Zhadum in NPO used to do this back in the day. In this thread, I'll make an argument for whatever premise you can come up with. For example: IRON is the greatest alliance in the universe, God does/ does not exist, the French/ Italian trade wars of the 1880s were a good thing, etc. Go.

Argue for God's exsistance.

 

As a militant atheist I had an encounter with the Risen Jesus and His Spirit lives within me. Enough said.

Argue for getting rid of all trees.

Argue for getting rid of all trees.

 

Environmental concerns are an obstruction in the 21st century. We need to get on with the important business of drilling oil in Western countries and becoming less dependent on the likes of Saudi Arabia. There's plenty of oil in the US, it's just that the tree huggers get in the way. Plus all those trees could be converted to wood and sold to raise money for orphaned chihuahuas.

Argue why I should be the next President of IRON and TW should resign immediately.

 

Argue why TW should be the last President of IRON.

Argue why I should be the next President of IRON and TW should resign immediately.

 

Argue why TW should be the last President of IRON.

 

With regard to the second one, easy. This game was dead years ago. The server should be shut down already. IRON should just disband and stop persisting with such a crappy game. That would make TW the last president of IRON.

 

As for why you should be next president of IRON. Um. Well I suppose seeing as you're such a wildly charismatic and popular individual you would make a great leader of IRON, whereas I haven't seen TW that active recently.

Argue for getting rid of all trees.

Even suggesting that almost triggered me. Am I a militant environmentalist? That makes me feel bad. But at the same time it doesn't. 

 

 

Argue for getting rid of all trees.

 

 

Even suggesting that almost triggered me. Am I a militant environmentalist? That makes me feel bad. But at the same time it doesn't.

Global warming isn't real!

 

Did that trigger you?

(Not my actual beliefs)

 

Also doesn't an argument require a rebuttal? So, who shall carry the torch to challenge the almighty KitKat

 

 

Argue for getting rid of all trees.

 

Even suggesting that almost triggered me. Am I a militant environmentalist? That makes me feel bad. But at the same time it doesn't. 

Global warming isn't real!

 

Did that trigger you?

(Not my actual beliefs)

 

Almost, yes. 

Course I've also been drinking so it doesn't take much ATM. 

Argue for attending an IRON meet up in London next April, no matter how far away a person is.

Argue for attending an IRON meet up in London next April, no matter how far away a person is.

 

Because my fellow IRON members are incredibly cool (and there's actually a possibility I am going to be in Europe roundabout then anyway )

 

 

Argue for God's exsistance.

 

 

 

As a militant atheist I had an encounter with the Risen Jesus and His Spirit lives within me. Enough said.

I'm dissapointed.

 

 

Argue for God's exsistance.

 

 

As a militant atheist I had an encounter with the Risen Jesus and His Spirit lives within me. Enough said.

I'm dissapointed.

 

 

Your spelling is a disappointment. :v

You lack effort.

You lack effort.

 

Alright, alright. Here's an argument for the existence of God: in human experience, we often find certain things beautiful. I cannot visit the Blue Mountains in Sydney and not find them overwhelmingly beautiful. Other examples include sunsets, seashells in perfect spirals, symmetry, flowers, rainbows. There is far more agreement among human beings on beauty than postmodernists would care to admit.

 

I think this phenomenon is best explained by the existence of God (and specifically, the Judaeo-Christian God.) According to a Christian worldview, God created human beings in his image. An image of something is a likeness of something: what Christians mean when we say that we are in the image of God is that we are like him in various important respects, in this case the most pertinent of which is that we received his aesthetic preferences. He also created the world, which is a reflection and an outworking of his own aesthetic preferences. That is why we find so many things in nature beautiful. 

 

I find this a more convincing account of human experience than atheism can provide. To really go into this would go beyond the scope of a post on a CN gaming forum, but I'll make a couple of remarks. I think the only real explanation for objective beauty other than the one I have outlined is that beauty is some kind of Platonic form. For those of you unfamiliar with Plato, he believed in two different kinds of reality: the physical world, and the world of the forms. The forms were non-physical ideal versions of stuff we find in the physical world. So for example, in the world of the Forms an ideal chair exists. Chairs in the physical world are a sort of imperfect instantiation of the ideal chair. What defines a chair in the physical world as being a chair is that it instantiates the ideal chair in the world of the forms. If you're finding this a little confusing, think about whether numbers exist: according to Plato, the Forms exist in a similar way that numbers exist. One of the Forms which Plato focuses on most is the Form of Beauty. Beauty is a sort of ideal in the world of the Forms which provides an objective standard against which we can judge whether something in the real world is beautiful. 

