I will debate almost anything

[Sinclair Solutions]

Prove (or at least argue for) the existence of God.

 

[milkkart]

O.K. here's a tough one. I actually had to do this in school once. It's about Guantanamo Bay. I was chosen to argue for it and tell fo it's fantastic advantages and why it really shouldn't be shut down.

Go and do that for me. I failed, so will you. Take all the time you want, btw.

I want to take a shot at it.

Guantanimo bay is a testement to the power and brutality of the current world superpower, the United States of America. Its methods, while being unortodox and "inhumane", have show those who would destroy this land of plenty how powerful its wrath can be. It has also shown those liveing in the land of the free herself how safe they are in the arms of their elected officials, safe due to the three arms of government. /arguement

but the enemies it is used to combat don't care about wrath except that of their god so it has no effect on them. how safe can you feel when at any time you can be declared an enemy of the state, imprisoned and potentially tortured without trial or evidence?

 

[crudus]

I can prove that one think by the following. I will atempt to doubt everything. When I do this everything can be doubted exept doubt itself, for to doubt the action to doubt, there must be someone that doubt. Therefore doubting exist. But doubt spring from something else: the action of thinking. thus there must be thinking in order to doubt. Thus I conclude that one cannot doubt doubt. Since it cannot be doubted it must exist, since thinking is necesary for doubt there must be a thinker. -> I think therefore I am.
-Descartes.

All that proves is that there is in fact a thinker. Our thoughts could very easily either not be our own or pre-determined. Say we were characters in a book. We really don't have thoughts. We are just following what is written on the book whether the actions are determined yet or not(the 2006 movie Stranger Than Fiction is a good example). Now, lets move on to a little more real and likely. It has been proven that your brain is functioning a full 2 seconds before a thought occurs to you. Essentially, a machine can read your thoughts before you can. Can you be the one thinking if your thoughts are just a biological process that can be read before you even know it is there? Granted, that is a little flimsy but also think about the nature vs nurture debate. Every agrees that these are the two causes for our personality is some way. Neither of these are something we can control. Are your thoughts really yours at that point if you have no control over what influenced them?

 

[Nouw]

Argue that Justin Bieber is a talented musician.

Hell anyone could do that. Music is subjective so Justin Bieber could be talented from 1 person's perspective and to another, they'd be rubbish. Talented=Good right?

Don't let BonsaiK read your post >.>

Oh yes OP, argue that Starcraft was the founder of Powered Armour and Space Marines.

 

[bl4ckh4wk64]

O.K. here's a tough one. I actually had to do this in school once. It's about Guantanamo Bay. I was chosen to argue for it and tell fo it's fantastic advantages and why it really shouldn't be shut down.

Go and do that for me. I failed, so will you. Take all the time you want, btw.

I'll do this. Why should Gitmo be kept open? Because it is a holding cell for terrorists and suspected terrorists. Here is the one place where we can get close to playing the same game they play, we're about as equal as we'll ever be. DO you know what their interrogation techniques consist of? First they take off your fingernails one by one, then they go on and cut off your fingers one by one. Then, when they're done with you, they'll hang you or publicly decapitate you. Waterboarding is definitely not as bad as that. Keep in mind. These are people that believe with all their hearts that the American Western influence is the devil and is a direct threat to the Qu'ran. They are religiously devoted to this cause and there is no defeating them short of wiping them all out. Pulling out will do nothing, adding more troops will do nothing. There will never be peace. Guantanamo Bay is a place to put those people, the ones that are planning on hurting and killing innocent civilians, behind bars. It is a place to find out what makes them think these crazy thoughts. Another reason that it is extremely important is because American Justice will do nothing to them. The American public is too stupid to accept certain facts that they don't want to believe. The jury, in this case, would have that shadow of a doubt that will let the terrorist go free. All because the American public has to allow the defense an attorney that might actually win the case with fallacies and bullshit "facts." This is proven in that recent case. A guy from Gitmo was tried in a New York(I think it was NY) court. They dropped over 200 charges against him and he will be out in a few years, ready to kill more Americans, Europeans, and Israelis.

 

[Dimensional Vortex]

lol, my friends challenged me to do this once... They went with "Pros and Cons of the Holocaust" and made me "Pros"... I still won though...

