title stringlengths 0 221 | text stringlengths 0 375k |
|---|---|
The American people would be against the change As discussed above, the removal of “under God” will not be a move towards neutrality but a move against religion. As a result it is not surprising that the American people would be against such a move. An immense majority, 87% in a newsweek poll said the pledge should co... | |
Likely to be seen as a state sanctioned condemnation of religion After nearly sixty years of having the words “under God” included in the Pledge of Allegiance this legislation will not be seen as a move to neutrality but a move against religion. 78.4% of Americans are Christian with a further 4.7% believing in other r... | |
The proposition totally rejects the idea that the words “under God” are necessary to indicate that the government does not have the power to do whatever it wants whenever it wants. The fact that the constitution exists and the government cannot contradict it is what means the government cannot act without consideration... | |
“Under God” is part of American tradition and history Reference to God is made throughout American patriotism. The Supreme Court opens by saying ‘God save America and this honourable court’. The ‘under God’ in the pledge itself came from Lincoln’s Gettysburg address a significant speech in American history.(Library of... | |
The majority is not allowed to oppress the minority, they would not be allowed to go back to slavery if they wished, in exactly the same way congress should not be able to establish religion even if the majority wants it to as it is against the US constitution. | |
Shows that the government values atheists as much as religious people and that one does not have to be religious to contribute to the state. The proposition does not accept that people will regard atheists with animosity as a result of this legislation but will come to recognise them, to a greater degree, as people wi... | |
This argument only works under the assumption that we live in a society where divorce does not exist. If a person enters into a marriage without full awareness of what they have committed to and later need to get out of that marriage, they are free to. Being able to leave a marriage, though, does not make marriage a m... | |
Unreasonable commitment to expect of people The average age, in the UK, to get married is approximately 30 years old. (Office for National Statistics 1999) Life expectancy in the UK is approximately 80 years. (Office for National Statistics 1999) This means the average marriage expects people to commit to maintain a c... | |
The purpose of marriage is not an eternal, unrelenting union, whether it is wanted or not. The purpose of marriage is to foster a more stable relationship than would be possible without marital vows. Therefore, the fact that divorce is becoming more common and easier to obtain does not undermine the institution of marr... | |
Undermines same-sex couples and single parent families as legitimate ways of raising children As explained in the first proposition point, one of the primary functions of marriage is seen to be to raise children. Marriage is therefore seen as the best way to raise children. This undermines same-sex couples and single ... | |
Does not provide any more of a stable environment for child rearing than a regular monogamous relationship The main objective of marriage is often said to be bringing up children in a stable environment. However in 2010 in the UK there were 119589 divorces; 11.1 per 1000 married population. Furthermore in the same yea... | |
Once a couple get married, they have made an official and legal commitment, which makes it more difficult for them to split up. This means that, irrespective of divorce statistics, adding marriage to a relationship will only serve to make it more stable and give the children of that relationship more security. Therefor... | |
The idea that the existence of marriage undermines other methods of raising children is ridiculous. This is equivalent to saying that making it legal for same-sex couples to adopt undermines raising children as a heterosexual couple or as a single parent. Some people choosing to raise children in a certain way does no... | |
Firstly, the opposition does not accept that the proposition have proven that marriage has no function outside of religion. However, even if they had proven this, they still have not proven that marriage has no religious function and, therefore, have lost the debate anyway. The proposition asserts that because numbers... | |
Frequency and accessibility of divorce undermines the entire purpose of marriage With pre-nuptials, which essentially amount to pre-planning for divorce, heavily on the rise, and divorces becoming ever easier to obtain, it is clear that our society no longer respects marriage as a permanent institution. Serial monogam... | |
Marriage should be for all by Marriage is a religious institution in a society of declining religion The proposition believes that they have proven that marriage no longer has a social or practical function. This leaves its only function as one of religious significance. However, with the percentage of people in the U... | |
If marriage’s main function is to protect against bereavement and divorce then it is essentially protecting against harms that it itself brings. Without marriage, bereavement and divorce would cease to be as serious harms as they currently are. | |
