing to participate. And I do not mean just idly standing by as someone else does it. I mean supporting and promoting those who do it. I can think of a quote from Obama off the top of my head that shows he supports and promotes abortion. Supporting and promoting the choice is supporting and promoting the action.

GGQ9: Is it immoral to vote for a presidential candidate willing to fund the killing of this innocent child?
NWA-GGQ9: Yes. Have you read John McCain's stance upon the issue of abortion? He agrees with us.

Bush said the same thing. What has he done?

GGQ10: Is it immoral to vote for a presidential candidate willing to use his power as President to keep it legal to kill this innocent child?
NWA-GGQ10: Yes. Again, this is not John McCain's position. He has pledged to do his part to end abortion - he will nominate constructionist judges who, by definition, would never overturn a personhood amendment, national or otherwise.

Bush said the same thing. What has he done?

Finally, as we've answered all of your hypotheticals this, we're going to indulge in one of our own:

A man owns a factory in WWII Germany. He has personally seen a concentration camp and fully understands what is taking place in terms of the murder of Jews. As the owner of this factory, he is able to requisition the labor of Jews who are currently in those camps, moving them into his personal care, where he can prevent their mistreatment and eventual death. Now, obviously, in doing this he will only save a small fraction of those being killed, and in order to do this he must not speak out directly against the Nazi regime as to do so would result in his immediate imprisonment and death and the return of all those under his care to the concentration camps.

NWQ5:If he chooses to remain silent and only save those who is able to, is he committing an immoral act?

Hypothetical? Pssst...:listen:That actually happened. And FYI, Schindler was not a government official. Hitler was the government official in that case, and McCain would be the government official in the case of the US and abortion, if he is elected. It was wrong for Hitler to make it legal to kill Jews, and it will be wrong for McCain to keep abortion legal. Schindler did not commit an immoral act, but Hitler did, and McCain will if he keeps it legal in any manner.

 

[Stripe]

Presidential Election 2008 - Is it Immoral to Vote for McCain/Palin? Battle Royale XIII
GodsfreeWill and The Graphite vs. WandererinFog and Nicholsmom

This will be the very first ever Battle Royale TAG TEAM battle!

What: The debate is titled: Presidential Election 2008 - Is it Immoral to Vote for McCain/Palin?

Where: The debate will take place on the Internet at TheologyOnline.com (TOL), the popular online Christian forum, with the moderator, opponents, and spectators all participating and observing over the web.

Who: The debate will be moderated by the site’s webmaster, through his TOL screen name Knight, who can be contacted at knight@TheologyOnline.com. GodsfreeWill and The Graphite vs. WandererinFog and Nicholsmom will be the combatants

When: The debate will begin on Monday, September 29, 2008 at noon (MDT). GodsfreeWill's team will post first since they are arguing for the affirmative. Nicholsmom's team will have 48 hours to post their rebuttal. THERE WILL NOT BE A WEEKEND BREAK FOR THIS BATTLE. Each team has 48 hours from the time of the previous post to make their next post. If for some reason a combatant cannot make their post on time they can make arrangements with me (Knight) and we can make an adjustment as long as it is a reasonable adjustment.

How: The debate will last for five rounds. The recommended maximum word limit for the average post is 6,000 words, but any or all posts could be much briefer or possibly longer if need be. For each round, the opponents will login to TheologyOnline.com to upload their posts. The official BR XII clock is the post time of the last post. (Remember to log in to TOL so that the system will automatically adjust references to your time zone and remember to make sure your time zone is set correctly in your TheologyOnLine USER Control Panel)

Battle schedule....
Post #1 - Round #1 - opening statement (GodsfreeWill Team)
Post #2 - Round #1 - opening statement and rebuttal (Nicholsmom Team)
Post #3 - Round #2 - rebuttal (GodsfreeWill Team)
Post #4 - Round #2 - rebuttal (Nicholsmom Team)
Post #5 - Round #3 - rebuttals (GodsfreeWill Team)
Post #6 - Round #3 - rebuttals (Nicholsmom Team)
Post #7 - Round #4 - rebuttals (GodsfreeWill Team)
Post #8 - Round #4 - rebuttals (Nicholsmom Team)
Post #9 - Round #5 - closing statements (GodsfreeWill Team)
Post #10 - Round #5 - closing statements (Nicholsmom Team)


Guidelines

Clarity: Both sides will attempt to achieve clarity and avoid obfuscation.

