DB_Hunter

This is funny... it's team CX debate - I won a scholarship out of this, and it's a lot of fun.

The point isn't to be right - it's to APPEAR to be right, and you do that by being a better speaker and having better "evidence" than your opponents. This is an interesting way of winning a debate - use a resolution so unreal that your opponent won't have evidence to fight against it.

Basically, you've got two teams of two each, and they wheel in their evidence (paragraphs of text, filed neatly away in huge boxes of labeled folders) into the room. The affirmative states their case (religion is a mental illness), and provides definitions and quotes to affirm their position. Their only plan is "Give more money to science to stop religion, and that stops that one mental illness" - that's all they need to do, and then tell WHY religion is a mental illness and why that's bad, as well as how funding science will help. It doesn't matter if you actually believe in the affirmative or not - you just want to win. Hell, one year I fought against an affirmative team that was trying to stop "female genital mutilation" at the state level. I quite definitely go not support that, but I spoke as if I did.

The negative then gets to try and usurp your definitions with "better" ones (more accurate/pertinent and younger the quote, the better). They have their own boxes of negative evidence - quotes that specifically denounce a particular affirmative position or quote.

The beauty of it is this: if you have a wild affirmative, the negative may not have ANY evidence to use against you. This is facts-based Cross Examination debate, not morals-based Lincoln-Douglas debate. Morality doesn't play much of a part, and you HAVE to back up each point with a quote supporting you, or the other side will stomp you down fast. Then agsin, this trick only works once or twice - debates talk in between debates, and pissed-off loser will very quickly tell everyone they can that you've got a wild-ass affirmative and to watch out.

Something to watch out for are general attacks - "general science funding doesn't help" is one off the top of my head they can use. Specifics always trump generals, so make sure you've got really good quotes.

Ah, the memories this brings back... I once made a girl cry during the cross-examination - I got points deducted for that (badgering my ass!), but my team still won.

DB

Corwin

Of course, this also brings up the question of exactly how much do we actually CHOOSE our religious beliefs?

I don't especially choose to be an atheist, I just go where the evidence leads me. I know people that didn't choose to belong to whatever little christian cult they belong to, it's what they were raised to and conditioned to need.

Just how much 'choice' is there here, anyway?

Corey Hammer

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Bold, flat-out, unsupported assertion. You have no evidence. Not only is religion not a mental disease, for many individuals religion improves mental health. It may not be for you (or me), but the evidence is clear.

That's a really good question. I may use that in a few years for research if no one beats me to it or hasn't already. Anyone know of any research, either sociological or psychological, that examines this? I haven't read anything on it that I can recall.