Heres a good one... Debate with me on "Pros and Cons of Modern Medicine"... You be Cons just to make it interesting...

Modern Medicine penetrates the body with chemicals that were only recently started to be used. Most of the modern drugs have nasty side effects.

A better solution is Natural medicines, these do not have the nasty side effects and can be just as effective (in some cases more effective) then the artificial drugs.

There have been many a story of people with Cancer and other such afflictions who have resorted to natural medicines. When they have done this they have attempted to increase their Vitamin C and other parts of the body thinking this will help them, it does not, it increases the intensity of their affliction and ultimately making it worse. Most people who supply natural medicines to the community are not trained professionals and are not always sure of the consequences of the product they are giving out. True, the medicine we have in a hospital to treat fatal illness often has some side effects, but the positive side easily outweighs the side effects. You can't treat a brain aneurysm with herbal tea or other natural remedies which are said to make the body healthy. You can't repair a cancerous limb with natural medicine. The only time natural medicine sometimes outweighs actual modern medicine is when someone has a small illness like perhaps the common cold, and even then it is far cheaper to just grin and bare it.

Personally I would take the modern medicine, deal with the side effects, and get cured from my fatal illness rather than put my money in some new age natural medicine which don't even help half as much.

PS: You could debate why uniforms are good/bad at school, it would very much help me in school when we do debating for Year 8

 

[norwegian-guy]

-clip-
I think therefore I am.
-Descartes.

All that proves is that there is in fact a thinker. Our thoughts could very easily either not be our own or pre-determined. Say we were characters in a book. We really don't have thoughts. We are just following what is written on the book whether the actions are determined yet or not(the 2006 movie Stranger Than Fiction is a good example). Now, lets move on to a little more real and likely. It has been proven that your brain is functioning a full 2 seconds before a thought occurs to you. Essentially, a machine can read your thoughts before you can. Can you be the one thinking if your thoughts are just a biological process that can be read before you even know it is there? Granted, that is a little flimsy but also think about the nature vs nurture debate. Every agrees that these are the two causes for our personality is some way. Neither of these are something we can control. Are your thoughts really yours at that point if you have no control over what influenced them?

Actually it proves that I think. As my own doubt and thus my own thoughts are the only one I can actually without a doubt aknowledge. Descartes has a wellmade presentation on how this is valid beyond the the one who aknowledges, but to present the whole thing would take far too long, and I'm far too lazy to do this. But your point about us living in a fiction is a valid argument as presented not only in 'Stranger Than Fiction' but also in 'Sofies Diary' wich actually picks up this point. The problem with your argument is that it focuses on the question about: are we pre-determined? While 'I think therefore I am' is a matter of existence.

 

[Redingold]

2 > 1

Only if you use a different base for math mathematics.

I believe this will answer that http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mersenne_prime

edit: I am only good at math, not super-great. You are talking graduate level probably.

How do Mersenne primes, that is, prime numbers one less than a power of two, make 2 less than or equal to one? The wikipedia page explains nothing of the sort.

 

[TheYak]

Argue that Justin Bieber is a talented musician.

Hell anyone could do that. Music is subjective so Justin Bieber could be talented from 1 person's perspective and to another, they'd be rubbish. Talented=Good right?

Music is neither objective or subjective. Preference is subjective and quality is objective. Music is a form of media.


Also I'm now deeply depressed due to my subject being ignored. What are the benefits of me flaming you to great extent and questioning your sexuality?

 

[nuba km]

pokemon is constantly improving in gameplay. I will let you have the first comment about this.

 

[Nouw]

Argue that Justin Bieber is a talented musician.

Hell anyone could do that. Music is subjective so Justin Bieber could be talented from 1 person's perspective and to another, they'd be rubbish. Talented=Good right?

Music is neither objective or subjective. Preference is subjective and quality is objective. Music is a form of media.


Also I'm now deeply depressed due to my subject being ignored. What are the benefits of me flaming you to great extent and questioning your sexuality?

Hey buddy, if that's true I'm deeply depressed I didn't know what subjective meant. Just PM him!
[sub]Welcome to the Escapist.[/sub]

 

[TilMorrow]

Two: I believe that killing can be justified. Argue that it could never be.
e.g) There is a gun man at the head of a bus full of child geniuses. I kill the gun man, thus killing the bus full of children, the driver, and myself.