Responsiveness: Each side will make an effort to be responsive to the other, to interact, and to answer relevant questions forthrightly, which also ensures that the participants actually debate one another and not simply post material written for other purposes, especially if that material is not specifically responsive.

Specific BR XII Rules

Rule 1:
Question Numbering: To help focus the opponent on the topic(s) of a particular post, and to enable readers to follow the debate more easily, participants will sequentially number their questions using TOL’s Battle Royale convention of first and last initial, a Q for question, an A for answer, and then the question number. Godsfreewill's team will be identified as GG (Godsfreewill and the Graphite) and Nicholsmom's team will be identified as NW (Nicholsmom and WanderinFog) Therefore questions and answers can be identified as : GGQ1, GGQ2, NWQ1, and would mark any answer given with GGA-NWQ1 (Godsfreewill's team answers Nicholsmoms team first question), NWA-GGQ1, etc. After reading a post of, say, fifteen paragraphs, without such a convention, it may be unclear to the audience and even to the opponent exactly what is being asked. So this also saves participants time in evaluating an opponent’s post. And it discourages unresponsive replies that focus for example on rhetorical questions or incidental details while ignoring the primary challenges. Of course there can be valid reasons why an opponent may refuse to answer a given question.

Please summarize your new questions in each round for your opponent at the bottom of each post.

Rule 2:
Tag Team: This is a tag team battle which means there are two combatants on either side: GodsfreeWill and The Graphite on one side and WandererinFog and Nicholsmom on the other side. Each team may make only ONE post in each round. Therefore there will be 10 total posts in this battle (5 per team).

Only Admins and Battle Royale participants will be able to post in this battle thread.

Not.

You cannot select to quote posts in that thread and then quote them. It won't let you.

Hit multiquote in the post from the other thread then quote a post here. Directly under the text editing field will be the instructions you need to quote the multi-quoted text from the other thread.

 

[Lighthouse]

On which point?

God did not put anyone under Hitler. Hitler was elected. And Pharaoh forced himself upon the Israelites.

Neither of these were punishments against anyone. They were both wrong. God was not responsible for either.

And whether or not an evil man wins the election, we speak out against wickedness by not voting for a wicked man.

 

[Lighthouse]

Hit multiquote in the post from the other thread then quote a post here. Directly under the text editing field will be the instructions you need to quote the multi-quoted text from the other thread.

I already figured it out. See:

Nevermind. I figured it out.:noid:


No.


Yes.


Yes. And so did the man to which you gave the ride.


Yes to all 3.


Do you really trust NRTL? They said the same things of Bush, and he hasn't done one thing to end abortion.


What if I say he's lying because he doesn't meet God's standard for pro-life voting?


Neither huh?:think:


False. Any expression of allowing, or promoting the murder of innocent children through the method of what is commonly known as abortion is the same as being willing to participate. And I do not mean just idly standing by as someone else does it. I mean supporting and promoting those who do it. I can think of a quote from Obama off the top of my head that shows he supports and promotes abortion. Supporting and promoting the choice is supporting and promoting the action.


Bush said the same thing. What has he done?


Bush said the same thing. What has he done?


Hypothetical? Pssst...:listen:That actually happened. And FYI, Schindler was not a government official. Hitler was the government official in that case, and McCain would be the government official in the case of the US and abortion, if he is elected. It was wrong for Hitler to make it legal to kill Jews, and it will be wrong for McCain to keep abortion legal. Schindler did not commit an immoral act, but Hitler did, and McCain will if he keeps it legal in any manner.

It's the post just above yours.

 

[CabinetMaker]

Team GG's statements regarding Schindler's activities during WWII were stunningly bad. They accuse a man who did what he could, within the constraints of Nazi Germany, to help as many people as he could. In essence, team GG's position is that if a person goes to a slave market, buys a slave and sets that slave free, that person is guilty of slave trade because they bought a slave. This is such a poor analysis of moral behavior that it casts a significant shadow over the rest of their post.

Just out of curiosity, if you refuse to tell a couple about birth control when you know they are having sex out of wedlock and that couple gets pregnant, when that woman has an abortion are you guilty of murder because you did not do something that would have prevented that abortion from occuring?