The fact that 40% of marriages end in divorce and that this is on the rise (National Office for Statistics 1999) shows that marriage clearly does not offer the stability that the opposition claims it does. In fact, it seems that marriage offers no more stability than a stable relationship, thus making it redundant in t... | |
Remarriage rate shows that even people who go through failed marriages retain faith in the institution of marriage 50% of all divorcees in the UK go on to remarry. (National Office for Statistics 1999) This shows that, although their own marriage failed, they retain faith in the institution of marriage. The fact that,... | |
Marriage promotes a better way to raise children Marriage promotes raising children as part of a monogamous couple. Without marriage, the frequency of single parent families would rise. Statistically, children who come from single parent families are more likely to live under the poverty line, more likely to be convic... | |
Marriage is an important institution to religious people Nearly 50% of people in the UK identify as being part of some religion. (British Social Attitudes Survey 2007) Marriage is an integral part of most major religions, particularly Christianity, where it is one of the sacraments(Lehmkuhl, 1910) which are necessary ... | |
Marriage represents a legal bond which protects both parties in a relationship Marriage has relevance to modern society in not only an emotional, religious and practical sense but also in a legal sense. According to Sir Mark Potter in English Law marriage is regarded as an "age-old institution" that is "by longstandin... | |
These statistics do not conclusively prove that married life is a better way to raise a child in every case. It is harmful to promote a message that a marriage is always a better way to raise a child than a single parent family. For instance, in the case of an abusive relationship or an individual who is clearly a comp... | |
Removes the transient and casual aspects of a monogamous relationship, thus giving a child a far more stable environment. Marriage represents a commitment and a bond that is, although not unbreakable, difficult to break. This may not be appropriate for couples who wish to have a more casual relationship, however, it o... | |
In the last 20 years, the number of people in the UK who identify as religious has declined by 20%. This shows that religion as a whole is becoming less important and, with it, marriage is becoming less important. (British Social Attitudes Survey 2007) | |
The fact that 50% of all divorcees (National Office for Statistics 1999) go on to remarry does not, as the opposition claims, show that marriage is a meaningful and relevant institution but quite the opposite. What this means is that a huge number of people vow to spend the rest of their life with another person, forsa... | |
Property rights are not fair: it is up to individuals to protect themselves in the sphere of relationships. Married couples have entered into a state-endorsed relationship which provides advantages (both financially in terms of taxes and inheritance, and through recognition and validation). It is reasonable for the sta... | |
The courts have a duty to develop services that will meet the needs of society Fairness requires that cohabiting couples share their property on separation: when couples have lived together for a long period (such as five years or more) they will have gained benefits at each other’s expense but also suffered disadvant... | |
Marriage is no longer the only type of serious long-term relationship and the law should reflect this: the absence of property rights on separation for cohabiting couples sends a message to society that cohabitation is a less meaningful relationship than marriage. Marriage has strong religious connotations and was hist... | |
The status quo discourages interdependence The status quo discourages interdependence: the absence of property rights under the status quo encourages unmarried couples to act as individuals, protecting their own financial interests, rather than supporting each other. In UK law, “their relationship with one another is ... | |
The absence of property rights does not prevent interdependence: the law does not prevent individuals supporting each other or taking risks. However, it requires that couples discuss such plans properly with each other and decide how they wish to structure their own relationships. Expecting all couples, regardless of t... | |
Property rights for cohabiting couples will undermine the institution of marriage Property rights for unmarried couples undermine marriage as an institution, harming society. The societal shift away from marriage is harmful. Marriages tend to be more stable than cohabitation because of the greater level of commitment ... | |
Care can be provided without property rights: as with interdependence, the status quo does not prevent individuals reducing their income to care for others. It merely requires that couples discuss their plans and make provisions to deal with the need to care for children or elderly relatives. i | |
It is unreasonable for the law to expect unmarried couples to plan for when they separate: people within relationships tend to be optimistic about the prospects of their relationships. They do not expect to split up, and most choose cohabitation to see if the relationship is going to work out at all. Making agreements ... | |
