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Upcoming Written Debate...terms

I have sent these following terms to JD Curtis for our upcoming written debate and he has accepted them with the following dates:

I will submit by next Sunday night. I'm a bit busy in the early part of this upcoming week.

Opening statement submitted/posted Sunday night the 6th.

1st rebuttal submitted/posted the evening of Tue the 8th.

The 2nd one by Thursday evening.the 10th.

Closing remarks either that following Sat (12th) or Sun (13th), whichever you prefer. Deal?


Me:

Okay, so here are my ideas for our upcoming written debate.

All typed parts, when minutes are indicated, mean minutes it would take to speak.

Motion – The Christian God exists [I would assume that the definition for Christian god is “omni-benevolent, omnipotent, omniscient creator of the universe who sent Jesus to earth to die for the sins of mankind.]

Opening Statement (Affirmative – that's you) 10 minutes

Opening Statement (Negative – that's me) 10 minutes

Rebuttal 1 (Negative – that's me) 10 minutes

Rebuttal 1 (Affirmative – that's you) 10 minutes

Rebuttal 2 (Negative – that's me) 10 minutes

Rebuttal 2 (Affirmative – that's you) 10 minutes

Closing statement (Affirmative – that's you) 10 minutes

Closing statement (Negative – that's me) 10 minutes


While you may know, I'll provide some definitions so we are on the same page.

Opening statements are to introduce your arguments for or against the motion. Opening statements are not used to respond to the opponent, rebuttals are. The affirmative should make one or more arguments for the negative to address and in order for the affirmative to win the debate, his arguments must stand and make the case for the motion.

Rebuttal 1 addresses your opponent's opening statement. - no new arguments are here, but rather criticism of the opponent's opening statement

Rebuttal 2 allows for a response to rebuttal one. “...”

Closing statements can be whatever; they typically are used to summarize your points and say why you think you won the debate.


Make your arguments in the opening statement clear by use of deductive argument. For example: Premise One: If there is no mustard on the table, there is no hot dog. Premise Two: There is no mustrard. Conclusion: There is no hot dog. This is important so that the argument is clear for the audience and the opponent (so there is hopefully no strawmanning).

Please limit arguments in the opening statement to no more than five main arguments (and feel free to use less). This is only fair because the opening affirmative can present, say, ten arguments, and the negative could never possibly address all in the rebuttal.

Keep the discussion limited to the debate (no going around on each other's blogs/published works/etc and arguing against those points). For example, if I bring up three arguments in my opening statement, the rebuttal will address those, not what I have typed elsewhere and didn't use in the debate. Also, no using others' arguments (for example: no links to, say, internetinfidels or reasonable faith) – make your own case.

No copy-pasting previous posts to form rebuttals or openings. While arguments may be 'rehashed' in a way, keep it original for the debate. For example, if I want to talk about the problem of evil, me going and 'reposting' a blog post I wrote for the debate is not permissible.

Our individual statements/rebuttals will be listed on our respective blogs with links to all previous parts of the debate in each post as hyperlinks. For example, if we are at rebuttal 1 and I'm typing my rebuttal, I'll hyperlink both opening statements to start the post.

Title blog posts regarding the written statements as “Curtis/Vacula Debate Series.” This way, in addition to hyperlinking, readers can know what's going on.

Do you want to put some sort of correspondence time limit on this? For example, after we both post our opening statements, each of us will have a certain time limit to respond with rebuttals and so on.

How about this:
Sunday: Opening Statements to be posted before midnight

Monday: Rebuttal 1s …

Tuesday: Rebuttal 2s …

Wednesday: Closing Statements ...


Any other ideas?

Okay with everything here?