About Religious Debates

Purpose of Religious Debates

Religious Debates is an online forum for public, formal, moderated debate on religious subjects. Religious Debates represents a forum to present differing views on religious matters in a systematic and structured way to facilitate understanding. Religious Debates does not discriminate based on religious persuasion (or lack thereof), denomination, or creed.

The E-mail List and the Website

Religious Debates consists of an e-mail list and a website.

The e-mail list is a forum run through Yahoo! Groups. The e-mail list may be accessed here.

The e-mail list represents the place where the actual debates take place. The list is designed to be the forum wherein people present propositions for debate, where those propositions are agreed upon, and where the affirmatives and rebuttals of the debate are posted.

The e-mail list is moderated. All posts must first be approved by the administrators. Administrative posts, debate proposition challenges and proposition agreements, and debate affirmatives and rebuttals are the only posts allowed to pass on to the list.

The website is religiousdebates.org. The website is designed to archive the past debates and to facilitate matters regarding current debates. All past debates are archived on the website and therefore available in a more public and consistent manner for all to see. The website also maintains lists of pending debates in queue and propositions available for debate along with information about administrators and debaters.

Terms of Service

The following are the terms of service for the use of the Religious Debates e-mail list and website. Failure to observe these terms of service will lead to removal from group.

Acceptance of: Welcome to Religious Debates, a member of Yahoo! Groups, which provides this service, subject to your agreeing to the Terms of Service (heretofore TOS). We reserve the right to update the TOS at our discretion without notice.

Description of Services Available: Religious Debates provides access to religious debates on any religious subject, via the moderated Yahoo! Groups e-mail list. The debate shall be formal in the format as described below.

You understand and agree that this service is provided "as is", and that Religious Debates assumes no responsibility to the timeliness, deletion, missed delivery or failure to store user communications, even though access to all posts may be gained through Yahoo! Groups archives.

In order to use the service, both participants in a debate must be subscribed to the Religious Debates Yahoo! Group.

Your Subscription Obligation: In consideration of use of the service, you agree to:

a. complete all information required to complete the subscription. Failure to do so, and/or presenting untrue, inaccurate or incomplete information may result in suspension from this list. The administrators of Religious Debates have the right to terminate your subscription from the list. Religious Debates has the right to terminate your account from the e-mail list and refuse any and all current or future uses of the service or any portion thereof.

Member Conduct: You understand that all posts to the mailing list of Religious Debates are the sole responsibility of the person from whom such content originated. This means that you alone and not Religious Debates are responsible for your posts to the list. Religious Debates does not control the context of any debate except to monitor and moderate each discussion, and therefore cannot guarantee the accuracy, integrity or quality of posts.

You understand that you may expose yourself to offensive or objectionable material not in accordance with your personal beliefs. Under no circumstances will Religious Debates be responsible or liable in any way for context of posts, errors, omissions in context, and/or loss or damage of any kind as a result of the use of this service.

You agree not to use this service to post any email to this list that is:

a. unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, invasive of another's privacy, hateful, racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable;

b. harmful to minors in any way;

c. impersonate any person or entity, or falsely state or otherwise use or misrepresent your affiliation with a person or entity;

d. forge headers or manipulate in any way identifiers in order to disguise the origin of any content transmitted through this service;

e. post or email any content that you do not have a right to transmit under any law, national or international, including plagiarism;

f. post or email any content that infringes any patent, trademark, secret or copyright of any party;

g. post or email any unsolicited or unauthorized advertising, promotional materials, junk mail, or spam;

h. post or email any material containing viruses or any other computer code(s) as well as any attachment;

i. violate, either intentionally or unintentionally, any state, national or international law including regulations by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission;

j. collect or store data about other subscribers to the list.
Submitted Content: You grant by submission of any material by you as a participant and subscriber of Religious Debates the legal right to use, reproduce, publish, distribute and display such opinion in whole or part. Religious Debates shall have the right, but not the obligation, in their sole discretion to refuse, edit or remove any opinion submitted by the owner/moderator(s).
No Resale of Service: You agree not to reproduce, duplicate or copy, sell or resell any portion of any debate originating from Religious Debates, from the e-mail list or from the website, without express written permission by Religious Debates. You understand and agree that your use of Religious Debates as a mailing list is at your sole risk.

Group Rules

The Yahoo! Group is moderated by a set of rules. Use of the Religious Debates Yahoo! Group represents your agreement to these rules.

Moderation: The e-mail list is a moderated list. All posts must be first approved by the moderators. The following represent acceptable communication for the e-mail list:

Presentation of debate proposals

Acceptance of debate proposals

Debate affirmatives and rebuttals

Administrative e-mails at the discretion of the administrative staff.
Belief: The e-mail list does not discriminate on the basis of belief. We do require, however, that each participant at the time of the debate has a conviction or an inclination toward the belief, doctrine, or position on behalf of which they are debating. Playing "devil's advocate" or engaging in sophistry (debating for debate's sake) will not be allowed.
Debate Timing: To keep debates fresh and moving, Religious Debates has a guideline of no more than one week per response for its participants. This means that each participant must respond within one week with their affirmative or rebuttal after their opponent's rebuttal or affirmative.