The creation of such a law would strengthen trends toward paternalist law making When couples choose not to get married, perhaps because one party is not willing to do so, this does not indicate the same commitment to each other. Where there are considerable disparities in income or wealth couples may have no desire t... | |
The current situation discourages altruistic in a relationship The status quo discourages care for children and the elderly: a further consequence of the perceived need for independence is that individuals are less able to reduce their working hours in order to care for young children or elderly relatives, in case the... | |
Legal supervision will discourage independent planning The law should encourage people to plan adequately: individual people are different and one size does not fit all. If the state plans how your property should be owned, this fails to provide for each individual’s specific lifestyle and circumstances. An increasing... | |
Creating legal provisions for property sharing after the end of a cohabitating relationship in no way limits the autonomy of individuals. If anything, the status quo does that. It forces couples to either get married (which they may not want to do) or to sign a cohabitation agreement before the beginning of a relations... | |
Intolerant schools are a problem because they don’t allow freedom of religious expression. In a free society, pupils should appreciate the different faiths of their fellow pupils and respect them. Without that respect, they may just end up going to separate schools which is even more divisive [1] . As for safety, it a... | |
It causes problems in schools Like in society as a whole, religious symbols are divisive. It marks some out as different from the others, which could cause bullying. They may also be impractical for PE, technology or science lessons where they get in the way. Face veils also mean that people’s lips cannot be seen whe... | |
No-one is in a vacuum – everyone has social pressures affecting what they wear. Banning veils itself is divisive and will create strong reactions in highly religious communities [1] . Framing laws that only ban the veil could be seen as an attack on Islam, and lead Muslim communities to think they are being unfairly t... | |
The veil is a symbol of oppression on women Face coverings in particular divide men and women. Face veil is seen by some as a symbol of the oppression of women, because in some countries it is mandatory, as was the case in Afghanistan under the Taliban. When worn in Europe, with equality and democracy, it can be seen... | |
It’s not seen as oppressive by those who wear it – instead they see at as a way of preserving their modesty and privacy. Everyone has their own tolerance as to how much clothing makes them comfortable. It’s a personal decision that should be left to the individual. | |
It causes division within society Religious symbols, such as the veil divide society. When some Muslim women wear the veil, it creates pressure on others to do so as well. Pressure comes from wanting to fit in, and pressure from other people in the community seeing those who don’t wear the veil as being somehow less r... | |
A ban would be easy to enforce As a face covering is very obvious, it would be a school to check to see if someone is wearing one. France [1] and Turkey [2] already have attempted such bans on headscarves, which do not cover the face. This could be enforced by teachers, not police. [1] BBC News, ‘French scarf ban co... | |
Each religious symbol should be taken on its own merits. Unlike many other religious manifestations, the veil covers the face, which has its own problems in Western societies because it makes it harder to understand someone wearing it. This is not about the religious symbol of the burqa but about the communication prob... | |
A ban on face coverings wouldn’t be a target to a particular faith as it would also ban veils that might be desired by people of other faiths as well. Moreover only a small minority of Muslim women in Europe wear the veil; in France with 5million Muslims it is thought that only 350 wear the face veil. [1] [1] O’Neill,... | |
It’s a personal matter – it doesn’t concern others Wearing religious and cultural symbols are a matter of personal choice. Getting the government involved in such a personal matter is a breach of privacy. The Belgian ban has been unpopular amongst some people because those who want to wear it are being limited to stay... | |
It’s their culture and religion Religion is intimately linked to culture and people’s identity. To many people who believe that religion, it is very important to them. In a society with respect for human rights, people are able to not just have their religious beliefs, but put them in to practice. | |
If you ban it, you have to ban everything else If one form of religious symbolism is banned, it would be difficult to justify not banning others. If the government considers face coverings which would be seen as an attack on Muslims (while only a small minority of Muslim women wear them, they are not popular in other ... | |
