The question is not "Who succeeded in proving their position?" The question is "Who presented the better arguments?"

The skill is knowing how to balance both arguments in the given time/space.

I'm grunching (I haven't followed the debate much, because I am lazy. I will read it more closely later).

If I were to build a case for faith, I'd base it around having faith in the concept of knowledge. Knowledge is a cute concept because you can't disprove it (obviously), thus you get an unassailable starting position for your debate.

So without faith you have no knowledge, and without knowledge you have no manner in which to promote excellence (essentially with faith you can change things, without faith you can't change things). I'm not sure how I would shoehorn this further into "faith is a virtue", but I'd probably start somewhere with it being virtuous.

Forgive me if this is simplistic or has been mentioned ad nauseum. I just thought it would be fun to throw in a thought in uncharted waters.

this isn't as strong a foundation as you hoped it would be.

...he said cryptically.

I think (and I'm sure he didn't think of it this way) that Zumby pulling up a quote from Ganstaman's Life of Pi review was very poor etiquette. In such a formal debate, Gansta may simply be arguing the side he was given, or a view he didn't previously hold, and the same is true of his review.

Any arguments he's made in the past, or the argument now, should be considered as an intellectual exercise, and so statements from the past are really just character attacks to say "He doesn't really believe this...". He doesn't need to. This debate is an internal argument and to be judged on the merits of this argument alone.

It IS the religion forum. Maybe he is just in character.

Well now we're breaking into this thread since OrP said it was ok. We were going to do questions, as he said in this thread and as several of you asked about in this thread, but since no one has asked any in 3 days, it seems like this is over.

Thanks to all, especially Zumby and OrP. It was fun. Now for a few comments/replies.

Sorry. I wrote all my stuff in Word, so I was writing it as I would a debate instead of a post. I think they also read more like my debating voice and not my posting voice.

I was going for winning the debate over intellectual honesty. For instance, I think my wikipedia example was terrible. But if it doesn't get attacked, then it stands by default even if I don't believe in it.

It's funny, I had this in the original draft of my opening statement but then removed it as it's rather dumb.

I agree with this completely (if I can say so at least half-modestly). Prior to this debate, I hadn't thought about if faith is a virtue, and I'm honestly not sure where I actually stand on the issue. I struggled to come up with arguments that could possibly hold together through multiple rounds.

But a formal debate like this isn't actually about the content. That is, this wasn't a discussion in which we tried to present convincing arguments and actually change people's minds. And so as long as I'm not assigned the full burden of proof, I felt it was sufficient to show that my argument held more ground than my opponent's, which was easy to do once he conceded all his arguments right away. I'd be interested in hearing from Zumby what his thoughts were during this.

Also, for the record, I still am unsure how we should decide if something is a virtue. It's certainly not as easy as I was initially expecting.

In my experience, both can be equally satisfying.

Semi-randomly picking this comment among the many others about the format of the debate.

My understanding going in was that this was to be an Oxford-style debate. Husker, Wikipedia and OrP covered this pretty well, but to recap:

Quote:

Originally Posted by OrP

In competitive Oxford-style debate, there is some proposition (e.g. "Faith is a virtue), and there is an affirmative and a negative side. The affirmative side would have the burden of proof and so if they failed to present a winning argument the negative would win by default.

However, to make up for this disadvantage, the affirmative would also have some advantages in making their case (mostly being able to define the terms of the debate)<snip>

OrP does then go on to say that he thinks the simultaneous posting meant that we should ignore the usual convention, but as my opening and closing remarks suggest, I was assuming standard Oxford rules. This is also why I was unconcerned about the "talking past each other" brouhaha in the lead up to the debate... if I had realised people were expecting something different I would have taken a different strategy. Not moaning, but I do feel a bit damned-if-I-do, damned-if-I-don't about this - if I'd set my own definitions and made a positive case there would have been complaints about arguing past each other and if I let gman own the terms and burden of proof I get told off for not presenting a strong positive claim against the proposition.

Again, picking this quote among several similar. There seems to be some confusion about the relationship between faith and religion in this debate. Here's the OED definitions of faith:

While it is true that in one definition the scope is entirely limited to a religious context, the first definition does not exclude a religious context. Ganstaman defended a variant of the first definition, but given that he used examples of that definition applied to theism (and the fact this is RGT) there is nothing weird, wrong or off-topic about using faith in a deity for examples - this is true for either of us... ganstaman could have provided the secular definition of faith and then exclusively used it in a religious context and that would have been fine. I probably could have spent more time on the secular Wikipedia example, but tbh I found it too silly and unsupported to do so, especially given the word limit (which I struggled to keep under ).

Hmm. Citing previous claims by one's opponent is pretty standard imo. If ganstaman had ever said something more damning that he couldn't come back from like "I don't believe faith is a virtue" then I wouldn't have quoted it, as that would be a bit of a buzzkill. My feeling on that particular quote is that it highlighted a tension in the how faith interacts with several basic goods that ganstaman wants to defend (namely "trust" and "knowledge") and that he was kinda trying to gloss over that tension. The comment from OrP early in the thread about the difference between epistemic virtue and moral virtue would have been a good tack for ganstaman to take to smooth over that tension, but he didn't.

Once I read your opening statement I was glad that you hadn't defined terms to be specifically theological. I do think that there are certain definitions of 'virtue' and 'faith' where it would be virtually impossible for me to argue against, and I was relieved you didn't go this route.