If the week passes, the Debate Administrator will contact the participant to ascertain the reason for the delay. If delay continues or happens habitually, the debate may be put on hold or canceled at the discretion of the administrative staff.
Questions and Discussions on Debates: The Religious Debates e-mail list serves as the forum for the debates themselves; to that end, any questions about the debates themselves or their progression are to be handled off-list with all involved persons and administrative staff members. Discussion regarding debates likewise ought to be handled off-list.

Debate Guidelines

The following represents the guidelines for debates on Religious Debates. These guidelines are designed to make sure that the purpose of Religious Debates may be fulfilled.

Debate Operation:

A challenge (or proposition) to the list is issued.

When a person desires to debate a given topic, he will send a challenge to the Religious Debates e-mail list at religiousdebates@yahoogroups.com. Since all posts must be approved before they are sent to the list, an administrator will review the challenge and approve it for distribution to the e-mail list.

The proposition will be akin to the following:

The Scriptures or some religious document establish that this particular action or doctrine is legitimate.

Affirm: Person A
Deny:

The Scriptures or some religious document establish that this particular action or doctrine is not legitimate.

Affirm:
Deny: Person A

The proposition will be listed as an "available proposition" on the Religious Debates website until the proposition is accepted by another participant.

After the challenge is accepted by a member of the list, an e-mail stating such by the prospective participant accepting challenge/proposition shall be sent to the list. An administrator will review the acceptance and approve it for list distribution.

The proposition will be accepted by the prospective participant digitally signing the proposition by placing his name on the appropriate "affirm" and "deny" lines, as seen above.

Upon approval of the proposition by both participants and the administrative staff, the debate will be placed in the pending debate queue available at the Religious Debates website.

When the debate has reached the top of the queue, the Debate Administrator will inform the e-mail list that the debate is ready to begin. At this time, each participant should provide an introduction to the list (if s/he has not yet already done so) to provide necessary background information for all members of Religious Debates.

The debate will then proceed in the following format:

The participant having the first affirmative position will begin by posting his first affirmative. This will be followed by the first rebuttal from the participant in the denying position. This will continue for a total of three (3) affirmatives and three (3) rebuttals.

If there is in addition a contrasting proposition, at the conclusion of the third rebuttal, the participant who has affirmed the contrasting proposition (normally the same denying the first proposition) will begin by posting his first affirmative, and the other participant will then follow with his first rebuttal. This also continues for three (3) affirmatives and three (3) rebuttals.
At the conclusion of the debate, the full text of the debate will be posted in the debate archives of the Religious Debates website.

Guidelines within Debates:

To debate a proposition, at the time of the debate, one must believe in and agree with that which he affirms and disbelieve and disagree with that which he denies.

Each debate participant has one week in which to post each installment of the debate, as described above.

A member who drops out of a debate will be restricted from participating in another debate for a period of 3 months.

The list is not intended for, nor will tolerate, any posts either not involving the debate or by those not participating in the debate at hand. All such comments/disagreements/arguments should be made privately with the individual at hand.

On account of the depth of some debate subjects, size guidelines have been removed from debates. While this means that participants are at liberty to determine how long or short their affirmatives and their rebuttals happen to be, we would encourage all participants to consider their subject matter and their audience. All affirmatives and rebuttals should both adequately address the subject matter at hand and able to be read and digested in a reasonable amount of time. If a subject seems too vast for a profitable debate, participants are encouraged to perhaps narrow the subject and/or debate a series of debates around a given subject.

While Religious Debates is designed to be a forum encompassing many different belief systems and values, it is imperative that all members treat one another with respect. Ad hominems, character attacks, and pejorative language should not be present within debate affirmations or rebuttals. Recognition of such taking place may lead to demands from the Group Administrator to revise such affirmations or rebuttals, and continual violation may lead to termination of debates and/or the offending participant.

Disclaimer

By the very nature of the Religious Debates forum, a few disclaimers are necessary.

Religious Debates is a forum to facilitate systematic, formal debates on religious subjects. By necessity, many different ideas and beliefs will be presented. The beliefs, doctrines, and opinions presented on Religious Debates may only be ascribed to its authors. The administrators or members of Religious Debates may or may not agree with any particular view presented on Religious Debates.

It is the policy of Religious Debates to not discriminate based on religious persuasion, creed, or denomination. The forum demands having people who disagree; if there is no disagreement, there is no basis for debate. The administrators do everything possible to maintain an open forum in this regard. If you feel that you have been discriminated against on account of your belief system in any way, please let us know.

The goal of any religious discussion is to ascertain truth. Therefore, it is entirely possible that a person may come to a different conclusion at the end of a debate than he held at the beginning. To that end, we would encourage everyone involved in Religious Debates to confirm that a given participant believes in a given debate subject before widely proclaiming such.

Material presented in the Religious Debates forum remains the copyright information of both Religious Debates and the participant presenting the material. You must seek permission from Religious Debates and participants to reproduce or extensively quote debates held. Citations and reasonable quotation, in an appropriate manner and giving due credit, may be allowed without previous permissions.

If you have any questions about the materials here, please feel free to contact the administrators. Thanks for your interest!

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