A ban on the veil is just a way of targeting Muslims This measure would just be seen as a way of targeting Muslims. Religious symbols would be used as a way of singling out Muslims as a cause of division when any such problem is bigger than any one community. Muslims would be right to ask why the veil is banned while ... | |
Not all Muslims believe that a full veil is a necessary part of their religion or culture. On the other side must be considered a culture that believes in being able to see the people who you are dealing with. Communication is an important part of culture, and visual contact is an important part of communication. | |
The veil is a visible symbol intended to be seen by others so it is clearly not just personal. It could be used to conceal identity, for example in the UK a group of robbers disguised themselves in burqas to steal over a million pounds of watches in Selfridges [1] . [1] Davenport, Justin, ‘Selfridges 'burka gang' dete... | |
There can be no description of human reality, in general or in particular, outside the reality of Christ. We must be on guard, therefore, against constructing any other ground for our identities than the redeemed humanity given to use in him. Those who understand themselves as homosexuals, no more and no less than thos... | |
Sexuality is an intrinsic part of personality Sexuality is an indivisible part of personhood; people need to be able to express their sexuality openly in order to fully actualise themselves. It is wrong therefore to use sexuality as an individual metric by which they are eligible to become priests or not – they should... | |
Priests act as representatives of God towards members of their congregation, not vice versa. The argument against women priests is that, while women are children of God and part of the church, they cannot represent Jesus in performing the communion service simply because he was male. The same applies to homosexuals; th... | |
Homosexuality exists in nature and is therefore part of God’s plan Homosexual behaviour occurs naturally – both in humans and in the animal world, it has been observed in over 1500 animal species of all different types from mammals to crabs to worms. [1] It must be a misunderstanding of God’s plan to say that homosexu... | |
Infanticide is a part of nature, as is cannibalism. What separates humanity from the rest of the natural world is our ability to appreciate morality beyond ‘what is natural’. One of the moral rules that God has imparted to us is that the only moral sexual behaviour is between man and wife. Other moral systems obviousl... | |
Religion is not a political party, changing and catering to the views of the current electorate. The Church acts as the curator of God’s Word and maintains its principles no matter how unfashionable they may be. This is especially important in an increasingly secular age when Christianity will only survive by virtue of... | |
Priests have to represent their congregations Priests have a responsibility to represent the members of their congregations. A large number of Christians are gay, and they can receive better spiritual direction from gay ministers than from heterosexuals who do not understand their lifestyles or relationships as well. | |
The Church has adapted before, it can adapt now The Church has adapted over the centuries on a number of social and natural issues as it seeks to re-interpret and re-explain God’s message of love in the terms of modern society. For example Churches have adapted to the problems that science has thrown up, even the Cath... | |
Catholic doctrine is not the doctrine of all Christian churches. It is right to say that ordination is a privilege of service granted to men deemed mature enough to be faithful to that service – which is why that decision should be taken on each person as a rounded basis and not as an absolute litmus checklist of issue... | |
The part of the Book of Leviticus which sentences homosexuals to death also: permits polygamy, bans tattoos, prohibits eating meat that isn’t well-cooked, prohibits eating rabbits, pigs or some forms of seafood, and prohibits the wearing of clothes made of blended textiles (such as polyester). Most Christians accept th... | |
The Church condemns all sex outside of marriage, hetero or homosexual in nature There can be no doubt that the Bible and Jesus strongly condemn sex outside of Christian marriage (or ‘fornication’). Indeed for much of Christian history sex even within marriage has been seen as a necessary evil that should only be for c... | |
Ordination is not a right. Ordination is a privilege of service granted to men deemed mature enough in all aspects of their lives to be able to be faithful to that service It is Catholic doctrine that Homosexuals are incapable of perceiving human nature as God as created it, consisting of male and female persons mean... | |
Homosexuality is a sin in the Bible Homosexuality is "a grievous sin" in the Bible (Gen 18:20), a capital crime (Lev 20:13), and punishable by exclusion from the Kingdom of Heaven (1 Cor 6:9-10). Christians - especially priests - must accept the Bible as the ultimate authority. Christian ministry is therefore incompat... | |
Condemning homosexuality as sex outside marriage is unfair, since it is the Christian church which does not offer the right of marriage to gays and lesbians. If it were to do so, they could enjoy sex within loving relationships, sanctified by the Church, just as heterosexuals do. Jesus’ main teaching was clear - "love ... | |
