God owns everything | DebateCraft

God is defined as divine being able to decide about everything.

Ownership is defined as ability to decide about something.

Round 1

1 of 2

SatanLucy

Pro #1

God is defined as divine being able to decide about everything.

Ownership is defined as ability to decide about something.

So if we put it in premise form:

P1. God is able to decide about everything

P2. Being able to decide about everything means owning everything

C. God owns everything.

My opponent can say which premise he disagrees with, but P1 is accepted by definition, and P2 as well.

melcharaz

Con #2

There are levels of ownership. We can say to own something is to decide what to do with it, but semantically we know that is not true ownership, as ownership implies exclusivity.

The level of ownership implied by definition is not ownership as we understand it.

There is no specification of which God.

According to the definition of divine being, i designate myself as such for now.

divine /dĭ-vīn′/adjective Having the nature of or being a deity.

Of, relating to, emanating from, or being the expression of a deity. "sought divine guidance through meditation."

Being in the service or worship of a deity; sacred.

According to the word of God, man is made in his image or likeness.

I put my self in service to God.

I am an expression of God and God dwells in me by the Holy Spirit, therefore i share his nature.

I therefore designate that ownership is understood in only its maximal application, meaning ownership is only ownership when you ALWAYS have ability to decide something.

And now i give that ability to instigator in regards to their reasoning. I can no longer decide it as in maximal application.

Therefore i (as divine being or god) am not the owner.

Psalm 82:6 I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.

Round 2

2 of 2

SatanLucy

Pro #3

By site rules, once you accept the debate, you agree to debate's description.

From description:

"God is defined as divine being able to decide about everything.

Ownership is defined as ability to decide about something."

So my opponent cannot challenge these definitions. Now, my opponent didnt say which premise he disagrees with in my round 1, so I assume that argument is conceded.

Since argument was in logical form:

P1. A equals B

P2. C equals B

C. A equals C

There is no way to disagree with logic of the argument, as conclusion logically flows from premises. And since premises werent challenged either, argument was conceded to.

melcharaz

Con #4

As i stated previously i surrendered ownership of the ability to set the standard of maximal ownership.

As for what was or was not understood, i have no ownership of that either.

Good debate.

Savant Administrator

Expanding on RFD:

Pro has a relatively straightforward case, with P1 and P2 being enough to satisfy the resolution if both of them are true, as he points out. I can buy that Con advocating another definition of ownership means implicitly challenging the second premise. However, Pro reiterates in the second round the goal posts that they think Con needs to meet (directly saying the premise he challenges), and claims that "By site rules, once you accept the debate, you agree to debate's description." In my experience, there are some exceptions to the description if it is unreasonable, but Con has to at least dispute Pro's claim there or argue why the definitions are unreasonable (even though they obviously are, in my opinion).

Basically, Con's last round is nonresponsive to Pro's second round, where Pro has said that Con is bound to the definitions in the description. Con could have argued against that but he needed to at least address it.

Savant Administrator

--> @Kohai, @melcharaz, @SatanLucy, @whiteflame

I can expand on the reasoning for my vote if it helps. (Only reason it's as short as it is owes to how short he debate ended up being.) But if the charge is that I missed something core to Con's case, then just expanding on my reasoning not be sufficient.

For now, though, I'll leave this up to the mods to adjudicate.

melcharaz

If yall want i can give scriptures of How i am divine by God's standard (Jesus)

I gave 3 definitions of divine in the debate and i meet all 3 of them.

melcharaz

--> @Kohai

Savant failed to recognize i met description of divine being.

Therefore debate wasnt a truism.

SatanLucy

--> @melcharaz

Sometimes the effort is just not worth it.

melcharaz

Bring forth your best aphorism.

"The sage who suppresses his best aphorism: cut off his hands, for he is a thief." - vivec

Savant Administrator

Criterion	Pro	Tie	Con
Winner

Reason:

Pro has a relatively straightforward case, with P1 and P2 being enough to satisfy the resolution if both of them are true, as he points out. I can buy that Con advocating another definition of ownership means implicitly challenging the second premise. However, Pro reiterates in the second round the goal posts that they think Con needs to meet (directly saying the premise he challenges), and claims that "By site rules, once you accept the debate, you agree to debate's description." In my experience, there are some exceptions to the description if it is unreasonable, but Con has to at least dispute Pro's claim there or argue why the definitions are unreasonable (even though they obviously are, in my opinion).

Basically, Con's last round is nonresponsive to Pro's second round, where Pro has said that Con is bound to the definitions in the description. Con could have argued against that but he needed to at least address it.

Con, there are paths to victory doing what you did, but you needed to be more explicit about how being a deity overrides site rules. For example, responding to "By site rules, once you accept the debate, you agree to debate's description" with some kind of challenge like "I have the right to decide about that per the description." Claiming that you are a divine being or that you have access to some of God's power gives you access to a lot of arguments, but you have to actually address Pro's point imo to satisfy your burden. Arguing about maximal vs. partial ownership has a lot of potential, but I think Pro's case is effectively that by starting to argue along those lines in a way that will challenge his understanding of the terms, you are violating the description and implied rules of the debate. I think expanding what ownership means is effectively challenging the obvious interpretation of the definition. The premises Pro gave looked straightforwardly like a valid syllogism, so if you wanted to argue that "decide about" meant a different thing in each premise, I think you had to be more explicit about that.

In summary, Pro appeals to the debate description making this debate a truism and says that by accepting the debate, Con must accept the definitions in the description. Con never responds to that point directly, which is necessary to argue why I should prefer his definition over Pro's. Hence, I default to the (admittedly very biased) description, and Pro gets my vote.

Kohai Administrator

Criterion	Pro	Tie	Con
Winner

Reason:

This was a really painful debate to read. Ultimately I believe the winner is PRO. In round 1 PRO begins with a syllogism:

P1. God is able to decide about everything
P2. Being able to decide about everything means owning everything
C. God owns everything.

Whenever you are faced with a syllogism in a debate you have to interact with it. You need to prove that either one of the premises are false or that the syllogism does not logically follow.

Con never challenges either premise. The only thing that con does is attempt to redefine God and show that he fits the definition of God.

Pro in round 2 states the following: "By site rules, once you accept the debate, you agree to debate's description." This is actually false as there is no such rule; however it is taken as site standard. In addition, there are times in which arguing with the definitions is valid. However, con never challenges this statement and thus I count this as a drop. Because this is dropped I'm forced to agree with Pro that the definitions in the debate are final and binding. This means that con's attempt to show he meets the definition of God is invalid.

the final nail in the coffin is pro's restatement of the syllogism

P1. A equals B
P2. C equals B
C. A equals C

There is no way to disagree with logic of the argument, as conclusion logically flows from premises. And since premises werent challenged either, argument was conceded to.

Again, neither premise was challenged.

TLDR: Pro made a valid syllogism and neither premise was actually challenged hence pro wins. Advice to con: What you should have done is directly challenge the premise or show how the syllogism is not valid. There were many ways to challenge this syllogism without semantics

Round 1

Round 2

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