On some specific issues, I think that your definition would have been stronger if you had narrowed it down to "trust" rather than "trust or belief", as later on your argument relied entirely on faith being a type of (positive) trust. I also think you could have been stronger on positing a moral framework for virtue... I understand why you didn't want to lean on consequentialism, but I reckon you could have made a good case with something like the categorical imperative or some sort of contractarianism.

Overall my thoughts are that you had the burden of proof and didn't meet it. Which is kinda borne out by "I still am unsure how we should decide if something is a virtue." However, if we assume that we had equal burden of proof then I reckon you won.

Agreed. Given that I don't think I've ever disagreed with any of your posts in RGT I found this a lot of fun and also kinda exhausting

In a standard discussion like we're having now, where you and I are each offering our sincerely-held views, it's completely standard and often useful. But in a (semi) formal debate, it's entirely possible your opponent is arguing a view he doesn't actually hold. I'm signed up for this 'debate club', for instance, but along with several others I've indicated that my preference would be to argue for a position you'd normally expect only a theist to hold, as a challenge. So if you were debating me about the design argument, say, I have what must be literally hundreds of posts ITF attacking that. It really wouldn't do you any good to bring them up, though, would it (unless you think they're really bonzer stuff and want to crib from them )?

On the format. I do think some kind of change from the standard rules should be implemented because of the simultaneous/'blind' nature of the discussion. I'll have to have a think about exactly what, though.

Just to emphasize this point, you're only arguing against the argument that ganstaman put forward. In the formalized debate context, it's a form of ad hominem to bring up a statement made by the individual outside the debate itself because it has to do with the individual and not the argument. This is true even if the statement is immediately relevant to the topic at hand.

Eh, I've heard a ton of formal debates where this happens. If it's considered bad form, my apologies to ganstaman.

Are you talking about formal debates as in competitive debating, or formal debates as in "Made for TV" debates? (Like a presidential debate...)

(The difference between the two is like the difference between a government committee hearing when cameras are present and when cameras are absent.)

"Made for TV" Oxford-style debates e.g. the Intelligence Squared debates etc. Doing the competitive high-school type debate style where you argue a position you don't necessarily hold was discussed and dismissed in the run-up afaict.

+1 in fact, the Ehrman/white debate that Lemon posted last week had White quoting Ehrman.

Somehow, I change my mind about debates pretty much with every post itt. I go from:

"I don't like winning for winnings sake!"

to

"I don't like winning by any means!"

to

"I don't like that there's no winner!"

back to

"I don't like winning for winnings sake!"

It isn't bad form because they are formal debates, but because in this instance we were pretty clearly opening up the topics so that people could argue for a position they did not actually hold.

In televised debates, you often have prominent defenders of a particular position defending that view, so it isn't surprising at all that their prior words would be quoted back to them.

Think of it like a WWII-themed chess game. You don't mind the Nazis winning if the guy played well.

@ fret obv.

Hmmmm... I've heard a few Intelligence Squared debates, but I don't recall that happening. But whatever. It's not a huge deal like a personal insult. It's just a failed line of attack in the debate. (Edit: in *this* debate.)

One thing to listen for is how the statement is cited. For example, quoting a paper or article that the other person wrote is fine because that is something like "citable information." The statement is taken to be from an authority on the matter who happens to be the opponent.

Also, watch for the context of the statement. Sometimes a reference is thrown in a manner such as "My opponent has argued this before, and it has been soundly rejected as flawed by these intellectual authorities. He's trying to make a similar argument here, and it fails in the same way." This only works because it ties back to a specific argument that is being made in the debate itself. You shouldn't do this to bring in a gotcha-like statement.

It's not bad form, imo, just completely irrelevant. As others are saying, there's a difference between these formal debates in which we are taking sides and debating them whether we believe them or not and actual debates on tv where people who believe in their side are defending that side.

If you want to bring the other debater's past into this, then we have to first establish that those debating actually agree with the side they are defending. In a debate for the sake of debating, prior statements made can't possibly be used to show contradiction on the part of the debater.

This was kinda the point I was concerned about earlier. It wouldn't so much be a debate as two seperate discussions that may not address each other's points.

Zumby can say things like this "On ganstaman's definition, faith is not a virtue". It seems that, outside of the question of whether we are talking about faith generally or religious faith specifically, there was little disagreement about the definition. Or, if there was disagreement, zumby can say things like "While ganstaman's definition superfically make it seem that faith is a virtue, the definitions are bad for reasons such as that they can be applied to examples where it clearly doesn't work, or whatever". As in there is a lot of middle ground between "present two different definitions that each give the claim you want, then talk past each other the whole time" and "since we are using his definitions, I won't present any case outside of shooting down any argument he presents".

I think I will be in the minority in this (perhaps even alone), but I found the debate much less interesting than I expected, with it turning out as an exercise in debating rather than an exercise in debating RGT-themed topics. I know how much effort that went into it though so I feel bad saying so! I think I just wanted to see someone get their crushed, rather than feeling "He doesn't really mean that".

Having said that, most other threads in RGT involve some crushing, so I'll double down on Fret and change my mind

I found it slightly more entertaining than I expected, but that's because I thought the motion itself was not very interesting, so I had pretty low expectations going in. So, a hearty "Good job!" to both participants imo.

That said I am psyched for further events of this nature. When's the next one?

It's kind of contextual.

If the debate is between to prominent figures defending positions that they actually hold, then often it would be okay to bring up past statements or arguments.

If say I were in a debate on here, and I was arguing for the existence of God, then I would call it bad form for the opposition to say "He's repeatedly renounced all arguments for God".

For what it's worth, I did assume that it was a faux pas rather than just a cheap shot.