I think he is implying that the man with the gun is either the driver or himself and he is the driver at the same time. If either is true then I don't think you can really justify killing yourself/the driver. Cause if you or the driver were the crazed gun man and aiming to kill the children either way dieing or not dieing will lead to the death of some or all the child geniuses. Plus how can it be justfied?

First point, they are children. How could you live with yourself if you killed a bunch of children? Also they are probably innocent of any crime or corruption due to their young ages (I'm assuming they are still highly influencial and young) and so how would their deaths be justified as revenge or retribution?

Second point, they are geniuses. In the furture, they could develop/discover some life changing phenomana that may greatly improve the lives of every living being in the world including yours or someone close to you so how can killing them for this reason be justified and even lived with if you had known the potential of their future?

Although I suppose they could potentially develop an idea that is good but becomes twisted and ugly to fufil another purpose later on. (A. T. O. M. whatever happened to them? lol)

Okay my turn.

I agree with nothing but everything and everything but nothing.

Debate is everything nothing and nothing everything?

 

[GrizzlerBorno]

Videogames are art. (you say against it, I mean)

 

[The Unworthy Gentleman]

Politicians are liars and crooks because the people demand it. The people only vote for the ones who promise to give them what they want with little consideration to how restricted politicians are and the millions of others who would be affected badly by what you want. The people would never vote for a candidate that actually promises realistic things because they don't want that, they want the guy who says he'll cut taxes even though everybody already knows that it won't happen.

It's not the job of the politician to give you what he wants, he's supposed to do good by his country and make sure that the system is fair and make sure that those who need support get it.

It's the job of the people to vote for the candidate best suited for the job, the one who promises to try and better the country for everyone, not just the poor or the rich.

People need to grow up.

 

[Chairman Miaow]

Argue that Justin Bieber is a talented musician.

Hell anyone could do that. Music is subjective so Justin Bieber could be talented from 1 person's perspective and to another, they'd be rubbish. Talented=Good right?

Don't let BonsaiK read your post >.>

Oh yes OP, argue that Starcraft was the founder of Powered Armour and Space Marines.

I didn't say argue that his music was good, just that he was Talented. While music may be subjective, talent is not.

 

[IBlackKiteI]

If anyone actually reads this please write a big paragraph on one or all of these issues.
Don't care much about debating my views, moreso just seeing everyone elses.

The Atomic Bombings/Manhattan Project.

Pop/Rap music.

The benefits of consoles over PC, and vice-versa.

War is bad.

God, religion in general.

Kids having ridiculous names.

 

[fletch_talon]

Argue that Justin Bieber is a talented musician.

Hell anyone could do that. Music is subjective so Justin Bieber could be talented from 1 person's perspective and to another, they'd be rubbish. Talented=Good right?

Don't let BonsaiK read your post >.>

Oh yes OP, argue that Starcraft was the founder of Powered Armour and Space Marines.

I didn't say argue that his music was good, just that he was Talented. While music may be subjective, talent is not.

Someone is talented if they do something well. If someone "does music" well then they produce "good" music. If "good music" is subjective then so is Justin Bieber's talent

 

[Vanguard_Ex]

lol, my friends challenged me to do this once... They went with "Pros and Cons of the Holocaust" and made me "Pros"... I still won though...

Heres a good one... Debate with me on "Pros and Cons of Modern Medicine"... You be Cons just to make it interesting...

http://growabrain.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2009/01/01/lol_cats.jpg

How the fuck did you win?!

 

[ThatLankyBastard]

lol, my friends challenged me to do this once... They went with "Pros and Cons of the Holocaust" and made me "Pros"... I still won though...

How the fuck did you win?!

I talked about population figures, how building and maintaining the death camps took up resources Germany could have put elsewhere, crap like that...

Lets just say, my Speech and Barter skills are 100...

Or my friends are idiots... Your pick...

 

[Vanguard_Ex]

lol, my friends challenged me to do this once... They went with "Pros and Cons of the Holocaust" and made me "Pros"... I still won though...

How the fuck did you win?!

I talked about population figures, how building and maintaining the death camps took up resources Germany could have put elsewhere, crap like that...

Lets just say, my Speech and Barter skills are 100...

Or my friends are idiots... Your pick...

Both are equally good explanations fair enough