 

[The Graphite]

CM, if you think that we argued that a person going to a slave market and buying a slave and setting him free is tantamount to slavery and murder, then you need new reading glasses. We argued no such thing.

If you go to a slave market, borrow a slave, and then give him back to the slave market knowing that they will continue to enslave him and probably kill him, THEN you are guilty of both slave trading and murder. And THAT is the hypothetical given by NW.

If I know you are going to murder your 6-year-old child, and I borrow him for a day to mow my lawn, and then I give him back to you knowing you are even considering killing him... well, you know the rest.

 

[Stripe]

Team GG's statements regarding Schindler's activities during WWII were stunningly bad. They accuse a man who did what he could, within the constraints of Nazi Germany, to help as many people as he could.

You've seen the film too, eh?

In essence, team GG's position is that if a person goes to a slave market, buys a slave and sets that slave free, that person is guilty of slave trade because they bought a slave.

They are.

This is such a poor analysis of moral behavior that it casts a significant shadow over the rest of their post.

It's not helping at all to support the people who trade in slaves or murder the unborn.

Just out of curiosity, if you refuse to tell a couple about birth control when you know they are having sex out of wedlock and that couple gets pregnant, when that woman has an abortion are you guilty of murder because you did not do something that would have prevented that abortion from occuring?

:squint:

 

[Lighthouse]

Team GG's statements regarding Schindler's activities during WWII were stunningly bad. They accuse a man who did what he could, within the constraints

When did Team GG do that?

 

[genuineoriginal]

Round 3 - part 1 - Team GG

Team GG starts this round by declaring themselves the winners.

Team GG (finally) provides a clear statement on the basis they are using for determining whether it would be immoral to vote for McCain:

When a candidate participates in sins which God has said are capital crimes, we become complicit in his crimes by helping him get into a position of power where those capital crimes will be acted out.

Team GG then answers the questions posed by team NW in the previous round.

Concerning the standards for electing a leader, team GG stated that their standards are that a candidate for president should adhere to the moral standards of the ten commandments:

Certainly we don’t require John McCain to adhere to a standard of teaching Christian doctrine as one would expect a church leader to do, because that is an issue of jurisdiction rather than morality. However, all of the moral standards are the same: do not murder, do not steal, do not commit adultery, and do not commit perjury.

Concerning the actions of a single man in the midst of Nazi Germany, team GG states that the standards must apply to all men, not any one man:

If it would have been right for everyone to live by that standard, then it was right for one man. There is only one standard of right and wrong and you don’t do evil that good may come of it.

Team GG spent time establishing what made up a just law that must be obeyed and an unjust law that must be disobeyed.
Then team GG used an example from the Nuremberg Trials to set up their next argument.

was guilty of murder; he was culpable in the crime and sin of slavery and murder because he was guilty of “conspiracy” to do so, just as Haman was. Sommer never fired a shot, never gassed a helpless victim. He didn’t have to.

And neither did McCain.

Team GG then turns their arguments entirely to whether McCain has supported, condoned, or funded abortions.
The main evidence they presented shows that McCain has supported abortions in the case of incest and rape, currently supports embryonic stem cell research, and opposes federal law on abortion in favor of states rights.

Team GG uses team NW's statements and answers to questions to reach the conclusion:

According to the standard set forth by Team NW themselves, it is immoral to vote for John McCain for president.

Team GG ends with the questions they ask for the round:

GGQ11: In the case of Karl Sommer, did the fact that he stayed behind a desk and used only pen and paper constitute any defense against the charges of slavery and murder?

GGQ12: In a general sense, that is to say, on principle, were the Nuremberg Trials just, even though in nearly every charge the defendants were following the law of the land and used that excuse in their defense?

GGQ13: Is John McCain guilty of mass murder according to these same principles? If not, how is his case different in such a way as to excuse him from culpability?

GGQ14: Based on the evidence provided here, does McCain believe abortion should be legal in the cases of a) rape and/or incest, and b) embryonic stem cell research?

GGQ15: If answered yes to last question, do you believe McCain is the kind of man who will refuse to stand up for his principles in this area, who will go against his own views and work to criminalize something he believes should be legal? Or, conversely, do you believe McCain will likely use the authority of his presidential office to keep some abortion legal, including to sign bills that affirm legal abortion?