This.

It seems to me that atheists and theists have a very different understanding of the word "faith."

No strat in RGT

Meh... This doesn't happen in most debates. That's part of what they need to "work out" in their positions.

You don't think people coming to debates with agreed upon terms might avoid talking past each other?

Nope. I think that type of haggling needs to be open as a potential part of the debate.

I don't really follow you. If I hold to a definition of faith as 'belief without evidence', and you hold to a definition of faith as 'trust', and every time we use the word we mean different things, then how could any point either of us makes regarding 'faith' ever be refuted?

I think Aaron's point is that "faith" is a contested term, so one of the things that might be debated is how we should understand it.

bastards took my favorite topic

I would agree with this, but it seems like "how should we understand 'faith' in a christian context" is big enough to be a standalone debate.

That's part of the framing of the argument. If both sides end up framing it differently, then it will be seen in the rest of the debate as each side tries to show how the other's characterization is improper or otherwise inappropriate. This is where having good debaters matters.

I'm not following this at all. The reason that the word faith gets so much attention in religious discussions is because there is so much equivocation. The atheist will (most likely) take the position that it is a negative to believe something to be true when there is insufficient evidence, whereas the theist will take the position that it is a positive to have the faith to bridge the gap between what we can see and what we believe - these words could certainly be tidied up. But what you don't want to happen is for the theist to turn around and say "But you atheists have faith, you have faith in your spouse, or that this chair won't collapse when you sit in it, or...[insert equivocation of the word faith]"


Incorporate the source: "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" Hebrews 11:1

If the definition is hashed out in advance, it can be seen as giving an unfair advantage to whichever side appears to benefit from the definition. This is why it needs to be done within the confines of the debate.

And it's not even necessary for the debate to rest upon a single definition of the word. It's possible for both strands of the debate to revolve around entirely different concepts. Each opening statement frames a different discussion. Each rebuttal responds to the opening statement. And so forth.

Both sides must articulate how their idea of "faith" interacts in some non-trivial manner with the concept of "virtue." Without trying to over-anticipate the debate, if the atheist takes a very hard line like "Faith is belief with no evidence, and there's no virtue in that at all" then the atheist will have to hold that line the entire time. The rebuttal can (for example) point out that even "no-evidence faith" has led to people doing good things, which is still understood to be virtuous behavior (not a strong rebuttal, but good enough for the example). The atheist would then need to come back with something to rescue that, such as using some sort of "faith-in-itself is without virtue" position or trying to point to negative behavior as somehow "cancelling out" good behavior (neither position is very strong, imo). The point here is that since the atheist claims "no virtue at all" he needs to show that absolutely no good can come of faith (belief in something in the absence of evidence). That's just a really, really hard position to defend.

The end goal here is not a pursuit of "truth" per se. The goal is to put forth a better argument than the other side. You should think of each opening statement as claiming some "territory" on a battlefield. From there, each side attempts to "push back" against that advance. Whichever side ends up with the most territory wins. A very broad claim like the one above may take a huge amount of ground from the start, but it's easy to poke holes. A more conservative definition may be easier to defend, but with less initial ground taken, each loss hurts a lot more. This is why the opening statement is critical as it frames all of the responses that will follow. It's often the case that the one who frames the discussion better wins.

In the debating I did in high school (and sort of college, but that's an irrelevant story), defining the relevant terms was part of the debate itself. It's an important part of how you ... eh, Aaron already said it well enough:

I expected the two parties to mutually agree on the definitions beforehand. You could end up with A's Opening and B's Rebuttal, vs. B's Opening and A's Rebuttal, each ending up being about two different definitions of a term. If that's acceptable, well Ok. Perhaps the selected word limits give enough room for that?

I have no debating experience other than being an end-user of YouTube debates, so its not necessarily surprising I didn't get it

Anyway, looking forward to it. Perhaps the winner should get to choose the loser's Location text for the next week / month / other random time period???

How is this threesome to work anyway?

So I agree with Aaron that what is meant by faith should be part of the debate but I think then that it's necessary to define virtue.

Fine, but if this debate devolves into "you're using the word wrong" I would consider it a massive leak, standard format or not Points on framing the debate are very good. I guess I'm hoping to avoid what would essentially be an obvious derail. As Sommerset mentioned, the side topic would be a debate on its own. I want to make sure the debaters actually debate the specified topic. If that means doing things a little differently but also avoiding a common problem in debates, I for one welcome our rebel overlords.

Very, very much this.

I can't even explain why the feared scenario won't happen without revealing a lot of my argument in advance so I'm going to leave it there.

You can never "make sure" this happens. But if you pick the right debaters, it will.

Self-quoting in case this gets missed (it's the closest we can get to a wedgie online).

Hahaha yeah! Zumby could spend a month in "church"

Clearly the only acceptable location penalty is 123 Didn't Win St, Failtown, Loserland.

You only say that so you'll have company.

On a more serious note, I want to see AiF vs OrP.