All three judges have weighed in. Here are their decisions in the order received.
E Mutz:
I would like to compliment the participants for their efforts in this debate. I have a new found respect for previous debate judges as I found that I had 78 pages of text to review for my final analysis.
My two key measures of success in this debate were the resolution and the criteria established within the debate to determine what is “Christian in Nature”.
Resolved: All basic principles in the U.S. Constitution are Christian in nature.
Electrolyte posited and Marc accepted the following criteria for determining if a principle is “Christian in Nature”.
1. It must have significant parallels or extensive mention in the Bible.
2. It must be reasonably distinct from widespread, non-Christian or irreligious ideas.
3. It must be endorsed or encouraged by the Bible.
4. It must not be significantly contradicted by the Bible.
Thus, as framed by the resolution and agreed upon by the participants, all basic principles must pass the above criteria.
Of these, the second principle was the most problematic for Marc as Electrolyte noted in his conclusion:
Virtually all of marc's arguments fall prey to an important criterion that he accepted: non-genericness. marc draws weak links between the Constitution and the Bible and argues that that link makes a principle Christian in nature, but this method would also "establish" that principle as one of any number of non- or anti-Christian ideas. This is clearly insufficient. marc's position remains unaffirmed.
Although it was not my belief that the DOI was connected to the Constitution, Marc made the most substantiated claim; therefore, I accepted his view over Electrolyte’s for the context of this debate. All this did; however, was provide Marc the additional burden of proving the “Christian Nature” of the DOI, a needless burden that expended a great deal of hand wringing.
Concerning the preamble of the Constitution, Marc noted:
“These are all Christian in nature because perfect unions, justice, domestic tranquility, defense, general welfare, and blessings of liberty are all topics of the Bible, and thought of by Christ as good things.”
In my judgment, Marc did not explain how these principles are “Christian in Nature” rather; he noted that Christ would consider these “good things”. If anything, this compounded Marc’s problem as the pre-existence of these things (necessary for Christ to approve them) rather argues against these things being “Christian in nature” under Criterion #2.
A great deal of effort was expended debating the religious beliefs of the Founders. I saw this as irrelevant to the Resolution. I am a Christian. That does not make this paragraph “Christian in nature” simply because it was written by a Christian.
In my view, Marc never successfully established Criterion #2, that these ideas are reasonably distinct from “widespread, non-Christian or irreligious ideas”. He notes that these ideas are mentioned in the Bible, but does not demonstrate how these ideas are distinct. Electrolyte made this point clear early on and was not burdened by the resolution with establishing a source for these basic principles despite Marc’s insistence that he do so.
Once Criterion #2 was agreed to all Electrolyte needed to do was provide example one of the basic principles whose origins were clearly not specific to Christianity. He provided the example of the Hammurabic code as an answer to the Christian Nature of Justice.
In my opinion, not one basic principle of the Constitution was established to be Christian in Nature viz a viz the four principles. I make this observation as a Christian.
Winner: Electrolyte
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unkerpaulie:
very good debate overall, i am impressed with the structure of the debate, the first 2 posts shows how much these formal debates has evolved. it started to digress a little but overall it was very good. here's the breakdown as i see it
electrolyte
pros: powerful start, excellent work with the definitions. his 4 criteria for what made up a christian principle were right on, except i didnt fully agree with 2, because a christian principle that is followed by non-christians is still, imo, a christian principle. his identification of the burden of proof was also dead on: he was only required to show that ONE basic principle was a non-christian principle, and that would have resolved the debate
cons: electrolyte struggled with the distinction between christian and biblical. christianity didnt emerge until after jesus' time, which was essentially the new testament and onwards. also, christianity overturned many old testament ideas, so there is a distinction between them that cannot be overlooked. as i stated above in his 4 criteria, electrolyte also falsely asserted that a principle followed by atheist made it a non-christian principle. this is not the case, but marc didnt capitalize on this. i was also annoyed by electrolyte's style of agression and mild antagonism as a debating tactic, rather than debating with reasoning and evidence
strongest arguments: 1. freedom of religion is a basic principle which is definitely non-christian. he should have hammered this home, but he did highlight this. 2. the bible, as well as christianity, advocates a political system of sovereignty, not democracy. this is another principle that is in direct disagreement to christianity
marc9000
pros: i like the way he refined his position throughout the debate and stayed focused to his main points. his debate surrounded and developed around his central argument which ill go over in a minute
cons: he got caught up in a struggle distinguishing between calvinism and christianity. also i felt he wasnt proactive about properly identifying what the basic prinicples in the constitution were
best arguments: the fact that the founding fathers, and most of the american population at the time, were almost unanimously christians or of religions derived from christianity. this fact would surely affect the content and context of the constitution
final verdict: i would judge that the debate was resolved in electrolyte's favor. the basic principle of freedom of religion and plurality is definitely a non-christian principle, and while electrolyte didnt drive this home emphatically enough, i would say that the point stands and the debate is resolved
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Steeeeve:
The resolution was that “all basic principles in the US Constitution are Christian in nature”. I think from the very beginning this was an impossible resolution to argue and this was proven in the debate.
While I believe Marc did much better than I could imagine in the debate, I do feel Marc made a few key mistakes of which the biggest was letting Electrolyte establish the principles which are basic and how to determine if they are Christian in nature. This needed to be established by Marc at first to ensure the debate focuses on that instead of Electrolyte wanted. Other than that, Marc had many good points and actually displayed the most interesting fact to me which was the chart showing who was the most influential when it came to our founding (
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/tnppage/quote1.htm). For all the glory Jefferson gets, it appears he wasn’t as big of a founder as one might think. In the end, Marc had no chance at proving this or even giving a reasonable argument because it is something that can’t be proven or disproven sufficiently. The reason for this is because the constitution sets up a government as opposed to preaching about God. If say person X has a Christian background and that morality influences every decision then would be it be easy to prove that person X did his job to the best of his ability because it is a Christian value? I think it would be rather impossible to show this even if true. At the same time I doubt you could prove no Christian principals influenced the constitution. Electrolyte claimed this in the last post but I failed to see where the argument had any real merit.
With regards to Electrolytes posts, I think Electrolyte did a good job of framing the debate the way Electrolyte wanted which made Marc more on the defensive and less likely to make a relevant point. Electrolyte proved to have good tactics and information to back up positions and, for the most part, well reasoned arguments. I was disappointed that Electrolyte seemed to have a more hostile tone in the debate (I admit Marc did at some points) as there is no need to say a poster “lives in a fantasy world”, for example, or something along those lines. There seems to be a growing trend of these personal attacks on this forum and I was hoping it would stay out of the formal debates. In the end, Electrolyte did what was needed to win and Marc couldn’t overcome the overwhelmingly high burden placed by the resolution.
I appreciate getting the opportunity to judge this debate and I hope you two will remain positive debaters who will continue to use the Formal Debate forums. I also would like to stress that the decision in this formal debate by no means establishes a right and wrong answer on the subject; it only establishes who debated better given the resolution. Thanks everyone and have a Merry Christmas (and Christmas is Christian in nature haha).
Winner: Electrolyte
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Thank you to all participants for fulfilling your obligations.
billsco