 

Firstly, atheist philosophers increasingly reject the existence of this immaterial world of the Forms. The whole point of metaphysics since the Renaissance is that Westerners have increasingly rejected an immaterial world, and the world of the Forms comes far too close to the spiritual world for comfort. The physical world is all there is and that's it. There's no room for beauty in that paradigm, it's just a social construct.

 

Secondly, philosophers have questioned how exactly this vague immaterial Form out there is instantiated and what the process of instantiation looks like and how it works. Furthermore, if there is an ideal version of everything in the world of the Forms, you would have to have Forms of Forms: so for example the ideal chair, the ideal table and the ideal bed would come under the form of furniture. The form of furniture and the Form of boats, buildings and cars might come under the form of things made by human beings. What I'm driving at is that when you get forms of forms you can in the end generate infinitely large numbers of Forms, which seems absurd.

 

But thirdly, and I think most importantly, even if the Form of Beauty exists out there somehow, how would human beings know what beauty is? I don't see how human beings have access to it, on a Platonic view. It's in an entirely different kind of reality: we can't get there. A Christian view explains human experience by saying that God created us with his aesthetic preferences. But although if an atheist accepted the reality of the Forms he/ she explains the origin of objective beauty, he/ she does not have a plausible explanation of how we know that Form and *why* finding certain things beautiful is such an entrenched part of human experience. 

 

Of course, the atheist can say "well the Form of beauty doesn't exist, and objective beauty does not exist, but human beings have particular aesthetic preferences for evolutionary reasons." But I think this reasoning is weak. I think explanations of why it is to our evolutionary advantage to appreciate beauty are contrived, and better explained on a theistic model.

 

I could make this argument a lot better in an essay, but it's for an online gaming forum and I am writing off the top of my head, so yanno. Satisfied with my effort now Robert?

 

P.S. This argument entails that God is profoundly beautiful, which He is.

Argue a reasonable case for the abolition of lawyers

Argue a reasonable case for the abolition of lawyers

 

This is quite an amusing one, given I'm a law student. XD Well, I think that law actually isn't that complicated. It is possible for ordinary people to understand statutes and case law. If lawyers were abolished, it would save everyone a lot of money. It would also save the state a lot of money as people would not have to fund criminal legal aid anymore. Oh, plus, more socialist-inclined nations (such as my own) wouldn't have to subsidise law degrees (there are waaaaay too many law students these days.)

Much better. Surely your more satisfied also.

Much better. Surely your more satisfied also.

 

In all honesty, I just got frustrated because I couldn't do justice to the argument in a post on an online forum

 Of course, the atheist can say "well the Form of beauty doesn't exist, and objective beauty does not exist, but human beings have particular aesthetic preferences for evolutionary reasons." But I think this reasoning is weak. I think explanations of why it is to our evolutionary advantage to appreciate beauty are contrived, and better explained on a theistic model.

 

I don't really want to hijack this thread, as it really belongs in the other one (which I keep meaning to revitalize), but my biggest problem with most of your arguments is that they are overly reliant on Philosophy. I have found that while Philosophy can be useful in certain situations, it's frankly given way more credit than it deserves. The world cannot be explained from an armchair alone, at one point one has to take "reality" into account when trying to explain things. Of course the next question would be, but what IS reality, how do you define it, do we really exitst, etc, but this is not really helpful. Perhaps some concepts do not need absolute definitions, a loose understanding if enough.

 

Is "God" part of reality? Yes and no.

 

• The scientific perspective is that at present there is no empirical data that would hint at the existence of a supreme being in the universe or a grand designer.
• My perspective is that the answer is most likely NO.
• Your perspective is that you have seen evidence of God's existence, so YES

Obviously God (or the perception there is one) is real enough for you to have an impact on your life. For me, it's the other way around. How do we resolve this? The resolution has to be rooted in the lowest common denominator - pieces of empirical evidence. What we do with the evidence is another question though, but as I said, don't want to hijack the thread

Argue why discussing religion online is a bad idea.

Argue that you stand up for falling down.

Argue that breathing is overrated

Argue why discussing religion online is a bad idea.

 

You are entirely correct. I didn't mean this to turn into a religious discussion thread. :v Discussing religion online gets nowhere, nobody changes their mind, and it just leads to squabbling.

 

Argue that you stand up for falling down.

 

Not a terribly well phrased premise. In my case (and this is actually true) I suffer from something called orthostatic hypotension, which means that when I stand up suddenly, my body doesn't register quickly enough that I have stood up, which means that it doesn't pump blood to my head for a couple of seconds. I see stars and often have to crouch down. So it is true that I stand up for falling down.

 

Argue that breathing is overrated

 

Breathing is so overrated. I mean, fish don't breathe, they have gills, which means they are able to explore the depths of the sea. That would be so cool to do. At the moment, diving equipment only allows us to go so far underwater.

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/duty_calls.png

this thread is awesome