MY ANSWERS:
Argument 1
First of all...Christians don't kill other people just for holding different beliefs. They do believe that theirs is the only way to God, but come on, no one in a Christian church would go crazy just because a Buddhist monk decided to walk in the door.
Some have, some might, and, believe it or not, wandering Buddhists aren't generally the ones at risk of triggering psychosis in churchgoers. (10ʭ)
I do remember the Crusades, but that was simply a political plot to gain land under the guise of a holy war. The church had nothing to do with it.
"It" is several intermittent campaigns only loosly related to one another. (5ʭ)
Many were directly orchestrated by the Papacy. The church had plenty to do with them. (5ʭ)
As for "turning the other cheek," this doesn't mean Christians are pacifists, or allow themselves to be trod upon. It just means they don't go around retaliating against people all the time.
Which means they supposedly are pacifists and allow themselves to be trod on, yes. (5ʭ)
The fact is that everyone will give in to sin sometimes, but anyone who calls himself a Christian and purposely goes on sinning is just going to cause trouble for himself and make others think that Christians are no different from any other people when it comes to bad behavior.
1 That is not a fact. It's an unfounded overgeneralization. (5ʭ)
2 Doing so is not, in itself, grounds for exclusion from christendom. (5ʭ)
3 Christians generally aren't different in that regard. The difference is in what behaviour is considered bad. (5ʭ)
As for human nature, I've noticed that almost invariably, when left to their own devices, humans will choose evil over good.
No, they don't. That's just another unfounded overgeneralization. People do whatever appeals to their perception of what is desirable and justifiable. Evil is just a sociological construct. (5ʭ)
Also, as strange as this may sound, truth and morality are not relative concepts. They are absolute.
No. Truth is absolute. It has to be; otherwise, it wouldn't be true. Morality is subjective at best, and, as the Old Testament clearly demonstrates, has little or no temporal consistency. (10ʭ)
Think about it; anyone who believes in physics believes in absolute truth.
Epistemological nihilists are people too, and they can certainly believe in physics, though they may of course be skeptical. (10ʭ)
Is it not an absolute statement to say, "There exists a force in our universe called gravity which holds its structure together." ? Gravity works. That's an absolute statement.
No. That's an oversimplified positive assertion. (5ʭ)
It's also totally irrelevant to the topic. (10ʭ)
I don't believe in situational ethics, either. Things like murder and thievery will always be wrong, and no situation or circumstance can change that.
1 Overwhelming exception. Murder is applicable only to cases of homicide resulting from intent to do harm. Anything else is not murder, meaning that it is situational
by definition. (10ʭ)
2 Theft cannot be 'wrong' when it is a necessity for survival. (5ʭ)
3 What you believe is not a determining factor of what is true. (5ʭ)
Argument 2
Your life is a privilege. I can kill you, can't I? Therefore, you have no rights.
1 No, it isn't; it's a trait common to all people who currently exist. (5ʭ)
2 The ability to continue living is generally recognized as a fundamental human right. (5ʭ)
3 A right is not a universal law of reality. Your ability to defy it does not negate its existence. (5ʭ)
Ummm... no. There were a couple car accidents recently. BAN CARS!
1 Nice sraw man. He was not suggesting a ban on anything. He was suggesting the use of effective government-enforced regulation. (10ʭ)
2 Cars
have effective government-enforced regulation. It's called the DMV. (5ʭ)
3 The gravity and extent of one problem is not lessened by the mere existence of some other problem. (5ʭ)
I know literally hundreds of people, both children and adults, who possess and/or fire guns on a weekly basis. How many have shot somebody? A couple, admittedly, but those cases were self-defense so that way they themselves wouldn't perish away. As for the rest, none have ever so much as fired at another human being.
Good to know. Now, if these "literal hundreds" constituted even a significant minority of the ~300000000 people in the US, your anecdotal account might have had some actual value. (10ʭ)
Unfortunately, even that value would be offset by the fact that these are
not the people who would be impaired by regulating the access and usage of guns. (10ʭ)
You're trying to take away the hobby and sport of more than half this country for a few wayward murders which were most likely used with illegally possessed and obtained firearms.
1 Unless your hobby constitutes homicide, armed robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, arms trafficking, treason, or poaching, your complaint is invalid. (10ʭ)
2 The ease with which firearms are obtained illegally is a direct result of lax firearm laws. (5ʭ)
You're using the vast minority of unfortunate events to punish the vast majority of responsible adults.
Very rarely does a legal weapon fall into the hands of a murderer, and in those few cases, most are 'crimes of passion' committed within the household, [...]
Nice vague arbitrary statistics you have there. (5ʭ)
[...] crimes that would be committed with a kitchen chair if push came to shove.
Mastering chair combat to a lethal degree requires significantly greater skill and strength than pointing and squeezing a small handheld device. (10ʭ)
Criminals will kill no matter what, and I would much rather die by a gun than a knife.
False dilemma. Your preference for one thing over another does not make the two equally probable, and I think it's safe to say that most people would rather survive a knife wound than die from a gun wound. (10ʭ)
Also, Not all crimes are homicides. (5ʭ)
YOUR ANSWERS:
PLGuy
+10/10 "Over the centuries Christians [...]" "There’s no assurance that in some church [...]"
+5/5 "The first Crusade started in [...]"
+5/5 "Crusade can be announced only [...]"
0
0
0
+5/5 "What you had written makes me think that [...]" "I mean that in every group of people [...]"
+5/5 "I, on the other hand, have noticed [...]"
+5/10 "I just wanna add that I didn't even mention [...]"
+5/10 "It’s good to take scientific theories as [...]"
0
0
+5/10 "Killing in self-defense: [...]"
+5/5 "Thievery in starvation: [...]"
0
MattEmAngel
+5/5 "Seeing as "life" is something that [...]"
+5/5 "A good example of a privilege is [...]"
0
+5/10 "Goodness, that slope you're on [...]"
+5 "For a start, we could always just [...]"
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
+20ʭ for arguing logically without citing any source material.
ROUND n-1 SCORE:
92.5ʭ MattEmAngel +40ʭ
85.0ʭ PLGuy +50ʭ
