Ah, I see the atheists are running scared already.

John

Very sporting of you, Lion, to delay your posting until the Lord's day.

Especially when you risk being stoned to death for doing so (or would if we let the Bible drive our legislation).

Now what was it you will be arguing again?

Wasn't it that gay marriage will bring down society in every country that tries it except the ones that have and it didn't?

If there's no god, why should society obey this gods law? It boils down to culture, which is just about the most dangerous thing for any free thinker to obey. Along with political/religious thinking/indoctrination.

Obeying gods law isn't dangerous?

Say what?

Onyx8 wrote:Obeying gods law isn't dangerous?

Say what?

What god? There all dangerous to humanity, they are invented to be so, to "them".

I guess Croc and Lion will come at this from different sets of assumptions, but I'll be interested to see if they can inhabit each other's viewpoints and argue from there to their own positions. I haven't seen Croc arguing for this previously, so I don't know what to expect from him. I think Lion's methods of debate are often interesting, but I'm not convinced they don't end up committing him to the position he's trying to reject.

The breastmilk argument against homosexual parenting, for instance, seems to work off of a system of ethical optimization: breastmilk is meant to be the optimal choice. However, due to the finiteness of ideal family situations that can provide everything else, plus the breastmilk, the number of places that are this optimal is quite limited. If that's so, then the optimal place for at least some ("some" is putting it mildly) children is to be with parents who can provide everything but this extra optimizer. If that's further so, then the optimal situation for at least "some" is to be placed with same-sex parents who can provide everything but the further optimizer of the additional breastmilk. So, since Lion holds that refraining from optimization amounts to child abuse, then keeping these children from being adopted by gay parents amounts to child abuse.

Still, I do look forward to hearing your side of the debate, Lion. I have always found your views interesting, even where I've very strongly disagreed with them.

I really hope that the debate stays away from parenting completely, because it's totally irrelevant given that you don't need to be married to be a parent.

But I have a feeling Lion will take it there, repeatedly.

Where Lion will try hard to stay away from is the question of whether it's abusive to tell a child "you can't marry your soulmate like all your straight friends because you're gay", and whether it's harmful to have the force of the State legitimise that discrimination.

OlivierK wrote:I really hope that the debate stays away from parenting completely, because it's totally irrelevant given that you don't need to be married to be a parent.

For now, I'm assuming it will. At least, if I thought it was going to be a theme of the debate, I probably wouldn't have brought it up. Too much risk of influencing the debate itself and giving one side some arguments to use against the other.

Spinozasgalt wrote:

OlivierK wrote:I really hope that the debate stays away from parenting completely, because it's totally irrelevant given that you don't need to be married to be a parent.

For now, I'm assuming it will. At least, if I thought it was going to be a theme of the debate, I probably wouldn't have brought it up. Too much risk of influencing the debate itself and giving one side some arguments to use against the other.

I was just wondering if reading this topic would lead to any re-writes.

Yes. It certainly would in my case.
Not every audience has the same cross-section. Some are more critical in specific areas.
I will be paying close attention to what gets posted in here for the duration of the debate.

I'll be submitting my first post to Durro in 3 hours.

Lion IRC wrote:I will be paying close attention to what gets posted in here for the duration of the debate.

The I suggest to everybody that we restrict ourselves to indehiscent projectiles.

Incidentally, historically, the practice has been that participants in a formal debate are excluded from posting in the gallery. Has this been suspended for this débâcle?

False.
http://www.rationalskepticism.org/forma ... t6927.html

Historically. LOL
This is the second formal debate this forum has held.

For what its worth, I wont be discussing anything substantive.

And we're off. I'm on my way from from the GAC in Melbourne, but coincidentally logged on from the airport as Lion IRC submitted his opening post. It's now up and available for your viewing.

Crocodile Gandhi is running a (half?) Marathon today, so i'm not sure if we'll see a prompt response, but he has 72 hours from now to reply under the debate rules.

If the Moderator decides to limit content or keep me and Crocodile Ghandi out of the peanut gallery thread thats cool.

Ha! Nice picture, Lion.

I'm just dropping by to say that I did run a half marathon this morning and feel appropriately rooted. My first foray into the debate will likely occur tomorrow evening.

From a debate perspective, that was a horrible opening.

It starts with a snide slam at the 'judges,' never a good start.

Then it raises my hopes with a clear bullet pointed list of arguments, only to dash them with a disjointed, rambling, series of one line statements that don't connect to each other or an overall argument.

I can get that we'll be arguing legalism=good (relevance?), gay=dysfunctional (ok, valid debate choice there), and some sort of pre-empt on philosophical grounds, which appear to be assigning fallacies to arguments that Croc hasn't made and is unlikely to make (what? why?). Then there's the truly weird bit at the end where it states that because god says so won't be a part of the debate, and then immediately proceeds to argue that we shouldn't question things when god says so.

Lion and Croc - I would prefer that you not try to let the debate spill over into the comments thread. It may be interpreted by some as a means to circumvent the word limit, and of course, would invite distractions and tangents from the main debate. You guys have a dedicated, uninterrupted forum to air your opinions, so it would be best to keep them there.

But you're welcome to discuss other, related issues here.

hackenslash wrote:

Lion IRC wrote:I will be paying close attention to what gets posted in here for the duration of the debate.

The I suggest to everybody that we restrict ourselves to indehiscent projectiles.

Incidentally, historically, the practice has been that participants in a formal debate are excluded from posting in the gallery. Has this been suspended for this débâcle?

I think that would be a good idea.

If it isn't done technically then perhaps the debaters could refrain from comment voluntarily. There will be ample opportunity for further discussion when the formal debate is finished.

John