The appreciation for complex life by all reasoning should be universal among intelligent species. It seems intelligent life is a rarity in the Universe, and thus it would be unlikely for any civilization, no matter how advanced beyond our own, not to appreciate the advent of complex life on Earth and the value of human... | |
There is no way to prevent attempts at contact so they should be official. There is no way for us to attempt to prevent everyone in the planet from trying to contact aliens so the attempts might as well be done officially. There are more than 6 billion people on Earth, we cannot control their actions or keep an eye on... | |
Certainly there are many concerns on Earth that must be addressed if mankind hopes to survive. Pollution and climate change are real threats that deserve a great deal of attention from all governments around the world, since everyone is affected. This attention, however, does not need to exclude from the agenda the eff... | |
The effort to contact extraterrestrial life causes humans around the world to think of themselves as one community, with an identity and purpose that transcends borders: Space exploration fosters a general sense of internationalism. For example, in no endeavor have scientists from around the world more readily worked ... | |
Space exploration produces many valuable technological innovations that benefit all of human society: Space exploration and research have resulted in many major advances in science and technology. Everything from Velcro to more efficient and powerful computers has come out of the space program1. The technological adva... | |
The benefits accrued from spin-off technology resulting from space exploration are generally overstated. NASA, for example, had claimed that protein crystals could be grown in zero gravity that could fight cancer, as well as numerous other claims of benefits. Most of these benefits have never materialized. With all the... | |
The search for extraterrestrial life does not solve the problem of the human propensity toward group distinctions. Even if such projects succeeded in fostering a sense of universal humanity, it only does so at the cost of creating a new in group-out group dynamic, namely humans defining themselves against the out group... | |
Humanity in many ways defines itself through exploration, and the search for alien life is part of mankind's exploration of the Universe: Human history is one of exploration. Since the earliest days of Homo sapiens, people have striven to look beyond the horizon, to see what is out there. It was this impetus that led ... | |
The knowledge and technology to be gained from interaction with extraterrestrials is potentially limitless: Humanity has built, in the relatively few millennia since formal writing was invented, compiled a truly gigantic quantity of information and knowledge, to which it is constantly adding, at increasingly rapid rat... | |
There is no need for us to be searching for alien life to be exploring the universe. The dream of contacting aliens seems to be an example of humanity's dreams gone awry. Earth's beamed messages and questing probes have for their efforts received no return signal. Surely if intelligent life were near enough to have rec... | |
It seems unlikely that humans would not be able to survive a great change of circumstance. The human mind is quite resilient, and while the change in how people viewed themselves and the Universe would likely change substantially, it might well be for the better. In fact, discovery of extraterrestrials might help free ... | |
Contact with an extraterrestrial civilization more advanced than our own could lead to mass existential crises, putting the existence of human civilization at risk: Almost every human belief system, religious or secular, is based on an anthropocentric outlook. Humanity is the collective center of its Universe; the cog... | |
The focus of states and individuals should be on fixing the problems of this planet, not with exploring other ones: The Earth is faced with many problems that people should be focusing their efforts on addressing, not on the stars and what may or may not be out there. Global warming, the destruction of ecosystems, ris... | |
Attempts to contact extraterrestrial life are a waste of time and money: Billions of dollars have been spent by a number of countries, principally the United States, on great projects seeking to make contact and signal extraterrestrials. None of these has received so much as a peep in reply. The reason for this is lik... | |
Extraterrestrials might prove unintelligible, or even hostile toward humanity: Were extraterrestrials to actually be contacted, an unlikely event in itself, the ability to share in any form of meaningful communication might well prove more difficult than might first seem. The extraterrestrials will have evolved on a d... | |
The potential for sharing of knowledge, were extraterrestrials to actually be contacted, might well be more limited and difficult than might first seem. The extraterrestrials will have evolved on a different world, perhaps along lines so alien to that of Earth's life that it would be utterly impossible to understand wh... | |
Just because efforts to contact extraterrestrials to date have proven unsuccessful does not mean they are not out there. In fact, as communications technology develops over time, humans' ability to project messages and to receive them will increase manifold. Extraterrestrial transmissions could well be beaming toward E... | |
While ISPs are private firms, they perform a public service. They have a special duty in society as providers of information not to bias that information through private censorship policies. When they embark on any form of site-blocking, ISPs cease to be doing their job. Governments should maintain that ISPs act as neu... | |
ISPs are private service providers and should thus be able to have some filters on the most extreme spectrums of extremism ISPs are ultimately private providers of a service. Because of this they should retain the right to restrict that service to certain groups. So long as ISPs make public their policy for what const... | |
While it is true that extremists seek to undermine and bend the systems of discourse to be as favorable as possible, they are a tiny fringe minority of opinion, and the number of sites challenging their skewed narrative is far more numerous. Even young people are able to surf the web with great skill, and can easily se... | |
ISPs are better placed than governments to make decisions on when and who to block As the access providers for the internet ISPs are best placed to implement policies for blocking extremist sites and so are the natural option for deciding when and which sites to block. Furthermore, because the state is often slow due ... | |
The freedom of speech can be curtailed when it represents a serious threat to society Freedom of speech certainly may be curtailed when real harms can be shown to arise from it. Extremist sites serve as centers of dangerous dissent, whose members threaten all of society. They promote a message that is fundamentally ba... | |
Denying extremists their right to speak threatens everyone’s freedom of speech. It is essential in a free society that people should be able to freely express their views without fear of reprisal, however extreme or unsavory their views are. If you value free speech you must be willing to defend that right for everyone... | |
Putting the power to censor the internet, no matter how stringent or specific the guidelines, into the hands of a private organization is misguided. It is the state not individual ISPs who are needed to assess how dangerous a site is, whether it is actually promoting extremism, and ultimately make a decision as to whet... | |
Extremist groups will always find ways to organize direct actions, be it via in-person meetings, furtive use of social networking tools, or even by using untraceable black sites online that ISPs cannot block because they cannot see them. The result of blocking these views from the public internet only serves to push th... | |
It makes it more difficult for extremists to organize and spread their message when blocked The ISPs are the gatekeepers of information. When the internet places no moral judgments on content and the ISPs let all information through without commentary, it lends an air of permissiveness to the beliefs put forward, that... | |
Blocking these sites makes it more difficult for extremist groups to coordinate extremist action in the real world The greatest fear people have about extremist groups is not their rhetoric, but the actions the rhetoric precipitates. Extremists have proven adept at setting up basic websites through which to build comm... | |
The ISPs would not be defining the parameters of what constitutes extremism; they would simply be interpreting the parameters that are given to them by government. They do not need to gauge the extent of the harm from a site simply determine whether it falls within the kind of site they are to be blocking. There would ... | |
Freedom of speech is important, but must be curtailed when people are threatened. Extremists are a very real threat because their messages and actions galvanize people to take violent, disruptive actions against the state and its citizens. ISPs have a right, and even a responsibility to block extremist websites if it i... | |
ISPs should be required to maintain Net Neutrality The internet is such a great thing because it is a free market of ideas in which all beliefs can be submitted for the scrutiny of the global online community. Debate online and rational argument serves as a major check on the extreme views of the political fringe. By ... | |
Censorship provides a propaganda victory to its targets By denying people the ability to access sites set up by extremists, ISPs serve to increase extremists’ mystique and thus the demand to know more about the movement and its beliefs. When the public appears to oppose something so vociferously that it is willing to ... | |
Blocking extremists will make anti-terrorism surveillance more difficult as the organizations go underground A major risk with any extremist organization is that its members, when put under significant legal pressure, will go underground, or find other means of communicating, or use any ISPs that not blocking extremis... | |
ISPs are not well placed to make judgments on what constitutes extremism ISPs are businesses, not scholars or governments. They do not have the expertise to effectively define the parameters of what constitutes extremism or when a certain site is such, and cannot gauge the extent of damage the site is having. If gover... |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.